7 ms·
Pied Piper
- minimaxir 12y agoContext: this is the official in-universe website for the central startup in HBO's "Silicon Valley."
- josephjrobison 12y agoIt was funnier until I realized that it was created by HBO
- iconjack 12y agoThis site had me going until I recognized that guy from Maron.
- batmansbelt 12y agoThat algorithm sounds like total B.S. As if someone could stumble onto a lossless compression algorithm with file sizes 50% of an mp3. Even a comparable size would be a huge compression breakthrough. And there are theoretical limits to what you can do with lossless compression and I suspect that the algorithm in the show breaks those.
- ZenPro 12y agohttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suspension_of_disbelief http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suspension_of_disbelief
- minimaxir 12y agoIf you think the feasibility of the algorithm is the most unrealistic thing here, I'd say Mike Judge is doing his job well. :P
- anon4 12y agoWell, everything else can be waived as marketing-speak. From a cursory glance it looked like the landing page for a small team that came up with some cool compression technology and then got some marketing wiz-kid to throw up a webpage. Everything except the technological claims I could just disregard.
- checker 12y agoI was confused for a second and thought this was the most ego-centric startup I've ever come across. What team stares at you from 80% of the landing page instead of revealing the product?
- carlosdp 12y agoThat's pretty much the only thing in the show that doesn't "make sense" though. They clearly made a real effort to use real world terminology and archetypes so that developers wouldn't be too distracted by inaccuracies and concentrate on the comedy. Even the way they discovered the algorithm was pretty on-point technical wise. The premise that people are interested in the underlying technology of a product rather than the product itself is also a common theme in the valley. I personally am impressed with the show thus far.
- batmansbelt 12y agoI enjoy the show as well, but no one is ever going accidentally invent a quantum leap in compression technology like that. He might as well have accidentally cured cancer for as much sense it makes.
- Dirlewanger 12y agoMaybe that's why it's a TV show.
- devindotcom 12y agoKilled it for me too, just like the lightsabers in Star Wars.
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- omarhegazy 12y agoYes, similar to why I flog my children for liking Toy Story : toys cannot move or talk, fools! At one point these complaints stop being "this is too much to suspend my disbelief" and become "yes an opportunity to thinly veil my desire to seem smarter than everyone by pointing out every single insignificant mistake!".
- batmansbelt 12y agoI suspend disbelief, and I enjoy the show. I am just critical of how they chose this magic algorithm as the McGuffin. I guess it's easier to write as a justification for a billion-dollar profit possibility than trying to foresee the next social media revolution. That's fine. It comes down to what is writable, but the trade off here irks my technical sensibility.
- AnthonyMouse 12y ago> And there are theoretical limits to what you can do with lossless compression and I suspect that the algorithm in the show breaks those. Compression schemes achieve better results the more they're tailored to the data you're compressing. The theoretical limits are not the issue. For example, here's my compression algorithm for popular movies: You take the most popular 255 movies of all time as of a particular date and include an uncompressed copy of all of them within the compression algorithm itself. Then the compression scheme works as follows: If the first byte is not a zero, the decompression code will emit one of the 255 most popular movies, and the 255 possible non-zero values for the first byte identify which one. If the first byte is a zero, what follows is an uncompressed copy of a movie that is not one of the 255 most popular movies, and the decompression code merely strips the first byte. Using that algorithm I can compress each of the 255 most popular movies into a single byte. That's basically the theoretical limit. You could create a compression algorithm that could compress every film ever released into maybe three or four bytes. The problem is naturally that such an algorithm is a) completely useless for all the films that haven't been released before the algorithm is created, and b) completely impractical because the compression algorithm itself is far too large to be distributed or stored efficiently. Because it's a trade off, and achieving the theoretical limit for data size takes the trade off too far in the direction of specializing the algorithm to the data. But that doesn't mean there can't exist algorithms that make a more interesting trade-off than the existing ones do. Suppose you specifically design a compression algorithm for music. It's pre-programmed with the sounds made by common musical instruments and that are common in human singing. If the recording contains a guitar playing a G#, the algorithm identifies it as a guitar playing a G# and calculates the difference in pitch, volume, tempo, etc. between the recording and the idealized note built into the algorithm. That would be a significantly more complicated compression algorithm than most of those currently used, and it probably wouldn't get very good compression ratios for recordings of things other than music, but you would have something that could conceivably compress most music better than existing compression algorithms.
- batmansbelt 12y ago1. I think that's why they generally include the size of the decompressor in compression contests. 2. Great points re domain, but on the show they specifically say that the algorithm is general purpose, and the talk about using it for compressing images, documents, etc. I don't know about you, but I don't have any G#s in my excel spreadsheets. ;-)
- taskstrike 12y agoAmazon's beta had a better show and also a better idea as a startup. They create real world meetings by setting up places for people to congregate to.
- taternuts 12y agoI actually watched the first season of Betas after someone recommended it in a Silicon Valley thread, and thought it was pretty good. Beta's seems to use the silicon valley theme as more of a backdrop for character development whereas Silicon Valley does seem to poke more fun of the SV culture. I like them both.
- mynd 12y agoUser 01 : document.getElementById
- rip747 12y agodoes anyone actually watch this show? I've tried several times to get into it, but I just don't find it funny at all. Sure hearing startup names being thrown around (like Github) and knowing who they are is present day nostalgia, but not enough to make me committed to the show. I compare the likeness of Silicon Valley to "the Big Bang Theory"; those who are into those fields find them more annoying then funny.
- shamino 12y agoI'm into the fields talked about in "the Big Bang Theory" and don't find it funny, but I'm also into the fields depicted in "Silicon Valley" and find it funny. I think the humor is better in this show. One of my friends is a doctor, and couldn't watch "Scrubs" because it was a little too close to home... maybe that's the case here ? Anyways, I'm embracing the poking fun of our culture!
- asaddhamani 12y agoAs someone who watches it, I actually kinda like it. Its pretty funny.
- minimaxir 12y agoThe show has received great ratings, both in critical reviews and in viewership. (although a lead-in from Game of Thrones might contribute to the latter).
- beachstartup 12y ago> but I just don't find it funny at all. that's because you're who they're making fun of. this entire show is satire.
- doktrin 12y agoI'm pretty far from SV, both culturally and geographically, and I find the show so-so at best.
- Udo 12y agoI second your feeling about Big Bang Theory, but I don't think SV is that bad. Personally, I liked the competing show "Betas" a lot better because it had subjectively more soul and better dramaturgical timing, but other than that Silicon Valley is mildly entertaining. Compared to BBT there is not a lot of pretentiously presented flavor text with at best a tenuous connection to real science, so I think Silicon Valley might at least have better expert consultants than most professional-themed drama and comedy shows. That still doesn't mean one can or should expect total factual accuracy from a TV show, it's still just entertainment - it just has to be enough to make you believe for a few minutes.
- sharkweek 12y agoAt first I kind of rolled my eyes when I heard this show was coming out -- I was pretty certain I could fully predict most of the jokes that would be used for a cheap laugh. But I like the characters, and the plot is pretty fun - it's a show that's easy to watch and enjoy for those of us that don't take much too seriously.
- wellactually 12y agoAnd it's making the world a better place.
- hablahaha 12y ago...by constructing elegant hierarchies for maximum code reuse and extensibility!
- sharkweek 12y agothey made something someone wants!!
- w1ntermute 12y agoErlich's "vision quest" was perfectly juxtaposed with Peter Gregory's subplot about Indonesian sesame seed futures.
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- tdaltonc 12y agoI had the exact same experience. I was expecting it to be another 'Big Bang Theory.' But I genuinely enjoy it. It's not the dumb kids making fun of the smart kids. It's the smart kids making fun of themselves.
- the_watcher 12y agoYea, it's (so far) perfectly straddled the line of parody and hitting almost uncomfortably close to home for me. I've really enjoyed it.
- brvs 12y agoWhere's the Github repo?
- andrewtbham 12y agoThe show has mostly made sense technically. The only thing they got wrong is the code is clearly proprietary but Richard tells the assistant that it's up on github in the first episode.
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- aswanson 12y agoWhat editor is on that screen with the code?
- philosophus 12y agoNo idea, probably just a mock-up.
- ChrisArchitect 12y agoI almost wrote it off after the first episode but said I'd give it another chance - pilots are hard. Then some of the technical rants from the 'staff' in ep 2 won me over. There is a striking balance/hover around real and humor/farce in the show I'm starting to really like.
- ladzoppelin 12y agoI like it. The idea to make "the product" something simple like MP3 compression works and all the lead characters are some of my favorites.
- aswanson 12y agoAviato.com is available.
- jemeshsu 12y agoInterested to know the technology behind Nipple Alert. They should create that site.
- abracar 12y agoClever move from HBO to create that page...
- hanley 12y agoI've seen other networks do it for shows in the past. Most notably http://www.bettercallsaul.com/ http://www.bettercallsaul.com/ was created a while ago in reference to Breaking Bad. Edit: and http://www.savewalterwhite.com/ http://www.savewalterwhite.com/
- notjustanymike 12y agoLooks like this is actually code for sending completion pixels in a video ad. http://static.squarespace.com/static/531f2c4ee4b002f5b011bf00/t/5335d873e4b037066057e0e2/1396037777561/section_technology_bg.jpg http://static.squarespace.com/static/531f2c4ee4b002f5b011bf0...
- skc 12y agoLove the show. Pretty sure I saw one guy using the Windows Phone emulator, which made me do a silent fist pump. But hey, it's TV :-)
- elwell 12y agoHow can I watch Silicon Valley on the internet (legally)? I already checked http://www.canistream.it/search/tv/silicon%20valley http://www.canistream.it/search/tv/silicon%20valley but I don't have access HBO GO.
- jedberg 12y agoYou can't. To watch legally you have to have cable TV.
- chrismcb 12y agoSo what year does this take place? 1999?
- dkuntz2 12y agoNow...