Mike Judge's "Silicon Valley" (HBO Show)

one question. since hooli acquired piperchat, do they now essentially own the compression algorithm?

they don't, cf episode 1

jared was amazing this episode

"well first of all, everyone reads the terms of service"

“we can talk about Sports teams and…their scores. Or pussy.”

oh god this was so good

"well first of all, everyone reads the terms of service"

http://www.piedpiper.com/farewell-piperchat/

"On a different note, I sometimes like to use this forum to muse on various topics in technology. Take, apropos of nothing, terms of service. We all love to read them, of course, delighting in the voices of our favorite authors. (Myself, I’m a fan of the quiet wit of the Spotify TOS.) But they’re more than pleasant bedtime reading; they’re essential to the legal protection of any startup. So take note, fellow entrepreneurs, and add those terms of service. Without them, you may be doomed to hear the endless click of the Agree button like a tortuous telltale heart, echoing against the uninsulated walls of a ranch house’s garage."

incredible episode, this season is shaping up so well

Hearing that Dr Octagon cut on the credits was quite emotional for me.

yeah it was quite the ending

There was some good material about message-board ppl meeting irl in this ep as well!

who is the gilfoyle of ilx

cankles (rip)

either that or cankles' sworn foe jhoshea

good bighead ep

I hope to god we get some bighead lecture time

not as funny as last ep but this show tends to have p long stretches between setups and punchlines

in general, I think this season sacrificed some of the big laughs, but it's totally fine because they've done a great job making me care about the characters and what happens to them.

Then again, the Ehrlich/Jian Yang stuff and the Dinesh CEO interviews from last week are as funny as anything they've ever done

Ehrlich's fake-chinese aside being one-upped by Jian Yang's actual chinese aside was great

ruined by the fact that tim chiou and jimmy o. yang's mandarin are both really, really bad lol

like, the departed level bad

how's erlich's

why does it matter if their mandarin is bad? I would assume language proficiency varies p widely in Chinese Americans. I've certainly known some who can't speak at all, others who are barely proficient, and others who are fluent.

uh, joking aside, it really knocks you out of a narrative when someone's language skills or accent is bad

if you can't discern the difference it probably doesn't bother you, though

tbh i prefer to think everyone in boston sounds like they're in the departed

why does it matter if their mandarin is bad? I would assume language proficiency varies p widely in Chinese Americans. I've certainly known some who can't speak at all, others who are barely proficient, and others who are fluent.

― Οὖτις, Tuesday, May 9, 2017 2:16 PM (forty-five minutes ago) Bookmark

why do you care?

how's erlich's

― mh, Tuesday, May 9, 2017 2:01 PM (one hour ago) Bookmark

borderline ching-chong racist, which i forgave because it sets up the joke at dinner

the departed was awful because i think they hired local chinatown guys who spoke cantonese but then made them speak really tortured mandarin

why do you care?

because I don't understand your criticism? Why assume that either character would speak fluent mandarin?

admitting now I'd forgotten anyone spoke chinese or mandarin in that movie because the baahhhstan accents

*cantonese or mandarin, argh

my personal assumption is that the Jian Yang character speaks at least one language fluently and I thought the implication in the scene was supposed to be he's speaking to the VC guy in a shared native tongue?

because I don't understand your criticism? Why assume that either character would speak fluent mandarin?

― Οὖτις, Tuesday, May 9, 2017 3:08 PM (one minute ago) Bookmark

because jian yang is obviously supposed to be a FOB from china, where putonghua has been the lingua francas since 1954?

according to the wiki, the character is supposed to be from HK... where the original Departed was filmed... hm...

it's never been established what the native language of either Jian Yang or the other guy is - obviously at the meeting they switch to a language (in this case mandarin, apparently) that Ehrlich doesn't know but which they both understand, the joke being on Ehrlich for faking the same dynamic earlier in the episode. But Jian Yang and VC dude's presumed proficiency/fluency in that language is not necessary for the joke to work.

https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/3ac0oz/i_am_jimmy_o_yang_i_play_jianyang_on_hbos_silicon/csb9nuh/

fwiw there's the actor saying Jian Yang is supposed to be a native mandarin speaker

that shit's not in the show!

and my point is that he doesn't need to be a native in order for the joke to work!

pedants

if they're speaking mandarin with a boston accent, i think that's very necessary deep cut joke craft!

haha

fwiw I am virtually monolingual but it's still kind of jarring to me when a movie character is supposed to be mexican and sounds like they're speaking high school spanish because I can tell the difference?

I'm trying to figure out what you're not getting about the "it breaks the fourth wall" argument here

it's never been established what the native language of either Jian Yang or the other guy is - obviously at the meeting they switch to a language (in this case mandarin, apparently) that Ehrlich doesn't know but which they both understand, the joke being on Ehrlich for faking the same dynamic earlier in the episode. But Jian Yang and VC dude's presumed proficiency/fluency in that language is not necessary for the joke to work.

― Οὖτις, Tuesday, May 9, 2017 3:15 PM (four minutes ago) Bookmark

his joke app is literally about chinese recipes for cooking octopus

I give up, enjoy preferencing irrelevant minutiae over joeks guys

this show's whole schtick is about irrelevant minutiae suddenly becoming relevant the next minute though

looking forward to next week's episode where Jian Yang's poor mandarin tanks their new app

it didn't seem off to me, but the point is I'm not vaguely fluent and wouldn't recognize "hey, the actor is playing this guy as a native mandarin speaker but obviously isn't" but to someone who can tell the diff it's a little jarring?

and we all liked the joke? what is your argument here, other than "stop noticing things" xxp

my argument is that it didn't ruin the joke

ie "ruined by the fact that tim chiou and jimmy o. yang's mandarin are both really, really bad lol"

no it was not

did he say it ruined it for you lol