Mr. Judge (Photo: Hypemedia)

The highly anticipated Silicon Valley comedy from the mind of Beavis and Butthead creator Mike Judge has been picked up by HBO for a full season, according to Deadline. The show doesn't have a title yet, but we already know it opens on "the shit-brown hills of Mountainview," and stars Martin Starr of Freaks and Geeks and Party Down fame.

The plot of the pilot, as outlined by a script published by Quartz, is a tantalizing glimpse of what's to come:

“… six programmers are living together in East Palo Alto, each working on software they hope will make them rich, from a system for policing music copyrights to an app that ‘gives you the location of a woman with erect nipples.’”

Give us a sweaty, screaming Steve Ballmer or a Jack Dorsey lookalike raving about his artisanal wheat grass enema by the end of the pilot and we'll be hooked for the whole season.

Let's hope this means more wacky pet products.

Fab is reportedly raising over $100 million, at a $1 billion valuation. That's a jump from the $600 valuation the last time the company raised. [TechCrunch]

Netflix now has (just barely) more American subscribers than HBO. [Variety]

"Apple Inc. is facing an identity crisis on Wall Street." Sounds dramatic. [Wall Street Journal]

Matthew Keys, who was indicted in March for allegedly conspiring with Anonymous to hack the L.A. Times website, has been fired from his job at Reuters. Apparently they didn't like a parody Twitter account he created, or his tweets about the hunt for the marathon bombers. [Atlantic Wire]

There's a startup that wants to disrupt raising your hand in class, FYI. [GigaOm]

Not that great of quality. (Photo: Hashgram)

The highly anticipated season three opener of "Game of Thrones" is shattering download records on BitTorrent as millions of fans are pirating the fantasy sex romp to the Iron Throne. Looks like HBO's techie-courting promotional strategy is working, just not the way they'd hope.

According to the “mind boggling numbers” collected by TorrentFreak, 160,000 people shared a single torrent within hours of it being uploaded. That created the largest swarm of users ever on BitTorrent downloading a single show, knocking off "Heroes" as the previous title holder.

TorrentFreak cites eager fans for making it the most illegally downloaded show in not only in Westeros, but in the entire world.

Outside the U.S. fans of the show sometimes have to wait a while before they can see the latest episode. HBO is trying to close these release gaps as best it can, but for some fans a few hours is already too much.

One might think HBO would be livid that fans are siphoning off their premium content for free. Think again! Michael Lombardo, the president of programming for the network, told Entertainment Weekly that he’s downright flattered by all your mooching--especially since it’s not damaging the show’s profitability.

“I probably shouldn’t be saying this, but it is a compliment of sorts,” Mr. Lombardo said. “The demand is there. And it certainly didn’t negatively impact the DVD sales. [Piracy is] something that comes along with having a wildly successful show on a subscription network.”

In fact, Mr. Lombardo's only concern is that thieves are getting the full cord-keeping experience:

“The production values of this show are so incredible. So I’m hoping that in the purloined different generation of cuts that the show is holding up," said Mr. Lombardo to EW.

Aw, thank you, misguided cable executive! Meanwhile, you can find us on BitTorrent mislabeling "Enlightened" uploads as "Game of Thrones" in our last ditch effort to save the series.

Ohhh no. (Photo: flickr.com/oreilly)

No sooner did Netflix announce its new science fiction show Sense8 than Amazon made its own original content announcement: The company will be developing Betas, a comedy pilot about startup nerds. This is in addition to the recently green-lit Zombieland show, confirmed two days ago.

Take THAT, Reed Hastings!

From the announcement, it looks like we've got a challenger to Mike Judge's HBO pilot about the tech business:

Set in the land of Silicon Valley start-ups where the right algorithm can make you king, Betas, written by Evan Endicott and Josh Stoddard, follows four computer geeks and their quest for nerd fame as they attempt to crack the ultimate code. Ed Begley Jr., Jon Daly, Joe Dinicol, Margo Harshman, Charlie Saxton and Karan Soni star in the pilot.

Michael Lehmann--who made Heathers--will direct.

Said producer Michael London: "Betas is a half hour comedy about a group of tech-savvy millennials trying to connect with the world both personally and professionally."

Sweet Jesus, not another show about fucking millennials. Saints preserve us.

Sure. (Photo: Hashgram)

As HBO drums up promotion of the upcoming season of Games of Thrones, the premium cable network is trying a different approach: cozying up with the digerati. (Historically, HBO has greeted the Internet much Night's Watch would approach a horde of White Walkers.)

Last week, the cabler held elaborate Games of Thrones-themed events in techie hotspots like Silicon Valley and Seattle--home base to Internet giants like Amazon, Google, Netflix prone to disrupting the archaic television distribution process.

The Los Angeles Times described the crowd at the party as a sea of t-shirts adorned with Twitter logos, with plenty of Google Glass to go around. That explains why we spied tech bigwigs, like AllThingsD co-executive editor Kara Swisher and Craigslist founder Craig Newmark in attendance.

So, why is HBO trading in the glitzy red carpet premieres for neckbeard laden shindigs? Uproxx hypothesizes it sees the “writing on the wall” since its subscriber growth rate has leveled. HBO wants to make a preemptive strike to protect its yearly $3 billion revenue before it emotionally collapses, Hannah Horvath style.

According to the LA Times, all that the hobnobbing with tech companies could help HBO secure better deals on their platforms.

Analysts say HBO was looking to strengthen its alliances with an emerging new distribution network and the social media companies that help spread the popularity of its original programming.

HBO’s glacial, but inevitable, decision to offer HBOGo as a standalone product could be a good first step if it come to an agreement with those pesky cable providers. Perhaps an autograph from Mr. Dinklage could smooth the way?

SMDH (Photo: Complex)

40 Sexist Stereotypes It was not a great week for women in tech. Between the Adria Richards fracas and Complex deciding the best way to contribute to the discourse was to throw up a slideshow of the "40 Hottest Women in Tech," it's almost as if the takeaway from Sheryl Sandberg's book was Lean In... with yer boobs. The good news is that in order for the gender disparity in tech to shrink, we need to have conversations like this--even if they turn ugly or mean-spirited or upsetting.

The reaction to Ms. Richards' questionable public shaming underscored the point she’d been trying to make all along: that the tech world is often a hostile, unfriendly place for women.

So we were heartened to see a resounding backlash to the Complex slideshow. If you're gonna objectify smart, accomplished, competent women, then lean the fuck out of the Internet, thank you very much.

On his Facebook, the author of the slideshow Luke Winkie wrote a mea culpa, claiming that he recognized the negative stereotypes a story like this would perpetuate  but, "it's hard to say no to $500."

(Screencap: Facebook)

In case you think bylines like these impress women (or exes), think again:

https://twitter.com/kttykatie/status/315173787459014656

Craig of Thrones HBO threw a party for its new season of Game of Thrones in San Francisco this week, and every tech reporter under the California sun was invited. AllThingsD's Kara Swisher posted this picture of Craig Newmark and Game of Thrones author George R.R. Martin, declaring Mr. Newmark the long lost son of Mr. Martin. Can't say we disagree.

(Photo: Instagram)

Meanwhile, HBO bigwigs get to try on Glass and we still haven't. Sigh.

(Photo: Instagram)

No Cats, No Peace Startups love office dogs. But where's the love for the official animal of the Internet, the noble cat? Betaworker Lauren Leto recently took to Twitter to plead with her colleague Paul Murphy, "Can we please get an office cat?" To support her case, she linked to AwesomeCatz.com. Mr. Murphy's response is sure to outrage the civilized world: "cats are gross.. and so is that site."

"Guys this is going to tear betaworks apart," responded Digg General Manager Jake Levine. Just imagine how rancorous the arguments over litter box responsibilities would get.

Won't Get Trolled Again We’re going to ignore this latest dispatch from King of the Trolls, Business Insider emperor Henry Blodget except to note that he finally figured out how to edit his crotch out of the shots! Proud of you, Hank.

(Photo: Instagram)

Can you hear me now? It's a cardinal rule of working outside the office that you absolutely must learn to use your inside voice. But it seems a few people in Silicon Valley haven't quite mastered that particular trick. "Stopped by a Starbucks on Sand Hill Road to use Wifi," Slate's Farhad Manjoo recently tweeted. "Surrounded by indiscreet start-up guys preparing for VC meetings." Remember guys: The walls have ears.

Boys on Girls CollegeHumor founder Ricky Van Veen has been known to drag his girlfriend, HBO star Allison Williams, around to tech events, but she’s not afraid to give him a taste of his own medicine. In Sunday night's episode of Girls, Mr. Van Veen had a cameo appearance which even earned him a credit at the end under "Also Starring."

(Photo: Screenshot)

Clad in a plaid shirt and jeans, Mr. Van Veen was present in the startup party scene for Charlie's new app, Forbid. "We hit 20,000 MAU, and then everyone was just like, 'Ohhh fuck we did it,'" Charlie says earlier in the episode when explaining why they're throwing the party. (MAUs are monthly active users, duh.)

When Marnie grabs the mic and decides to turn the party into her own private karaoke sesh, Mr. Van Veen can be seen rolling his eyes at his real life girlfriend. Inside jokes! He also has a short scene with Shoshanna, where he tells her, "Restaurants are like my passion. Just going out to things is who I am." We've never met Mr. Van Veen in real life, but his Girls character was definitely insufferable.

As far as the accuracy of the scene when compared to an actual startup party? We'd give it a 7/10. Needed more neckbeards.

Spamalot Looks like even New York Times editors aren't immune to the occasional Twitter hack. Earlier this week, Times public editor fell pray to a little vanity when she clicked a spam link, which caused her profile to tweet out the same link:

(Photo: Twitter)

Ms. Sullivan seemed to take it all in stride. "Now I know I've had the complete Twitter experience, with account briefly hacked," she tweeted shortly after. "Thanks to all for help and sorry for the unintended spam!"

#freegooglereader Budding bloggers who rely heavily on RSS to find stuff to write about aren't the only people lamenting the imminent shuttering of Google Reader. Turns out ex-Today Show host Ann Curry was also a fan. Larry, can you hear her?

https://twitter.com/AnnCurry/status/312022545975111681

https://twitter.com/AnnCurry/status/312019199503523840

FYI Lo Bosworth would like the world to know that she finally, finally got Mailbox:

Another rainy day in NYC. (Photo: wired New York)

Zynga has lost another exec. The struggling company's chief game designer Brian Reynolds has resigned. [VentureBeat]

Sorry, Facebook: Twitter is now the fastest-growing social platform in the world. No data yet on who owns the universe, though. [GlobalWebIndex]

Netflix wants to become the next HBO. So, lots of shows with gratuitous nudity and cursing just 'cuz, "It's premium cable, man." [The Verge]

McDonald's is the new study hall. Hey, it's not like the library has french fries. [Wall Street Journal]

Startup visas may soon become a thing after the President endorsed them in a recent speech. But what about all those lawless seafaring incubators? [Huffington Post]

(screencap from What Should We Call Girls)

A couple weeks back, Betabeat noted that Cinemax had embarked on a GIF-happy marketing campaign for its new show, Banshee, which seemed like a heavy-handed marketing campaign for a heavy-handed show.

Well, if releasing the entire first episode in GIF format seemed a bit overwrought—"the GIF format has emerged as a popular visual language across the internet and provides a creative way into social conversations by leveraging existing online behaviors," a marketing exec at HBO (Cinemax's parent company) told us—at least the GIFs were cool.

If only we could say the same thing for What Should We Call Girls, the network's Tumblr for its hit show Girls, which was a perfectly reasonable idea executed with a preponderance of rules, including:

GIFs should feature images from the HBO series GIRLS only

GIFs should not combine GIRLS content with any other content or material

Any text in your GIF must be a direct quote from GIRLS

All GIRLS content in GIFs must be obtained from authorized sources of HBO programming

GIFs should be approximately 5 seconds long

We reserve the right to select the GIFs that will be posted on this site

All of which made inevitable masterpieces such as this one:

Does that mean HBO is the Adam Driver of networks? "You should never have to be anyone's fucking slave. Except mine.”

There's shit in them hills.

Have we told you how mind-numbingly excited Betabeat is for HBO's forthcoming comedy, Silicon Valley? That the network's inspired decision to hire the creators of Beavis and Butthead to write a TV show about startups thrust us into a fit of giggling anticipation?

So, now we have. And we're happy to report that reading snippets of the script for the show's pilot episode has only served to increase our high hopes.

According to Quartz, the opening credits begin like so: "We see shot after shot of things that pass for exciting in Silicon Valley," including the "shit brown colored hills of Mountainview," "Steve Ballmer ranting on stage," and "Elon Musk with a Rocket."

There is a character named Peter Gregory, who is a venture capitalist and apparently a dead giveaway for Peter Thiel.

And there is the plot, which goes a little something like this:

"... six programmers are living together in East Palo Alto, each working on software they hope will make them rich, from a system for policing music copyrights to an app that 'gives you the location of a woman with erect nipples.'"

It's just about exactly how we'd write it. Only in our telling, the staff of Betabeat gets hired to write the second season.