S02.E07: Adult Content

[ElectricBoogaloo]

With the Pied Piper team fielding job offers and Russ distracted by financial news, Richard faces the prospect of either merging with a nemesis or folding. Gavin attempts to turn Nucleus’ failure into a success. Dinesh tries his hand at wooing a woman online. After Gilfoyle suggests a risky move, Richard reaches out to an unconventional client.

 

Promo:

[kieyra]

Am I crazy or were Russ, Gavin and Lawyer-Ginsberg all wearing identical black beaded bracelets on their right wrists?

If I'm not crazy, anyone know the signficance?

Also, my unhealthy nerd crush on Gilfoyle grows exponentially.

[Traveller519]

I'm just going to go ahead and assume that meeting at The Rosewood was a Friday morning, and Russ had been there since the previous night.

[chocolatine]

If Russ is the kind of guy who forces his business managers to make bad investments, I'm surprised he lasted 20+ years in the "three comma club". What a tool! (BTW, I love the small detail of him always playing toolish 90's music on his car stereo. When we first met him it was Limp Bizkit, in this episode it was Crazy Town.) 

 

I can't believe Richard walked into Brain Rape Inc and almost gave them even more details about the compression algorithm. Get it together, dude!

 

I'm pretty sure Pied Piper is going to win the porn contract, but I wonder if it's going to hurt them when they try getting "legit" clients in the future. There's a weird hypocrisy in the tech world where companies are happy to make money off porn as long as they're not publicly associated with it. True story: I once worked for a big online retailer who pretends not to sell porn by suppressing it from bestsellers and not having explicit categories for it. However, they carry an extensive selection, and if you know the title of the piece you're looking for, you can search for it and buy it.

Edited May 25, 2015 by chocolatine

[ElectricBoogaloo]

Various company names at the conference:

My Dirty Vagina

Zoltbase

Let's Try Fisting

Fingered Teen

Porn Hospice

Non Consensual Santa

Poop on My Wife

Blackmailed into Gay

Brutalized Assholes

Ectopoint

 

Am I crazy or were Russ, Gavin and Lawyer-Ginsberg all wearing identical black beaded bracelets on their right wrists?

Gavin's was black, Russ's was green, and the lawyer's was dark brown. They were all wearing them on their right wrists (although Gavin had his on his left wrist in the first scene during his presentation and then on his right wrist during Big Head's presentation). It's a really popular and common bracelet so I don't see any significance. If it turns out that they are all part of some secret club for obnoxious assholes, then I will laugh my ass off.

Edited May 25, 2015 by ElectricBoogaloo

[hincandenza]

Oh good, they finally got around to realizing what I said here before the season started, namely that licensing the tech is highly lucrative, with low upfront costs and quick delivery. And hey, it's only episode 7. That's not a waste of this season, at all!

Well, hopefully the losing streak will end, at looong last: PP should easily win the contract, be completely self-funded, able to mount a properly vigorous legal fight against a floundering Hooli, get the nice offices and paid competent staff- including maybe a friggin' legal department!!!- and finally get past this infancy phase of their company. I don't think there's any stigma with porn; they're leasing a tech, not actually making the content.

Speaking of Hooli, I'm kind of surprised Gavin didn't strangle Bighead on the spot. Gavin's going to completely and totally lose his shit at some point, and it will be hilarious to watch, but it's not like losing to PP ultimately is any real existential threat. Still, nice to see karmic retribution continue to play out.

Although... now that I think on it, wasn't the monkey prosthetic created by his former Hooli.xyz head genius based some kind of neural interface? I assume that was subtle but intentional, that Gavin actually had something game changing exactly like he wanted, and ignored it because of his Ahab-like obsession with beating Pied Piper.

Some good moments and laughs; Gilfoyle is great and I loved his little snipes like "Will they *ever* find those keys?!?" or his willingness to be the necessary asshole Richard still hasn't learned to be. His deadpan is one of the only consistent positives on this show.

I hope this is the end of Hanneman; it's not like they owe him much, as he never actually lent them $5M... so how much can it cost to buy him out? Whatever contract they had with him was obviously written in crayon on used kleenex anyway, although given Richard's bizarre fetish for continuing to go to both the least helpful doctor and most useless lawyer in SV (seriously, isn't there a conflict of interest for Ron LaFlamme to represent them, since he was originally hired by Riviga?) I won't be surprised if the writers string out these hi-LAR-ious legal hijinks right on into season 3.

[ElectricBoogaloo]

While part of me feels bad that Dinesh learned (1) he was chasing Erlich's sloppy seconds and then (2) he lost said sloppy seconds to Erlich, I can't feel bad for DInesh because everything he told that girl was a lie to make himself look like the exact opposite of who he really is.

 

Gilfoyle was the MVP this week. Between simply taking the post it note with the login/password left in plain sight and dropping his beer can on the floor while DInesh was frantically trying to clean up, he was the awesomest one in the house again.

[Should Be Working]

Of course we're all expecting PP to win the porn contract playoff; and by all rights and logic they should. The writers have thus far spent Season 2 repeatedly throwing bad luck their way; it's only appropriate (and satisfying from an invested viewer's standpoint) that PP now embark on a winning streak of sorts (a real revenge of the nerds) for the remaining season episodes. Yet I'd never put it past Judge and his writers to throw a few more depressing curve balls our way when we're already tired of them.

[Judois]

When Richard started to give away even more code to the Brain Rapers,I yelled at the tv "Stop it!"

In other news I actually could see why Erlich gets girls. Nobody can resist Sade. But only the early stuff.

[Should Be Working]

Addendum: That scene at the Incubator where Gilfoyle shows them End Frame's contract with Intersite is hand's down the best one of Season 2. Monica off in an adjacent room, not wanting to be in the same one with the hacking conspirators, but still taking an active part in the conversation..Just their good fortune that the End Game CEO remembers his system logon the same way my grandmother does her AOL account logon.

 

BTW, Gavin is really losing it if he actually believes that Job's invented/promoted the Newton, That was Sculley's baby all the way and Steve hated it from the start, banishing the product as soon as he replaced Amelio.

Edited May 25, 2015 by Should Be Working

[Traveller519]

 Yet I'd never put it past Judge and his writers to throw a few more depressing curve balls our way when we're already tired of them.

 

Yes, while it was nice to see them finally having the upper hand, I just can't believe that they're going to start cruising. As hincandenza says, they just don't seem comfortable letting the guys move beyond this early start-up phase. I don't expect or want smooth sailing, but it was nice to see the guys deal with the issue in a quick manner this week. Hopefully going forward they can address obstacles in a one episode arc, as opposed to 2.

 

The Gavin plotline is starting to run out of steam, though. We don't need to know what's going on at Hooli every week to know that they're still an opposing force. But I do like that there's more than just one bad guy out there.

[scrb]

OK, so the focus so far has been on the startup trying to get on a successful trajectory.  We know there are startups in this category, well before the IPO they have so much funding that IPO making the founders billions is a foregone conclusion.

 

Even if Pied Piper ended up say like where Uber is currently, there would still be a lot of comedy and satire to mine there.  Successful startups have their share of asshole executives, though Richard is not suppose to be one of those.  All you have to do is read about the Uber CEO's shenanigans and some CEOs demanding stock options back from early employees.

 

They could do it by making Russ be more involved in running the company and getting even more egotistic once Pied Piper appears to be headed for success.

[Should Be Working]

Or Russ could drive his cursed Maserati and himself off a towering cliff near Pacifica. Or perhaps slip on that dog turd in his mansion and break his neck. His uber-obnoxious character adds nothing to the storyline and just takes up valuable episode time. No need for a vapid character from the 1990s in this contemporary piece.

Edited May 25, 2015 by Should Be Working

[biakbiak]

I completely disagree, I had tears rolling down my face during Russ' car door as a symbol of success monologue!

[ElectricBoogaloo]

I cracked up (while still being horrified) every time Russ mentioned that having a car with regular doors was useless and so beneath him. Hearing Crazytown on his stereo was just the icing on his ridiculous cake.

[blixie]

 

His deadpan is one of the only consistent positives on this show.

 

Other (I mean ORIGINAL, so now it's a compliment) Jared is for me another consistent positive part of the show(his yelling in his sleep German, killed me). I really appreciate that every one of them truly plays an integral part in the whole that is Pied Piper.

 

Also agree on Russ' car door rant, they don't open like THIS OR LIKE THIS!

[Otherkate]

BTW, Gavin is really losing it if he actually believes that Job's invented/promoted the Newton, That was Sculley's baby all the way and Steve hated it from the start, banishing the product as soon as he replaced Amelio.

 

This really bugged me. You'd think someone like Gavin would be well aware of the fact that the Newton was the pet project of the much-maligned "bozos" who were running Apple into the ground before Steve came back. 

 

I actually quite enjoy Russ. He makes me laugh.

[JTMacc99]

In other news I actually could see why Erlich gets girls. Nobody can resist Sade. But only the early stuff.

[stink-face] and not before her arrangements got too baroque.

 

He was excellent in this episode. Even though I saw it in the preview, the "38% when I'm on it" still made me laugh.

[lucindabelle]

FINALLY.

I'm tired of seeing them LOSE. it's about time!

"Welcome to the left-hand path."

[Bcharmer]

"iWhack" cracked me up. 

[JTMacc99]

Various company names at the conference:

My Dirty Vagina

Zoltbase

Let's Try Fisting

Fingered Teen

Porn Hospice

Non Consensual Santa

Poop on My Wife

Blackmailed into Gay

Brutalized Assholes

Ectopoint

The writers must have been besides themselves with giggles when they put that list together.

 

The other thing I stopped to check out was the chart that showed threats to the industry. It had at least one thing I didn't understand but the other stuff was fun. It had something about money. It had a note that performers' salaries had dropped from $3,000 to $600 per scene, and it said something like 90+% of content watched was free and listed a few sources including DIY.  Heh.

 

And since I work in the Pay TV industry, I chuckled a bit at that last part.  PPV and VOD adult content used to be a pretty good little business.  Somehow it still holds on to a core group of customers, even though all you could ever consume is free. 

[Should Be Working]

So the porn industry's future salvation, amidst the current explosive growth in free porn, lies with a few hokey mechanical dildo devices? Focus on those virtual reality goggles. Partnered with the absolute best in middle-out compression technology.

[hincandenza]

So the porn industry's future salvation, amidst the current explosive growth in free porn, lies with a few hokey mechanical dildo devices? Focus on those virtual reality goggles. Partnered with the absolute best in middle-out compression technology.

 

Well- and I can't believe I'm defending this show- virtual reality (think Oculus Rift) is becoming surprisingly immersive.  A co-worker brought in the latest Oculus dev kit just last week, and it's insane how quickly you are in that world instead of this one.  Actually, if you haven't ever tried the Oculus, find someone who has one, because it's amazing- youtube videos or 3D movies don't do it justice.

 

Granted, that demo I saw was rendering a space station and FTL ship, while rendering humans realistically is still not quite there... but not far off either.  At some point, we'll jump over the "Uncanny Valley", especially in things like skin tone/texture, eyes, and motions, and it'll be very hard to distinguish real from CGI- and thus very easy to slip into the illusion that what you're seeing is real. 

 

Porn being the tech vanguard means it'll eventually integrate both convincing VR sight/sound and those "hokey" mechanical male or female dildos, so Jane or Joe Sixpack can come home after a day of work and slip into an immersive fantasy with their favorite porn actor/actress pleasuring them.  They'll be able to see, hear, and even feel things like it's actually happening; whatever our public judgment, privately a lot of people will happily throw a few dollars to "download" the hottest porn actress or neatest fetish scenario.  Porn actors- and probably eventually regular actors- will license their image and/or motions for use with ever more sophisticated AIs that can convincingly simulate movement, expression, even speech.  Well, until AI algorithms begin to learn how to build us our perfect virtual partner/friend/companion/assistant dynamically, a la "Her". 

 

And I still don't know if the future astonishes me, or just terrifies the shit out of me.

[Should Be Working]

Thanks for the detailed insights into what looks very much to be the future of porn. For those inclined to use the rapidly-improving VR technology and assorted hardware accessories, it would represent the natural evolutionary progression from skin mags, VHS tapes, DVDs, and streaming video, only far more "immersive," as you so aptly put it, than anything other than real human-to-human contact. And we know how problematic achieving that can be for some people (just ask Dinesh).

 

What's also interesting is to consider how our sexual relationships with our real human partners might be affected by this new technology. It's one thing to exit a streaming video and quickly turn off the home computer if the wife comes home unexpectedly. It's another to remove and disconnect from the Oculus headgear and hardware accessories before she comes strolling into the study and demands to know WTF is going on.

 

But advancing technology can prevent those "coitus interruptus" issues as well as delivering the entertainment. Something as simple as a smart phone app alert signal that chimes as soon as her car pulls into the driveway. Or even new online courses instructing couples on how they can actually partake in and enjoy the VR-based porn together, without shame or recrimination. Hell, it might create a new sort of swinger party paradigm. As you observed, both astonishing and terrifying.

[scrb]

Oculus is computer graphics right, not photo or video quality?

 

Anyways they're like $1500.  It's not going to be that widely used.

[biakbiak]

They plan to launch a more consumer friendly priced model next year but it is a crazy experience that you should try to experience. I realize living in SF with friends in game/porn development my experience is sckewed but I know people who aren't in those industries have bought them.

[Rinaldo]

There's a 1954 satirical SF book, The Big Ball of Wax, by Shepherd Mead (the "How To Succeed in Business..." author), that predicted -- in its humorous-scary way -- that porn would be the irresistible breakthrough point in (what we now call) virtual reality. I guess it's not a difficult prediction.

[scrb]

I remember a Wired magazine feature, from a long time ago, on future things.

 

They coined the term "teledildonics" to make it official sounding for some devices for which you can only imagine the function.