S02.E05: Server Space

[ElectricBoogaloo]

Gavin’s interference causes Pied Piper to struggle with securing their expansion, while a nosy neighbor puts the guys at risk. Gilfoyle takes on the task of building servers, and an overstressed Richard reluctantly takes in Jared as a roommate. Big Head’s management skills are questioned, and Nucleus’ debut zeroes in on a big event.

 

Promo:

[chocolatine]

I don't enjoy it when things go so horribly wrong for Pied Piper. Having to run their own datacenter is a huge setback. Huge. There's not just the electricity issue, those machines need to be cooled, and unless they have someone guarding the garage 24/7, anyone could break in and steal or destroy the machines. Even if the garage datacenter keeps running smoothly with no downtime, they'll have no way to scale beyond the machines they have unless they build a bigger datacenter, which costs major $$$. (BTW, I don't think it's realistic that *all* IaaS companies refused PP's business, since Hooli can't possibly be client of all of them. A company of Hooli's market cap and user base would have its own data centers and not even work with cloud service providers; in fact, if Hooli is supposed to be modeled after Google they would have their own cloud offering and be in competition with all those other companies, but whatever.) At least Hooli is also woefully behind on Nucleus, so there's hope for PP yet.

 

So Jared has been living in Erlich's garage unbeknownst to anyone and saying disturbing shit in German in his sleep. "But how can they all be dead? [laughs] I would sneak up on him and slit his throat." Yikes! I wonder if that's PTSD from having been kidnapped by Peter Gregory's car last season or if he's always been like that.

 

I love that Big Head got promoted again. He's dumb like a fox. He's getting filthy rich shooting potato cannons while the guy who fired him is *this* close to a nervous breakdown.

Edited May 11, 2015 by chocolatine

[hincandenza]

So again, better than the first few, but it just makes me regret that we wasted so much time on the nonsense... which is still ongoing, sadly.

Why the false dichotomy of servers or office space? They've got like 500K/month in theory, easily enough to pay 10 employees, get office space- even if they somehow couldn't afford the nice place there are plenty of office parks- and still pay hosting costs. Oh right, because Mike Judge and the writers are stuck in sitcom hell, where you force dumb plot lines and dumber characters- the VC fallthrough, the lawsuit, Jared's inconsistent competence, now the inability to get office space- just so you never have to change. The jokes still work if they're in a proper office instead of at Erlich's house.

It's also entirely implausible they couldn't get cloud servers, that's not how hosting works- as noted sagely by chocolatine, Hooli/Google is too big to likely be a customer, and an Amazon et al wouldn't turn down paying customers over a threatening phone call- they'd laugh at Hooli for even trying. With the GPU benefit, you can also buy your own physical servers and put them in a colo, and avoid all the problems outlined. Danish frying $70K of GPUs was bad sitcom 101. And yeah, for the umpteenth time, they've never explained why PP is trying to beat Hooli at Hooli's own core competence of scale and userbase. It's like the people who invented the mp3 codec trying to outsell the iPod.

The show is still good when it skewers the valley culture and overall tech world, and thus still has laughs. Why they wasted half these episodes reliving season 1, I'll never understand.

[ElectricBoogaloo]

So Jared has been living in Erlich's garage unbeknownst to anyone and saying disturbing shit in German in his sleep. "But how can they all be dead? [laughs] I would sneak up on him and slit his throat." Yikes! I wonder if that's PTSD from having been kidnapped by Peter Gregory's car last season or if he's always been like that.

Thanks for the translation! I was wondering what Jared was yelling in his sleep.

[Should Be Working]

This episode's entire storyline is based on the need for PP to remain in and run their business (and data center) from Erlich's house. Judge was apparently unable to come up with a more plausible scenario for preserving Erlich's continued and constant presence (couldn't they have just moved into the swanky office space and hired him as their "corporate dreamer" and skipped all this nonsense?) 

 

Even Palo Alto can occasionally get hot during the non-Winter months, especially on the inside of an uninsulated garage built back in the 1950s that is full of heat-generating GPU servers . I don't recall seeing any electrical contractors rewiring the garage from 200 amps service to 20,000 amps to adequately power and cool the new GPU server farm. Expect a visit from a city municipal utilities representative.

 

I wonder if Kiki still has his robotic arm.

[kieyra]

They did mention additional cooling in a backhanded way, but yes, as a sysadmin I hated this episode.

 

As a television fan I wasn't thrilled either--I think I only laughed at the Jared stuff. Something was off. Filler episode for some reason, and the writing wasn't as sharp as usual. Very networky. 

 

I guess they really didn't want to give up Erlich's house as a set, but this wasn't the right way to do it. 

[Primetimer]

Which of this week's turd-tossers is the more compelling: Orphan Black's Helena, or Silicon Valley's Kiko?

Read the story

[Jellowslr]

Kiko the monkey made me laugh so hard. Business Insider has the back story on how they came up with the idea:

 

The interesting backstory behind the funniest moment on last night's ‘Silicon Valley’

 

I love monkeys. 

[dcalley]

I love monkeys, too, but not in entertainment. DARPA is an interesting source of inspiration, though!

[ruby24]

I actually laughed a lot in this episode. Love the show.

[Traveller519]

I thought the server breakdown was going to give me my own breakdown, one setback too much. So it was nice to see them get the win with the neighbor and then see Hooli is way behind on nucleus. Though as usual, Erlich pushed himself way too far.

[Should Be Working]

Yep, Hooli is way behind schedule and no one wants to tell Gavin the bad news. Perhaps he'll resort to water boarding to get the truth out of his team. When he does, expect something underhanded like a spy mission to the incubator to secure PP's secret recipe.

[chocolatine]

Perhaps he'll resort to water boarding to get the truth out of his team. 

 

I suspect he won't find out the truth until Nucleus craps out a few minutes into the much-hyped boxing match live stream.

[Hootis]

This has turned into a high tech National Lampoon's Vacation.

I can only watch inept, stupid and awkward for so long, when I just KNOW the redemption won't be until the last episode. I'll just wait for that one.

[Should Be Working]

I agree with your assessment about the Season 2 nosedive, but will keep watching because the show is still better and funnier than anything else out there.

 

Do what I do when a Season 2 episode disappoints: watch an episode of Betas on Amazon to remind yourself just how badly high tech humor can be done.

[ChipBach]

This has turned into a high tech National Lampoon's Vacation.

I can only watch inept, stupid and awkward for so long, when I just KNOW the redemption won't be until the last episode. I'll just wait for that one.

Hootis - I kind of feel it is a high tech-geeky version of entourage, but I agree.

[Hootis]

Huh. It is kind of an inverse Entourage, with Richard as not-Vincent, Gilfoyle as not-Drama...and Erlich as not-Ari.

But instead of parties and celebrity cameos and cars, it's more suffering and neuroses and ferrets.

[justjen]

I feel bad for Erlich just being so... Erlich. I just want to sit quietly with him and brush his hair, maybe see what a straightener can do. This is the first HBO series I've watched and I like it! Don't most good shows have a sophomore year slump?

[ChipBach]

Huh. It is kind of an inverse Entourage, with Richard as not-Vincent, Gilfoyle as not-Drama...and Erlich as not-Ari.

But instead of parties and celebrity cameos and cars, it's more suffering and neuroses and ferrets.

I kinda of had Erlich as the non-Turtle and Jared as the non-Eric, but yeah, I get you.

 

ETA - BTW, after season two, I despised Entourage...

Edited May 14, 2015 by ChipBach

[WicketyWack]

Jared: "Now you can imagine that wedding however you want." I die.

Also gold: Ehrlich. "Neighborly? First of all, that's not a word" and then Richard's split-second reaction. 

 

Also, why does it have to be killer, glass-and-brick-under-a-modeling-agency office or none at all? Can't they find some depressing basement office somewhere for a fraction of the rent, and still get out of Ehrlich's house and have more room for the new staff?

 

I have to admit I found Kiko hilarious and called the masturbation/poop flinging as soon as they attached the robot arm to him.

 

Many years ago I had a dickish / hypocritical "do as I say, not as I do" neighbor like the guy next door, and while I would normally sympathize with his frustrations of having an illegal company operating next door, I have to say it was nice to see him brought to heel. (As was my ex-neighbor, actually.) 

[wendyg]

Even dumber than that: there are no hosting companies in the *REST OF THE WORLD*? Cloud companies in Russia, China, and *LONDON* are all going to turn them down?  They could quite rationally have had a conversation about what they wanted their burn rate to be, how long they wanted the money to last, and how much they wanted to stockpile as protection against Russ's next expensive imposition.