"Pardon me, is that seat taken?" "Oh, Gavin." "Classic Gavin." " Let's hope this sucks." " Oh, good." "Monica made it just in time." "Carla, looks like you won't be the only woman in the house for a change." "Christ." "One thing worse than being the only woman in a company" " is being one of only two." " Why's that?" "Everybody puts this super-weird pressure on you to be friends." " It's creepy." " Hey, did I miss it?" " No." " Good." "Monica, I'd like to introduce you to Carla." "Carla, Monica." "Monica, Carla." " What's up?" " Nice to meet you." "I knew you two would hit it off." "Hey." "Monica?" "It's starting." "Tonight, for the first time ever, streaming live in 4K resolution over the internet," "UFC Fight Night, powered by Nucleus!" "No networks." "No more middleman." "No bullshit." "We're bringing the fights straight to the fans." "We're cutting the cord forever with UFC Fight Pass, powered by Nucleus." "Tonight, you'll get ultimate fighting at the ultimate resolution." "Nucleus puts 4K UHD video in a lossless compression chokehold and forces the competition to tap out." "Oh!" " Who's Douchebag?" " He sure likes to break stuff." "We are live in Las Vegas." "The picture looks amazing." "Man, Joe, this is a fight we've been looking forward to for a long, long time." "Are we getting a contact high off Erlich, or is the edge starting to warble?" "No, I see it." "Are they converting down to 24 frames?" "The defense so far." "Wow!" "The jerkiness is not a Nucleus issue, right?" "I mean, it's not going out to the world like that, is it?" "I think it looks great." "You see that frame judder as the camera pans?" "The picture's so blocky." "It looks like Minecraft." "It doesn't make sense, it's supposed to be totally lossless." "Let me dump their bit stream to disk and take a look." "She's really smart." "But not afraid to be bawdy." " Oh, my God." " They are so fucked." "Yeah, this is bad." "Attack with the left!" "He's hurt!" "He's down!" "He's hit!" "Oh!" "It's frozen." "It's frozen." "It is all over!" "Unbelievable!" "I have never, in all my years of watching fighting, seen a finishing combination more ferocious!" "What a spectacular finish by Molina!" "We're being told that the Nucleus live stream" " Fuck!" " ...may have cut out during that exchange." "If that is true, what a travesty." "Fuck!" "Gavin Belson just shit everyone's pants." "He sure did." "The encoding is totally underpowered to cover up their defects." "Nucleus just can't keep up with 4K live stream yet." "Hey." "Could Pied Piper handle live 4K video?" "I could deploy a live video stream that would be way better than theirs right now." "Jump on it." "Now." "Like, do our own live stream." "Partner with someone like Gavin did." "Look at you two." "Hold on." "Live streaming's not really our primary business here." "Yeah, but beating Nucleus is." "The blogs would go nuts." "We're built for it on my end." "If it's just me hosting seeds and manifests," " I'm good on my end." " I'm prepared to brag about it and release publicity." "Well, peer-to-peer delivery is good to go here." "Let me know." "Oh, Carla, do you want to show Monica your work station?" "No, thanks." "Okay, but Hooli had a deal with UFC that would stream a fight." "What do we even do?" "Don't really have a lot of time here." "That's real." "We could find an event that's already in motion." "Can I make a suggestion?" "There is a nesting pair of California condors on the closed-circuit feed at the Natural History Museum." "There's an egg in the nest right now." "It's very compelling." "Why don't we just live stream me killing you?" "I wouldn't be so dismissive." "There was a live stream of an eagle's nest last year that went viral, and was getting millions of hits." "And I don't wanna be inflammatory, but next to a condor, an eagle looks like a... common cackling." "Fuck that, Jared." "I've got it." "I'm very good friends with Aaron Anderson." "Double-A?" "The guy who owns Homicide Energy Drink?" "Uh, is Homicide the extra douchey energy drink?" "It sure is." "There's a bunch of stunts and crazy shit on here." "The video player quality is terrible." "It's a perfect candidate." "And Double-A loves me." "He'd definitely hook us up." "How do you know him?" "From college." "He was a sophomore when I was a senior." "He and his roommates used to live down the hall." "I used to party in their room all the time." "Uh, kind of a mentor-mentee sort of thing." "Coming from a manatee sort of thing." "You look like a ferret that gave up on himself six months ago, Gilfoyle." " I'm going to ping Double-A." " Wait..." "What if he says yes?" "You know?" "Are we really gonna drop everything to do this?" "What if we don't get it right?" "I mean, it could hurt us just like it hurt them." "Shit." "I don't know." "This is critical, Richard." "Maybe we should SWOT this decision." "I don't know what that is, but no." " SWOT analysis." " No." "S-W-O-T?" "No?" "Holy cow." "Did he really just say "holy cow"?" "I've had a board ready for just such an occasion." "I've booby-trapped the house with corporate resources." "SWOT is a way of evaluating a decision." "And you just break it down into "strengths,"" ""weaknesses," "opportunities," and "threats."" " You're fucking joking." " Not at all." "You can SWOT a concept, a department, or a new initiative." "You can even SWOT a person, although you have to be careful." "They might SWOT you back." " I wanna SWOT you." " Well, you can." "Because now you have the tools." "Okay." "Um, shout them out and I'll tack them up." "Jared, I'm really sorry, but I..." "I have to go." "You know, would it make more sense if I worked something up and then I got back to you guys?" "And... okay, great." "I'm on it." ""People love condors."" ""Strengths."" "On top of the roof," "Blaine is gonna launch off this ramp." "It's pretty gnarly." "Everything goes right, he'll fly over this street and land on this 15-story building here." "We've got 27 cameras, a couple in the car." "Feed a live edit back here to the data center." "We put everything through your incredible compression, Richard, and up onto the web." "So, what do you think, Richard?" "I think this is awesome, Double-A." "I mean, it is incredible." "You really have built a giant monument to awesomeness." "I think my aid in helping you achieve this is what inspired me to start my own incubator." "Uh, so, Richard, you ready for this?" "Oh, yeah." "I think so." "Yeah, uh..." "Double-A, we are psyched." "And, uh, we can do whatever you need." " Okay, thanks Kool-Aid." " Kool-Aid?" "What's that?" "Are you Kool-Aid?" "Yeah, it's just a term of endearment." "You know, nickname, I used to rock it back in the day 'cause I was cool and supportive." "Yeah." "Oh, hey, guys, this is Gina, she's one of our event managers." "Hey, uh, Gina, can you take Dinesh and Gilfoyle to the data center, please?" "Sure." "You wanna follow me?" "Only if we get hats, Gina." "You can just take mine." "Did you see that?" "She gave me her hat." "Pretend you've seen a woman before." "Are those Homicide drinks for free?" "Yeah." "Knock yourself out." "Homicide!" "Is there any way that it could be maybe more like just..." "You and me talking, and not Erlich?" "What do you mean?" "Aren't you guys friends?" "I thought you go way back." "We do." "But..." "To be honest, I could never stand the guy." "I mean, just hearing his voice again is giving me PTSD." "Right." "But you just called him cool." "No, I called him Kool-Aid." "We all did." "Right." "Because he's like the Kool-Aid pitcher from the ads." "As in, every fucking time we were hanging out without him, he'd come smashing through a wall." "But you still hung out with him." "Yeah, 'cause we were 19, and he had weed and beer." "But even drunk and high I couldn't take it." "I mean, it's like he's fucking allergic to letting other people talk." "It's like he's always gotta say something." "You know?" "Hey, Richard." "Homicide!" "So, Dinesh, I have a question." "You're obviously Pakistani, but the name Dinesh is Indian, isn't it?" "Yeah." "Wow, that's... exactly right." "You know, most people, ignorant people, don't even know those are two separate countries." "And they don't care either." "How do you know about my name?" "I'm an Army brat." "My dad was stationed in Karachi when I was a kid." "It was a beautiful place." "Full of beautiful people." "Kind of like this room, right?" "Oh, hold on a sec." "I'll be right back." " Oh, don't take too long." " Ew." "This is awesome." "I don't know if it's what's in this, but I have, like, all these killer lines coming to me." "I'm on fucking fire right now." "Oh!" "She likes me, right?" "Yeah, she's totally into you." "Just not as into you as she is into that guy's mouth." "He's definitely gonna fuck her later, and she's not gonna think of you while it's happening." "Goddamn it." "Fuck." "Now I'm just shaking." "What do they put in this shit?" "Milk thistle?" "Hey, guys!" "Come out here!" "Juliet calls." "Guys, this is Blaine." "He's the guy doing the stunt." "Blaine, these are the genius coders who are helping us with the live stream." " They're rock stars." " Okay." "So this is the car you're jumping?" "Yes, it is." "And that's what your ramp's gonna look like?" " Yeah." " Cool." "Well, have you..." "Yeah, and because I know that you're gonna ask, yes, I've done this before." "And yes, it's fucking dangerous." "Listen, I got a lot of work to do to get this right." "Okay?" "Okay." "Hey, you see what I saw?" "Yes, uh, he's got the velocity calculated wrong." "It's for a flat plane." "He doesn't account for the curve in the ramp." "Exactly." "He's probably used to doing straight ramps." "I mean, the chart says he's gonna launch at 81 miles per hour," " but it's going to be more like" " Under 70." "The downforce is ridiculous." "He's gonna lose speed and hit the side of that wall." "And die." "So we should probably..." "Okay." "All right." "Hey, uh, Blaine?" " One small thing." " No." "I'm gonna stop you right there, Glasses." "'Cause I told you once already, and I was very clear." "I am too fucking busy to deal with you." "Okay?" "I'm just being cool here." "All right?" " What do we do here?" " This is a tough one." "So, Richard, in terms of a player window, what do you see?" "Well, um, I think it's pretty straightforward." "I'll handle this, Richard." " You don't have to." " The whole reason we're doing this, friend, is for branding value." "So we're gonna need a banner that says" ""Powered by Pied Piper" underneath the video window." "It doesn't have to be too big, but you don't want it to be too small either." "Although, there's nothing small about Homicide, Double-A." "At least as far as I can tell." "Also, if it's, if it's possible" "Let me stop you right there, Richard." "We're gonna need to have our logos on the car, Blaine's suit, his helmet." "If he wants to get a Flash tattoo or something on his neck, that's on him." "Actually, um, in all honesty," "Erlich just pretty much said exactly what I was gonna say." "Uh-huh." "Um, so, Richard..." " Yes?" " Yeah?" "Do you think you can make the preview window full resolution?" " Um, yes..." " Richard can give you whatever you need." "But as far as the video player goes..." "Guys, I'm sorry." "I just remembered that I've got somewhere... else to be." "All right." "Well, Double-A, I'll see you soon." "I'm just gonna grab a shirt and we'll check you later." "What the fuck, dude?" "Hey, I love your tech." "But come back tomorrow without Kool-Aid, or don't come back at all." "Honestly." " Richard, what's going on?" " What do you mean?" "I'm catching kind of a vibe." "A weird vibe with you and Double-A." "Right." "That." "Well..." "I'm not gonna sugarcoat it, Richard." "I don't think he likes you." "I mean, he literally rolled his eyes at you." "Why don't you just trust me on this one." "Let Kool-Aid do the talking tomorrow." "Take this stuff." "I'm gonna grab a couple more drinks and another hat." "I'm gonna get a box." "This is a total fucking disaster." "If my engineers had just told me they weren't ready," "I never would have pushed for this live stream." "Even worse, now I hear those little Pied Piper fuckers are doing their own live stream with Homicide." " The energy drink?" " Yes." "Meanwhile, I've demanded to see internal testing from every facet of the Nucleus platform." "So I can see for myself where I stand." "Because all I hear from everybody is good news." "Have I just surrounded myself with sycophants, who are just telling me whatever I want to hear, regardless of the truth?" "No." " Thank you, Denpok." " I really needed to hear that." "This might be morbid, but the cold hard fact is that if Blaine dies on our live stream, this could be good for us." "I mean, we'd get a lot more traffic." "Well, and it would probably lead to calls for regulations in the stunt industry." "So, in the long term, we're saving lives." "Although, there is the moral problem with letting him die." "Though he did tell us to shut up." "And his name is Blaine." "And Gina is super hot." "And this would make her single." "She'd probably need consoling, so... there's an opportunity." "Opportunity." "Should we SWOT this?" "♪" "Bereaved women do tend to act out sexually." "Yeah, so that's a strength." " Hey, Kool-Aid!" " Yeah!" "And?" "So?" "And?" "It wasn't meant to be a flattering nickname." "It was an insult." "I'm not sure I agree with that." "I mean, the dancing pitcher breaks through walls to give tasty beverages to kids in need." "Why would you infer from this that Double-A doesn't like me?" "Well, um, I wasn't inferring anything." "He told me to my face that he doesn't like you." "But why wouldn't he like me?" "Well, uh, you have a tendency sometimes to" "Why on earth wouldn't he like me?" "Because, Erlich, you tend to not let" "I was his mentor." "You know?" "You know, there's no remote possibility" "Because you don't let people talk!" "It just happened." "Um... and he told me that if you came tomorrow that he would pull the plug on the whole live stream." "I see." "Sorry." "Are you done talking now?" "Yes." "Do Dinesh and Gilfoyle know about this?" "Uh, no, I came straight to you." " What about Jared?" " No." "Okay, here's what you need to do." "You need to go in tomorrow, and you need to do that live stream." "Put my feelings aside, you know, don't quit on account of me." "I wasn't gonna..." "I wasn't gonna quit." "There is something you should know, though." "Aaron Anderson wasn't very well liked in college." "In fact, people used to call him "Double-Asshole."" "So watch out for that guy." "Are you sure you're okay with this?" "Yes, Richard." "It's time for me to be the bigger man." "The cooler man." "I am Kool-Aid, after all." "Ladies and gentlemen, for the last 90 minutes you have had an opportunity to explore a standard HooliPhone upgraded with a brand-new operating system called Nucleus." "Thank you all for being here," "Aln, Lisa, Josh, Yana, Katie, Ramón." "I'd like to get everyone's first impressions." "Who'd like to jump in?" "Anyone?" "How about you, Ramón?" "It's just stupid." "Okay, so Ramón feels the phone is stupid." "Could you elaborate, Ramón?" "Stupid how?" "Please, be as specific as possible, Ramón." "Well, it's slow." "The apps keep quitting on me." "I tried to watch a movie, and it kept freezing up." "And when I'm typing, like, there's a delay." "Then all the letters pop up at once." "You took a good phone and you made it all, like, shitty." "Keep in mind, I didn't design the phone." "It pissed me off." "I appreciate your honesty, Ramón." "That's just one guy's opinion." "Who else feels this product is stupid?" "Allen, Lisa, Josh, Yana, Katie." "And did it piss off anyone else?" " Allen, Lisa, Josh, Yana, Katie." " Okay." "Christina, how bad is this?" "Be honest." "Is this Windows Vista bad?" "It's not iPhone 4 bad, is it?" "Fuck." "Don't tell me this is Zune bad." "I'm sorry, Gavin." "It's Apple Maps bad." "And who else felt this product is messed up?" " Allen, Lisa, Josh, Yana..." " Fuck!" "I'm sorry for the disturbance, Allen, Lisa, Josh, Yana." "So I can definitely get you full res on the preview window." " Aw, sweet." " Cool." "I'll get right on that." "You see how much smoother this all runs without Erlich hanging around?" "Right, yeah." "Hey, did you ever send me the mockup for the logo placement of the player window?" "Seriously, you should think about dropping that guy." "But what do I know?" "I just built a billion-dollar company." "Yeah." "Yeah, okay." "But, uh, about the mockup for the logo placement..." "Oh, hey." "I gotta go Skype with my European distributor." "Keep cranking it, okay?" "Sure, uh, will do." "Excuse me." "That's not the final graphic for the live stream, is it?" "Yep." "Double-A signed off on it." " Just that?" "There's nothing else?" " Nope." "♪" " Hm..." "Blaine doesn't die, but he is horribly incapacitated." "And then while he's in the hospital, he gets a flesh-eating virus, and then he dies." "Well, obviously... his incessant suffering will be a strength." "But our ability to enjoy it is an opportunity." "What if before he dies..." "Gina catches the virus?" "And then she spreads it from her vagina to your penis." "Wait, so in this scenario," "I get to have sex with Gina?" "That's an opportunity." " Okay, how about this?" " I'm listening." "We let Blaine die, but then he's not around to stop someone else from committinsome huge fucked-up act of evil?" " The "Kill Hitler" scenario." " Right." "Hey, guys?" "You guys busy?" "Uh..." "Cool." "Um..." "I got something I gotta say." "Listen." "I know that I was really rude to both of you yesterday." "It's just, um... when I got a stunt coming up, I'm a bundle of nerves, and sometimes I can take that out on other people." "Even with all the support that I get from Gina and our kids." "Okay..." "I don't know why." "But... and then again," "I'm a guy who needs to risk his life jumping over stuff." "So, what's that all about, right?" "You know, actually just an hour ago I spotted an error in my math." "Would have had me smeared across the side of that building." "Uh..." "Anyway, now I'm just totally rambling." "Typical Blaine." "What I wanted to say was that I'm sorry." "Are we cool?" "Yeah, we're cool." "Thanks for stopping by." "Yeah, you should go quickly, 'cause we have work to do." "What's this?" "What is that?" ""Let Blaine die"?" "Oh." "Shit." "We write in code... we write in code." " This is compression..." " "Strengths." "Blaine's last moment is realizing face is gone"?" ""Weaknesses Blaine dies super fast."" "Yeah, you really shouldn't be looking at that." "That's all proprietary." "fuck Gina"?" "Would you believe that was here when we came in?" "Double-A?" "Can I talk to you for a second?" "Uh, yeah." "Leave me alone for a sec." "What's up?" "Well, okay, uh, I just saw a version of the player window that apparently you approved of that says Powered by Homicide on it?" "Oh." "Yeah, it does." "Right." "Well, there's no Pied Piper logo." "Like anywhere." "So what's up with that?" "Oh, well..." "Homicide is an energy drink, and "power" means energy." "So that's kind of confusing to the consumer, so I think we're gonna keep it the way it is." "Uh, the whole point of doing this was so that we could get our name out there." "Remember?" "I tell you what." "Let's see how it goes this time, the next time we'll work something out." "Uh, no." "No." "We can't see how it goes this time." "There is no next time." "Okay?" "We are racing to get our platform ready for CES." "And we took time away from doing that to do this so we could get PR value." "If no one sees the logo, then there's no PR value at all." "Oh, man." "I'm sorry." "But you get it." "No, I don't get it." "Okay, look, you have to put our logo in the viewer." "That's it." "Period." "Mm... actually, I don't have to do a damn thing." " Yeah, you do." " No, I don't." "Okay, then neither do I." "Richard, don't be an asshole like your buddy Kool-Aid." "Okay?" "Just finish the build, okay?" "You know what, Double-A?" "Erlich was right." "You are an asshole." "In fact, you're a double-asshole!" "What did you call me?" "I..." "I called you a double-assle." "'Cause, you know, you're being an asshole." "Double-A, double-asshole." "You know?" "You're twice the asshole." "Twice-hole." "Double-asshole." "Oh." "Ew." "Is that a colostomy bag?" "Do you have any idea what it's like to be ten years old and carry your own shit around in a bag?" "To have two assholes?" "I didn't know..." "Hey, Richard?" "We should go." "urinate on Blaine's grave"?" ""Grief threesome with Gina and Blaine's hot mom, question mark"?" " What the fuck?" "!" " I didn't..." " Richard!" " But I mean, you were being an asshole." "Okay, good luck." "To his face?" "You called him that to his face?" "!" "How could you not mention the colostomy bag?" "Because it's a very private and personal matter!" "It's not a laughing matter!" "But you called him double-asshole first." " Remember?" "In college?" " Yeah, but not to his face." "Never to his face!" "Not even I'm not that fucking cruel!" " But you are!" " I'm actually not." "You tore double-asshole a third asshole!" "Triple-A!" "Yeah, that was all my fault somehow?" "Yeah, that was a big wank." "Since we're already set up for a live stream, might I make a suggestion?" "Wow." "It looks even better than I thought it would." "♪" " Is that a still image?" " It's not frozen, is it?" "No, it's live." "It's just not moving very much because it's a fucking egg." "But think of the wonderful things going on inside that egg." "The resolution in your imagination is infinite." "Oh, hey, we're up to 17 views." "Okay, well, this isn't the PR coup that we'd envisioned." "But, uh, Nucleus fucked up way worse." "At least we can go back to work knowing that we're the only middle-out compression that actually functions." "New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc?" "Steel-aged." "Drinks great during the day." "I can move, so you guys can stand next to each other." " Jared!" "Dude, no." " God, no!" "Russ, hey." "Good job, my man!" "Fucking live stream looks amazing!" " It does?" " Yeah, Homicide must be stoked!" " Homicide?" "What?" " Russ:" "I love the new name." "It's kick-ass." "I always thought Pied Piper was kind of a limp-dick name." "EndFrame is way cooler." "EndFrame?" "What?" "Three, two, one!" "He made it." "Farewell, sweet Gina." ""Powered by EndFrame." Who the fuck is EndFrame?" "Why is their fucking logo on this live stream?" " EndFrame isn't you guys?" " Oh, fuck!" "EndFrame is those guys that brain-raped us at Branston Ventures." ""EndFrame is a compression company specializing in middle-out compression technology."" "Those pricks!" "They stole my algorithm!" "I know guys at the FBI we could call." "Were you fucking hacked?" " Uh... actually, no." " Well, how did they get it then?" " I'm sorry?" " How did they get it then, Richard?" "How did they get it?" "Well, we kinda found ourselves in their conference room, and accidentally sketched out our key components to our algorithm's data model on their whiteboards." "You fucking..." "Russ?" "He hung up." "I'd file this one under "Weakness," Jared."