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If you want to understand Silicon Valley, watch Silicon Valley

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Re: If you want to understand Silicon Valley, watch Silicon Valley

#441

Post by tobylane »

coldtea wrote: post #428
pcthrowaway wrote: post #374

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seinfeld had a laugh track also, and still managed to be one of the funniest and most original shows on television, breaking major ground for its time. Don't blame Big Bag Theory's gaping inadequacies on the laugh track; the writers, actors, and producers are largely at fault.

> Seinfeld had a laugh track also, and still managed to be one of the funniest and most original shows on television, breaking major ground for its time. People keep saying that, but what it really that funny and original? I'll take e.g. MASH any day.

I haven't seen Seinfeld yet but I intend to.

"Whoever is first to do something isn't likely to be the best at it, simply because everyone that comes after is building on their predecessors' work. Named after the sitcom Seinfeld, which many people won't watch any more because everything about it has been copied." https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SeinfeldIsUnfunn...

Re: If you want to understand Silicon Valley, watch Silicon Valley

#442

Post by choot »

smt88 wrote: post #420
BurningFrog wrote: post #398

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By this report Google is 56.6% white. My experience is that white male Americans are roughly 25% of the Silicon Valley workforce, but if you bundle in white immigrants and women you might reach 40-50%. As I remember the TV show, the main characters are 80% white, and the Indian guy is the whitest one I've seen. Small sample, I know, and I'm not offended. Just a little bored...

> the Indian guy is the whitest one I've seen What do you mean by that? Can you explain?

> What do you mean by that? Can you explain?

Maybe he means culturally

Re: If you want to understand Silicon Valley, watch Silicon Valley

#443

Post by rusk »

dwd wrote: post #192
rusk wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He’s come a long way from Beavis and Butthead!

B&B would have been a reflection of the kids he knew in high school, the same way SV was about his time as a programmer. Similar story to Peter Jackson who started with Bad Taste.

and for King of the Hill, he says he identifies with that personally. In particular with Hank.

Re: If you want to understand Silicon Valley, watch Silicon Valley

#444

Post by donaltroddyn »

rusk wrote: post #440
donaltroddyn wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I should have provided a source: https://youtu.be/sIQNXH8yHsk?t=31

Wow. They really did! There's a lot of stuff filmed outside the studio though I'm certain they don't have a live audience for. The IT Crowd does use a laughter track a lot of the time.

Yeah, they film those parts before the live recording and then show them on a screen to the audience to get reaction audio, and also so the audience has context for later live scenes. It's a surprisingly involved process.

Re: If you want to understand Silicon Valley, watch Silicon Valley

#445

Post by xiphias2 »

daveFNbuck wrote: post #418
Camillo wrote: post #411

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hang on a second. Why would there be a badge reader to get _out_ of a conference room? Can anybody who's been at Google HQ confirm the setup?

That and the idea that he would wear skates to a meeting where he intends to show a group of comedy writers the seriousness of his work make this anecdote very unbelievable.

Just search for Astro Teller rollerblades :)

Re: If you want to understand Silicon Valley, watch Silicon Valley

#446

Post by johan_larson »

Camillo wrote: post #411
snowwrestler wrote: post #63

Amazing anecdote from a 2016 New Yorker article on the show: > During one visit to Google’s headquarters, in Mountain View, about six writers sat in a conference room with Astro Teller, the head of GoogleX, who wore a midi ring and kept his long hair in a ponytail. “Most of our research meetings are fun, but this one was uncomfortable,” Kemper told me.... > “He claimed he hadn’t seen the show, and then he referred ma…

Hang on a second. Why would there be a badge reader to get _out_ of a conference room? Can anybody who's been at Google HQ confirm the setup?

Sometimes there are conference rooms outside the secured perimeter of a building, in the lobby before you go past the receptionist and have to badge in. I've seen them used for interviews and such. Since Google X has all sorts of top secret stuff, I could see them doing things that way.

Re: If you want to understand Silicon Valley, watch Silicon Valley

#447

Post by Balero »

rhino369 wrote: post #270
toyg wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

BBT laughs AT nerds, reinforcing stereotypes in non-nerds and reassuring the mainstream about its superiority. SV laughs WITH nerds, satirising the excesses of a culture that is presented as filthy rich and dominant beyond belief. It also deals with the actual wet dreams of the culture in a fairly realistic way. Think about the material that a dim bully could get from BBT (tons), versus what he could get from SV (ver…

>BBT laughs AT nerds, reinforcing stereotypes in non-nerds and reassuring the mainstream about its superiority. BBT definitely laughs at nerds. But I don't think reassures the mainstream about its superiority. The characters on BBT are depicted as god-tier geniuses that are successful at doing important work. The nerds are the protagonists. SV on the other really sticks it to developers and VC. I don't get a sense th…

I haven't watched a great deal of BBT, i'm not a fan, just what I've caught watching with other people.

I've never seen an episode where they were depicted in actually doing work, just in talking about their social group and the character interaction. They could have all been sitting in a coffee shop or bar for all of the links to their job it had. Whereas SV does have content about their life outside of work, a lot of the comedy comes from their "jobs".

I also really don't think the BBT people are depicted as genius'. One episode I do remember is when one of them was struggling with a physics problem with electron behaviour. He finally solved the problem that had been plaguing him (a 'super smart' physics researcher, because he started thinking of the electrons as waves, and not as particles. Which any 16(17)-year-old physics student would have realized in about a minute.

Re: If you want to understand Silicon Valley, watch Silicon Valley

#448

Post by Aeolun »

PhasmaFelis wrote: post #400
Aeolun wrote: post #377

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it does works it is entirely possible it will lead to a healthier and smarter society. I see it mainly as an implementation problem, not necessarily objectively bad by itself. A bit like communism :)

> If it does works it is entirely possible it will lead to a healthier and smarter society. Sure, and if Elon Musk invented flying hamburgers we could solve world hunger, which is just about as plausible as successfully using genetic selection to solve a non-genetic problem. The premise is false; anything that proceeds from a false premise is useless.

People always say that, but it basically means they refuse to even think about a problem because of a preconception that it is impossible.

I guess that’s basically why I often feel driven to make comments like the one I started with.

Re: If you want to understand Silicon Valley, watch Silicon Valley

#449

Post by goatlover »

ido wrote: post #436
dylan604 wrote: post #353

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I kind of have this feeling for most of Mike Judge's stuff. I think we've all been in an Office Space situation. Being from the same part of Texas that King Of The Hill is based on, I totally know people that I could swear Judge based the characters off of for the show. At this point, Idiocracy should be moved from the comedy category and into the prophecy/documentary category.

I agree with most of your comment except Idiocracy - while sometimes funny it is a trite classist argument, already made in various form centuries ago ("the poor are inferior and reproduce quickly, ergo each generation will be lesser than the previous"). While in reality e.g. IQ score baselines keep getting adjusted to account for the fact that kids keep getting better and better scores as time goes on[0]. The world…

It's as if public education, improved nutrition and healthcare, better means of travel, better communication, etc. result in making the population smarter. Who would have thought that if everyone got some of the advantages only the wealthy had in the past that things would turn out better?

Re: If you want to understand Silicon Valley, watch Silicon Valley

#450

Post by coldtea »

tobylane wrote: post #441
coldtea wrote: post #428

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Seinfeld had a laugh track also, and still managed to be one of the funniest and most original shows on television, breaking major ground for its time. People keep saying that, but what it really that funny and original? I'll take e.g. MASH any day.

I haven't seen Seinfeld yet but I intend to. "Whoever is first to do something isn't likely to be the best at it, simply because everyone that comes after is building on their predecessors' work. Named after the sitcom Seinfeld, which many people won't watch any more because everything about it has been copied." https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SeinfeldIsUnfunn...

Yeah, though I'm not sure about that (Seinfeld not being appreciated because it was a pioneer show).

I still find funny very manny pioneering shows -- heck, even back to Charlie Chaplin, ‎Buster Keaton, and Laurel and Hardy, and all kinds of 80s and even 70s sitcoms.

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