The idea of lossless compression in a smaller file size than anything else on the market spoiled the entire show for me. Call me picky, but...
Don't compare it to reality, compare it to The Big Bang Theory.
How Mike Judge and Co. Are Turning "Silicon Valley" Into the Next "Spinal Tap"
31–40 of 67 posts
Re: How Mike Judge and Co. Are Turning "Silicon Valley" Into the Next "Spinal Tap"
#32It's interesting how software startup culture seems to become mainstream, we've got two new shows centered on that topic now. So far I enjoyed watching "Betas" a bit more than the "Silicon Valley" pilot, but I'm looking forward to seeing more of SV.
Re: How Mike Judge and Co. Are Turning "Silicon Valley" Into the Next "Spinal Tap"
#33The idea of lossless compression in a smaller file size than anything else on the market spoiled the entire show for me. Call me picky, but...
On the contrary, I appreciated this detail. It's difficult to come up with a plausible-sounding start up idea that doesn't sound like a joke. The lossless compression idea sounds plausible to the mainstream audience. For the hacker audience, it plays on a different level - it's a cue for us to get.
Re: How Mike Judge and Co. Are Turning "Silicon Valley" Into the Next "Spinal Tap"
#34The idea of lossless compression in a smaller file size than anything else on the market spoiled the entire show for me. Call me picky, but...
Lossless compression of non-random data is very possible, though. Video and audio files are far from random, and I don't believe that lossless compression is "a solved problem" (even by the business standard) for those. (However, it is a bit far-fetched that someone would invent a groundbreaking new algorithm in the space for a silly website.) General lossless compression may not exist, but we're talking about highly patterned (low entropy) subspace of all possible files/bit-strings.
Lossless compression requires assumptions about the data, of course, because making some patterns shorter requires making others come out longer. Random data will, in general, get larger under a lossless compression algorithm.
Re: How Mike Judge and Co. Are Turning "Silicon Valley" Into the Next "Spinal Tap"
#35When you have billionaires in Silicon Valley comparing the 1 percent to Jews during the Holocaust, and all that shit… So I haven't seen it yet, and I do plan to watch the first episode. But quotes like this — from one of the producers — make me not want to bother. Yes, this quote is justified, because SV is full of billionaires like Tom Perkins, and not struggling, creative people just trying to get by. The reason I'…
I'd recommend watching it before reviewing its premise. I didn't take away "SV is full of assholes" after watching the first episode.
Re: How Mike Judge and Co. Are Turning "Silicon Valley" Into the Next "Spinal Tap"
#36The idea of lossless compression in a smaller file size than anything else on the market spoiled the entire show for me. Call me picky, but...
I thought that at first too, but it would actually be a funny plot development if someone later points out that information theory dictates that the claims are impossible. Then the main character would receive more VC funding to pivot into a completely different but even more ridiculous idea.
Re: How Mike Judge and Co. Are Turning "Silicon Valley" Into the Next "Spinal Tap"
#37so far i like the show. also i have the weird feeling that i know at least 3 of the fictional characters in person.
I was chuckling a lot and telling my wife "I feel like I'm watching parts of Hacker News and Techcrunch come to life" It's satire but doesn't seem too exaggerated (unfortunately?). My favorite was the marketing bicycle meeting. It seems like it would be such a silicon valley type thing.
Those bikes do exist, but they're more of a Burning Man thing. I don't think anyone actually has meetings on them.
Re: How Mike Judge and Co. Are Turning "Silicon Valley" Into the Next "Spinal Tap"
#38The idea of lossless compression in a smaller file size than anything else on the market spoiled the entire show for me. Call me picky, but...
To be fair, perhaps it is lossless, but only for a subset of all possible data files. Like compressive sensing, which beats the Nyquist-Shannon limit, but only if conditions about sparsity are met.
In fact, the Nyquist-Shannon theorem itself is a kind of lossless compression. It says you can potentially throw away data without losing information.
Re: How Mike Judge and Co. Are Turning "Silicon Valley" Into the Next "Spinal Tap"
#39Re: How Mike Judge and Co. Are Turning "Silicon Valley" Into the Next "Spinal Tap"
#40Sarah Austin, (from the bravo Silicon Valley reality series) is my CPO. She is very aware that the way "TV" wants to portray Silicon Valley and the way it really is are very different. Founders don't typically drive McLaren's and live in a multi-room suite at the Four Seasons. It is much more typical to do what she does now, crash at AirBnB as she bounces between cities for meetings, and working 10 hours at the offic…
I haven't watched the show yet but I hope they manage to accurately capture this sort of continual shameless self-promotion.