S03.E06: Bachmanity Insanity

[ElectricBoogaloo]

Quote

Richard's new relationship is threatened by neuroses; Big Head and Erlich's launch party has snags; Dinesh falls for a foreign coworker.

Promo:

[Accidental Martyr]

It's kind of tough watching Big Head blow $20 million.

[hincandenza]

It would be, if he wasn't written to be the stupidest human being on the planet. That party- and the blog- would have eaten up a tidy sum, it should be nowhere near even what was left after taxes and that house.  Also what kind of shitty business manager lets you blow through $20M before he says anything?  What deserving target is Mike Judge "satirizing" here, dumb people who are gullible and easy prey to financial con artists?  Wow, so brave, Judge.  So brave.

The whole reporter thing was absolutely ridiculous too; leaving aside that yet again none of them displayed an ounce of foresight or common sense in considering the NDA... there is no surer way to prove you were the exact person who violated your NDA than to suddenly spend $500K "acquiring" the blog that published the story.  That's like a needle up and walking out of a haystack of its own accord!  Also, while I'm no lawyer nor legal eagle, and while I'm aware reporters can be jailed for not revealing sources when it applies to a criminal proceeding (i.e., the state wants to compel disclosure), I've never heard of that in a civil case when the reporter was a defendant.  A quick look at California's shield laws seems to me to suggest that Hooli has basically no leg to stand on, unless they can provide evidence of falseness in the story, and the need to know the leaker's identity outweigh public interest (which would be significant public interest: a major search engine tampering with results is exactly the kind of action that whistleblower protections are for).  I don't think Hooli could legitimately claim any of the following:

Quote

The Reporter's Privilege is a qualified, not absolute, privilege in all situations. In California, a court will only require a newsgatherer to reveal sources and unpublished information if:
1. The information is relevant and goes to the heart of the plaintiff's claim
2. The plaintiff has exhausted all other alternative means of obtaining the information
3. The plaintiff's need for the information outweighs the public interest in protecting confidentiality, including, for example, the need to protect whistle blowers; and 
4. The plaintiff has made a showing of merit of the case (in libel cases, present evidence of falsity)Mitchell v. Superior Court, 37 Cal.3d 268 (1984).

 

Eh, why do I bother.  This was a piss-poor episode.  A-fucking-gain.  Some minor laughs, but no plot movement besides Bighead's inexplicable brokeness, and a bunch of cringy, implausible stories about complete morons.  Why do I keep watching, expecting things will return to season 1 form?  At least "Game of Thrones" has been exceptional from the get-go this year, so I got that going for me. Gunga la gunga...

Edited May 30, 2016 by hincandenza

[RCharter]

1 hour ago, hincandenza said:

It would be, if he wasn't written to be the stupidest human being on the planet. That party- and the blog- would have eaten up a tidy sum, it should be nowhere near even what was left after taxes and that house.  Also what kind of shitty business manager lets you blow through $20M before he says anything?  What deserving target is Mike Judge "satirizing" here, dumb people who are gullible and easy prey to financial con artists?  Wow, so brave, Judge.  So brave.

The whole reporter thing was absolutely ridiculous too; leaving aside that yet again none of them displayed an ounce of foresight or common sense in considering the NDA... there is no surer way to prove you were the exact person who violated your NDA than to suddenly spend $500K "acquiring" the blog that published the story.  That's like a needle up and walking out of a haystack of its own accord!  Also, while I'm no lawyer nor legal eagle, and while I'm aware reporters can be jailed for not revealing sources when it applies to a criminal proceeding (i.e., the state wants to compel disclosure), I've never heard of that in a civil case when the reporter was a defendant.  A quick look at California's shield laws seems to me to suggest that Hooli has basically no leg to stand on, unless they can provide evidence of falseness in the story, and the need to know the leaker's identity outweigh public interest (which would be significant public interest: a major search engine tampering with results is exactly the kind of action that whistleblower protections are for).  I don't think Hooli could legitimately claim any of the following:

 

Eh, why do I bother.  This was a piss-poor episode.  A-fucking-gain.  Some minor laughs, but no plot movement besides Bighead's inexplicable brokeness, and a bunch of cringy, implausible stories about complete morons.  Why do I keep watching, expecting things will return to season 1 form?  At least "Game of Thrones" has been exceptional from the get-go this year, so I got that going for me. Gunga la gunga...

I thought the fact that reporters privilege never even came up was a misstep.  If for no other reason than its not really all that obscure a legal reference.  Gavin may argue that a blog site isn't really news....but I feel like that ship has already sailed in California and courts are generally pretty lenient.  Especially when it comes to matters of public interest.

Either way -- its hard to feel sorry for BigHead, if maybe he hadn't considered property taxes and found himself broke or something along those lines...okay.  Or even if he was just too nice a guy and was supporting a lot of people....that silly, but in a sweet sort of way. But moving a pool three times?  Come on now.....

He may have just gotten the business manager.  I'm not sure I understand how bighead is functionally insolvent though.  He got 20 million in a buyout...assume the government takes half 10 million.  Lets assume the house is like 5 million.  That should leave 5 million dollars.  Even with the party and the purchase of a 500k blog that doesn't seem like it would have totally drained BigHead.  Even if he moved the pool 3 times.  But maybe they did it just to drive home the notion that while 20 million can seem like a lot, it can go pretty quick if you aren't smart about it, and have a bunch of moochers around you.

However -- I'm easy like Sunday morning, so I enjoyed the episode.  Good for Jared!

Edited May 30, 2016 by RCharter

[ElectricBoogaloo]

My favorite part of this episode was Erlich asking Richard to get him an extra large virgin margarita at the bar and then watching Erlich scoop out some of the margarita into give glasses and then adding his own alcohol.

Richard and Gilfoyle's WTF faces while Dinesh was trying to flirt with Elisabet were great.

Oh, Richard. He finds a smart pretty girl who's interested in him (even after she heard him telling his roommates that he did some "light finger banging" with her) and he has to screw it up by ranting about spaces versus tabs. Seriously, dude.

Gavin is bonkers. All that talk about how rich powerful people used to be able to get rid of annoying people was creepy.

[Should Be Working]

If it is Mike Judge's intent to piss away any and all remnants of the high expectations and critical admiration that he and his team accrued during Season 1, then a few more of these unintesting network sitcom-level episodes should do the trick. 

Yes, we know that Richard is highly stressed out, neurotic, and at times irrational. He throws up at the drop of a hat, gives away proprietary information to competitors whenever possible, and seems more concerned about his job title at PP than ensuring that it succeeds. We've seen hints of his OCD tendencies before, but this episode lays them bare in his unremitting obsession with tabs over spacing. Yes, he knows that a compiler eliminates any differences, but what does that matter when he needs to drive away a very attractive female as quickly as possible? Since it's impossible to empathize with his behavior, one can only assume that we are meant to really dislike and actively root against this perennial loser. Or perhaps it's just good-naturedly offered up just to generate a few chuckles, as was the rapid frittering away of Bighead's entire $20 million, in which case, I ain't laughing.

[KnoxForPres]

I actually kinda liked this one even though the frustration continued. 

The ziploc bag named Winnie that Jared had was great. And they offset the sadness I felt well by him getting laid twice so I don't feel he's an abused pup. 

I am so dumb with tech I have no idea what tabs vs spaces is (outside of the obvious- is that what they meant?) but I shallowly do have things in my life that would be dumb dealbreakers.  Except if I were dating a guy clearly outside of my physical league I'd let it slide. At least one (hopefully amazing) night. 

Bighead is becoming boring and too one note. They need to give him at least one layer. 10-4; the guys a lucky idiot; over and out. Lets develop him a bit outside of just having him lose his money. 

Edited May 30, 2016 by KnoxForPres

[RCharter]

8 hours ago, ElectricBoogaloo said:

My favorite part of this episode was Erlich asking Richard to get him an extra large virgin margarita at the bar and then watching Erlich scoop out some of the margarita into give glasses and then adding his own alcohol.

Richard and Gilfoyle's WTF faces while Dinesh was trying to flirt with Elisabet were great.

Oh, Richard. He finds a smart pretty girl who's interested in him (even after she heard him telling his roommates that he did some "light finger banging" with her) and he has to screw it up by ranting about spaces versus tabs. Seriously, dude.

Gavin is bonkers. All that talk about how rich powerful people used to be able to get rid of annoying people was creepy.

That old guy in the bathtub on wheels was hilarious.

The guy who plays Gavin is a really great actor.  He does always seem to play high strung characters, but that he can make them funny in a comedy or serious in a drama (Big Love) is commendable.

[Accidental Martyr]

http://www.coderag.com/liveblog-reporting-from-bachmanity-insanity/

[woodscommaelle]

10 hours ago, ElectricBoogaloo said:

Richard and Gilfoyle's WTF faces while Dinesh was trying to flirt with Elisabet were great. 

As was Dinesh's reactions/expressions towards Jared when he was talking about Carole. I also love that Russ' 'this guy fucks' made its way back into the storyline.

[AllyB]

2 hours ago, RCharter said:

The guy who plays Gavin is a really great actor.  He does always seem to play high strung characters, but that he can make them funny in a comedy or serious in a drama (Big Love) is commendable.

I felt a bit like I was watching alternative universe Alby Grant when Gavin was talking about killing people.

4 hours ago, KnoxForPres said:

Bighead is becoming boring and too one note. They need to give him at least one layer. 10-4; the guys a lucky idiot; over and out. Lets develop him a bit outside of just having him lose his money. 

The thing with Bighead is, he wasn't originally supposed to be dumb, he just wasn't brilliant. Guillefoyle and Dinesh are brilliant engineers. Richard is a brilliant coder. Jared is fantastic at business. They all excel at something. Bighead was expendable because he didn't excel like they did and didn't bring anything special to Pied Piper. But he was never an idiot, he was perfectly adequate at a career that requires a relatively high level of intelligence to be adequate in. He was honest and guilless rather than stupid when he told Jared that he wasn't responsible for any of the special potential in Pied Piper. He made an intelligent, rational decision to take the great promotion Gavin offered him, when he knew he didn't bring anything special to Pied Piper and wasn't passionate about it.

Then his original bemusement at how well he kept doing at Hooli despite doing literally nothing for the company wasn't because he was a moron but because he was naive about how vindictive Gavin is. And who wouldn't be bemused if your best friend setting up in competition to your boss and leaving you behind, resulted in you getting promotion after promotion, with huge salary increases and no responsibility? It would be downright bewildering and most people would probably be tempted to ride it out and see what else this sudden good fortune would yield, especially if you weren't particularly talented or ambitious. I liked him at Tech Crunch telling Richard that it was ironic that Richard is offered millions for his code but is now all super stressed and broke, whereas Bighead was wealthy and stress free. He just became an idiot in later seasons as the characterisation became less coherent. Bighead of season one wouldn't have signed Erlich's contract, not because he was super intelligent and sharp but because he wasn't too stupid to breathe.

[LCanterbury]

It's good to have an episode that wasn't 100% Pied Piper and its woes (and occasional triumphs) from time to time. I enjoyed seeing again how Richard's pedantic nature and awkwardness impacts his personal as well as professional life. (Made extra amusing by my husband quietly admitting to being a spacer).

I also loved Gilfoyle's "Maybe you're the dog face?" to Dinesh, who nails that whole 'I'm a great guy' thing whilst actually being kind of a dick.

I didn't mind the blogger not realise her reporter's privilege - she admitted she wasn't a journalist and when Erlich bought the blog she was probably happy it's now his problem, since he caused it in the first place.

[RabbitEars]

That was painfully bad.

I'm ready for the reboot featuring only Gilfoyle, Dinesh, and lots and lots of Jared.

[chocolatine]

10 hours ago, KnoxForPres said:

I am so dumb with tech I have no idea what tabs vs spaces is (outside of the obvious- is that what they meant?) but I shallowly do have things in my life that would be dumb dealbreakers.  Except if I were dating a guy clearly outside of my physical league I'd let it slide. At least one (hopefully amazing) night. 

It's about code indentation - you indent the body of a class/function definition, conditional/iteration loop, etc. In some languages the indentation is purely for human readability, and in others it's syntactically significant, i.e. a program won't run without proper indentation. It's one of the least interesting aspects of programming, and I can't believe the show made it into a storyline. And to add insult to injury, Richard is completely wrong. It's a widely accepted standard to use spaces to indent code. However, most programmers these days use modern code editors like Sublime Text (Emacs and Vim are so last decade - another thing the show got wrong) that let you configure the tab as a number of spaces, so lazy people like me can press tab once, but the editor will insert the number of specified spaces. In other words, the tabs/spaces controversy is obsolete. This episode made me question whether anyone involved with the show has written any code in the past ten years.

Quote

Lets assume the house is like 5 million.

Nope, not in Palo Alto. More like 7-8 million.

Edited May 31, 2016 by chocolatine

[Hootis]

On 5/30/2016 at 5:20 AM, ElectricBoogaloo said:

Gavin is bonkers. All that talk about how rich powerful people used to be able to get rid of annoying people was creepy.

The rest of the gang is becoming so tedious (except for Jared, who I would vote in as CEO) that the best laughs I had in the last two episodes were Gavin's antics.  The dog wheelie chair scene was refreshingly funny.

[woodscommaelle]

12 hours ago, LCanterbury said:

It's good to have an episode that wasn't 100% Pied Piper and its woes (and occasional triumphs) from time to time.

This was my favorite episode of the season for the above reason.  Just slice of life type of stuff.

[hoodooznoodooz]

Am I missing something? Is Dinesh supposed to be unattractive physically? Because he's not my type, but I would consider him a 6.5 or 7 on a scale of 1-10. 

Also I am confused about the bar scene. Did they send Richard to order an extra large virgin margarita because Ehrlich is the only one who consumes alcohol? Or did Ehrlich add alcohol to everyone's glass?

[qtpye]

14 minutes ago, hoodooznoodooz said:

Am I missing something? Is Dinesh supposed to be unattractive physically? Because he's not my type, but I would consider him a 6.5 or 7 on a scale of 1-10. 

I think it was the hyping up of the "Pakistani Denzel" that added to the let down.  If I told you I was doing well for myself, that is one thing...if I said I am Bill Gates level wealthy (not even close in real life), you have pretty high expectations of my wealth.  Also, it seemed like the software was presenting his face in the most unflattering way possible...perhaps he is not photogenic?

I did not feel that bad for him. because he would have probably dumped that girl too, if she was a "dogface".  Looks are subjective and he built himself up pretty high.

Quote

The thing with Bighead is, he wasn't originally supposed to be dumb, he just wasn't brilliant. Guillefoyle and Dinesh are brilliant engineers. Richard is a brilliant coder. Jared is fantastic at business. They all excel at something. Bighead was expendable because he didn't excel like they did and didn't bring anything special to Pied Piper. But he was never an idiot, he was perfectly adequate at a career that requires a relatively high level of intelligence to be adequate in. He was honest and guilless rather than stupid when he told Jared that he wasn't responsible for any of the special potential in Pied Piper. He made an intelligent, rational decision to take the great promotion Gavin offered him, when he knew he didn't bring anything special to Pied Piper and wasn't passionate about it.

I agree.  Bighead was like an average person in a company filled with intellectual giants.  He was a pawn in a power play, that actually benefited the pawn and was interesting to see.

Now, he seems to have a low double digit IQ and the savvy of a two year old.

Edited May 31, 2016 by qtpye

[CouchTater]

In last week's episode, when the international coders were introducing themselves and Richard almost fell off his chair, didn't they have 2-way video?  Why was this the female coder's first time seeing Dinesh?

[Rinaldo]

They had 2-way video, just not of high quality (though I wonder why not). Dinesh couldn't see her clearly either, till he upgraded.

[hkit]

3 hours ago, qtpye said:

I agree.  Bighead was like an average person in a company filled with intellectual giants.  He was a pawn in a power play, that actually benefited the pawn and was interesting to see.

Now, he seems to have a low double digit IQ and the savvy of a two year old.

This is my least favorite, yet most predictable, sitcom character development device. Take someone who is a little average, maybe a little goofy, and slowly turn him into someone who is almost too stupid to function. A friend of mine calls it "The Homer Simpson Treatment", but surely it has been happening for longer than that. Bighead has gotten "The Homer Simpson Treatment". It really angers me to see characters dumbed down like this for cheap laughs, and usually (but not always), signals that it is time for me to check out of a show.

[Subrookie]

Other than a brief laugh about Jared succeeding at dating I didn't find anything else funny about this episode. I mentioned last week this show has so much unrealized potential, but they keep going to standard cliché sitcom gags you can see telegraphed well before the scene is over. And, the interaction between Gilfoyle and Dinesh after the woman seemed disappointed with how Dinesh looked seemed over the top mean. I expect those two to rib each other with their dry humor, but this was a case where I felt what Gilfoyle said was intentionally hurtful, not an attempt at dry humor. Took away from the whole scene, IMO.

[hincandenza]

5 hours ago, qtpye said:

I agree.  Bighead was like an average person in a company filled with intellectual giants.  He was a pawn in a power play, that actually benefited the pawn and was interesting to see.

Now, he seems to have a low double digit IQ and the savvy of a two year old.

Totally; as HKIT notes below, this is a common enough trope, and annoying as hell.  Bighead was a "1xer", mean he was average for tech, a little brighter than an average person, but nothing special.  It was funny in S1 when despite this Bighead fell upwards and was only partly aware of why- the same as the rest of them, not realizing right away that these billionaires were basically using people and companies for sport like in "Trading Spaces".  Now, he's acting so dumb and naive that I can't believe either he or Richard would pass an interview for a job doing court-ordered community service, much less get a steady job at the in-show equivalent of Google. 

2 hours ago, hkit said:

This is my least favorite, yet most predictable, sitcom character development device. Take someone who is a little average, maybe a little goofy, and slowly turn him into someone who is almost too stupid to function. A friend of mine calls it "The Homer Simpson Treatment", but surely it has been happening for longer than that. Bighead has gotten "The Homer Simpson Treatment". It really angers me to see characters dumbed down like this for cheap laughs, and usually (but not always), signals that it is time for me to check out of a show.

Agreed, I'm hate-fucking this show at this point.  Arguably, it's basically the whole cast being Homer-fied.  

I had a thought the other day that in S1, it felt like our protagonists were normal people with some humorous mild quirkiness (Richard, Dinesh, Gilfoyle, Erlich, etc) who were in reaction to these major players of Belson and Gregory, and the larger SV "powers that be".  After S1, perhaps due to the lack of Peter Gregory, the truth is the "gang" has no natural antagonists, except the season long Hooli-lawsuit story and other absurd financial challenges. As we've all noted, the real PP would be swimming in cash and Judge absolutely refuses to allow the story to progress organically; it's like 1980's sitcom thinking where you can't ever have the status quo change.  

So rather than progress the story past this same season 1 startup process and explore the comedy inherent in how normal people transform into the Belsons and Gregorys- i.e., satirizing Silicon Valley as a culture and system of rewards that grinds people into perfect SV clones, like Gavin's sycophants- the hack writers just keep repeating the same tired plot lines of Richard being hopelessly broken as a human being, and everyone back at the Brady house yet again.  I literally have no idea what "the platform" is that they are building- some file sharing? social network?  video streaming?- or why they are apparently further behind on this nebulous thing than in season 2 when they whipped it up in a garage with some spare GPUs and a fire extinguisher.

 

13 minutes ago, Subrookie said:

Other than a brief laugh about Jared succeeding at dating I didn't find anything else funny about this episode. I mentioned last week this show has so much unrealized potential, but they keep going to standard cliché sitcom gags you can see telegraphed well before the scene is over. And, the interaction between Gilfoyle and Dinesh after the woman seemed disappointed with how Dinesh looked seemed over the top mean. I expect those two to rib each other with their dry humor, but this was a case where I felt what Gilfoyle said was intentionally hurtful, not an attempt at dry humor. Took away from the whole scene, IMO.

Yeah, Gilfoyle was always mean, but like a "funny" mean.  The making fun of his gold chain earlier was actually a pretty decent bit, in part because it felt more good-natured ribbing than mean-spirited attempts to really kick someone when they were down.  I think the writers must hate these characters as much as we do, I suppose...

[qtpye]

It kind of feels like Dinesh is becoming the butt monkey of the show.  I do not remember him ever getting a win.  Gilfoyle has his cool beautiful girlfriend, Jared is actually a stud, Richard dumps pretty cool girls for stupid reason, and Erlich has a great love for himself.  The only happiness Dinesh seems to get is Pied Piper related wins and those usually do not last.

[Maysie]

Quote

I didn't mind the blogger not realise her reporter's privilege - she admitted she wasn't a journalist and when Erlich bought the blog she was probably happy it's now his problem, since he caused it in the first place.

And I'm wondering if that whole thing is to make a point that bloggers aren't journalists. She surely would have had the privilege, but she isn't savvy enough, or interested/invested in her work enough to care.

I realized I really dislike Richard at this point. It's all about that CEO title for him right now, isn't it?

Now that Bighead is broke, can we be done with him? I agree that they've dumbed him down to moronic levels and it's uninteresting, tiresome and doesn't move the story along. I have little doubt that he blew through the money, and I wonder if there's actual debt that Ehrlich's now on the hook for since they were partners.

And that party: I read something a while ago (might have been in Vanity Fair) about the parties the tech companies have and they can cost millions for a party. I'm sure this one was only six figures (renting Alcatraz and getting people out there would be pricey, to be sure) because it didn't appear that there was any marquee entertainment - some of those companies get A-list performers. So that party was probably a nice farewell party for Bachmanity.

The show is slowly moving towards a point where I start hate-watching, which is disappointing because it used to be smart and funny. Now it's creepy on some levels (particularly with Jared - ffs, give him an actual bedroom) and going for cheap, easy laughs (built on a bunch of stereotypes) that aren't really all that funny at the expense of the plot and characters while bearing little resemblance to real life.

[RabbitEars]

Off the topic of this show going down the tubes...

Did Erlich's house always have that great view? I swear I never saw it until now. 

[Bcharmer]

15 hours ago, hoodooznoodooz said:

Also I am confused about the bar scene. Did they send Richard to order an extra large virgin margarita because Ehrlich is the only one who consumes alcohol? Or did Ehrlich add alcohol to everyone's glass?

I was too busy watching how the volume of margarita in that big glass didn't seem to change, even after Erlich portioned some out to each guy.  It was magic.

[AllyB]

12 hours ago, hincandenza said:

So rather than progress the story past this same season 1 startup process and explore the comedy inherent in how normal people transform into the Belsons and Gregorys- i.e., satirizing Silicon Valley as a culture and system of rewards that grinds people into perfect SV clones, like Gavin's sycophants- 

That would be so great to watch. With Richard's passion and Guillefoyle's cynicism about all the 'fun' aspects of working at Hooli, I'd love to see Pied Piper being fairly successful now and starting to introduce all that nonsense and see how the characters justify it to themselves when they found it so patronising at Hooli. There was a hint of it at the start of this season with the new offices and Chef Amy. But it's all just reverted back to status quo. Even with the contrived financial problems last week all they would have had to do is sell their amazing storage box to a company that didn't want rights over the code and they'd have had the next release of several million from Reviga. In universe their problems were instantly solvable but nobody ever does anything remotely sensible.

[RCharter]

13 hours ago, hincandenza said:

Yeah, Gilfoyle was always mean, but like a "funny" mean.  The making fun of his gold chain earlier was actually a pretty decent bit, in part because it felt more good-natured ribbing than mean-spirited attempts to really kick someone when they were down.  I think the writers must hate these characters as much as we do, I suppose...

I've felt this way for a while now.  I get that Guilfoyle was making fun of the irony and hypocrisy......but this has been at least the second time when I just felt like it was enough.

I'd like to see Dinesh get a win....yes, he was sort of an ass in this situation, but generally he seems like a nice enough guy.

On 5/30/2016 at 5:41 PM, LCanterbury said:

I didn't mind the blogger not realise her reporter's privilege - she admitted she wasn't a journalist and when Erlich bought the blog she was probably happy it's now his problem, since he caused it in the first place.

Generally, I wouldn't expect someone to know legal minutae -- but I feel like almost everyone has heard of "reporter shield" laws, and someone as smart as she presented herself to be should be the sort to at least look it up......call an attorney.....hooli it.  I mean, she has to do research as part of her job, she didn't even ask a few questions?

I guess it was necessary for her to not know in order to move the story forward (maybe someone will offer a massive amount of money for the blog and BigHead will luck into some money, and it does provide a way to explore how rumors spread through these tech sites can affect companies like PP and how those companies might try to control the "media coverage").

[Muffyn]

19 hours ago, Maysie said:

And I'm wondering if that whole thing is to make a point that bloggers aren't journalists. She surely would have had the privilege, but she isn't savvy enough, or interested/invested in her work enough to care.

That was bizarre.  If her blog is important enough to have Richard want to talk to her, tell her all of the wrong things, and then go into meltdown over what he said, it's important.  If it's that important (that is, not just general ramblings) and she interviews people and does research, she would be covered under the shield laws.  What she reported was accurate.  Her source heard it second hand so he did not violate his non-disclosure cause.  The whole story line is a mess.   I know we're supposed to hate attorneys, but this is why they exist.    

[KnoxForPres]

On May 31, 2016 at 0:04 AM, chocolatine said:

It's about code indentation - you indent the body of a class/function definition, conditional/iteration loop, etc. In some languages the indentation is purely for human readability, and in others it's syntactically significant, i.e. a program won't run without proper indentation. It's one of the least interesting aspects of programming, and I can't believe the show made it into a storyline. And to add insult to injury, Richard is completely wrong. It's a widely accepted standard to use spaces to indent code. However, most programmers these days use modern code editors like Sublime Text (Emacs and Vim are so last decade - another thing the show got wrong) that let you configure the tab as a number of spaces, so lazy people like me can press tab once, but the editor will insert the number of specified spaces. In other words, the tabs/spaces controversy is obsolete. This episode made me question whether anyone involved with the show has written any code in the past ten years.

Nope, not in Palo Alto. More like 7-8 million.

Thanks for the explanation!  I enjoyed that insight into this world. 

And yes to the poster who mentioned the  never ending margarita. It was the Mary Poppins bag of sweet and sour mix!  That dick will blow through Bighead's money and cheap bastard brings his own booze.  

[Misstify]

I've recently been rewatching Party Down, and the spaces/tabs scene tonight was way too reminiscent of the Party Down scene where Martin Starr's character blows up his chances with a woman because she doesn't know the difference between fantasy and sci-fi.  The Party Down scene was great because Roman's passion for hard sci-fi was established over many episodes, it didn't come out of nowhere, and his character was established as a misanthrope who has no patience for anyone's foibles.

Splitting up the virgin margarita and adding alcohol brought from home...wouldn't that have been better coming after Erlich realizes Bachmannity is broke?

I agree with whoever said Jared's childhood stuffed animal was the best joke.  It was perfectly set up because when you hear him say the toy was named Winnie, of course you think it's going to be Winnie-the-Pooh.  Not a ziploc bag filled with shredded newspaper.

[PinkRibbons]

My favorite part of the margarita scene is that if you look closely, you can see that the alcohol Erlich uses to spike his own drink is Tres Commas.

[Guest]

Don't forget the cost of moving a pool, twice, when accounting for Bighead's loss of $20M.  It is a little ridiculous how moronic he is now.  He literally didn't know two from twenty.  And we're supposed to believe he was ever employable in tech at all, or ran with tech geniuses?  

I've been trying to get through this season of this and Veep to then maybe cancel HBO til next spring.  Maybe it's time to bail on SV.