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  <title>echevarria.io</title>
  <description>Ivan Echevarria's blog</description>
  <link>https://www.echevarria.io</link>
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    <title>Some Semblance of Clarity: a zine (email me for a free copy)</title>
    <description>&lt;p&gt;&lt;img alt="photo of zine and 3 prints" src="https://www.echevarria.io/blog/some-semblance-of-clarity/img1.jpeg" /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;In 2017, I made &lt;em&gt;Some Semblance of Clarity&lt;/em&gt;, a zine, for a photography class. I made this zine probably around the height of my interest in the intersection of art and technology. I still like each but prefer them mostly separate now.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;The zine consists of &lt;a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dag_Hammarskj%C3%B6ld"&gt;Dag Hammarskjöld&lt;/a&gt;'s poem "August 24, 1961" thrown through Google Translate several times as well as 7 photographs with &lt;a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inceptionv3"&gt;Inception v3&lt;/a&gt;'s top 5 classes for those images. I made 25 copies, put them in a box, and forgot about them until this week.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;I'm not going to pretend it's great work, but I do think it's somewhat interesting inasmuch the zine's main concern – the difficulty of identifying / maintaining / representing arbitrary meaning using computers – has largely been solved with LLMs. There are also a few flourishes in the zine's construction like some translucent pages, careful text alignment, and bits that are handwritten.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Send me an email or Instagram / Twitter DM or whatever else with your address, and I'll mail you a copy. I'll also send a few small prints I made around the same time.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;img alt="photo of page in zine" src="https://www.echevarria.io/blog/some-semblance-of-clarity/img2.jpeg" /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;img alt="photo of page in zine" src="https://www.echevarria.io/blog/some-semblance-of-clarity/img3.jpeg" /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;img alt="photo of page in zine" src="https://www.echevarria.io/blog/some-semblance-of-clarity/img4.jpeg" /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;img alt="photo of page in zine" src="https://www.echevarria.io/blog/some-semblance-of-clarity/img5.jpeg" /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;</description>
    <pubDate>Thu, 18 Apr 2024 00:00:00 -0000</pubDate>
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    <title>"Grilling" / helping a friend out of a rut</title>
    <description>&lt;p&gt;&lt;img alt="photograph of a fallen tree in Half Moon Bay, CA" src="https://www.echevarria.io/blog/grilling/fallen-tree.jpg" /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;It's early 2022. My close friend has been unemployed and unhappy about it for several months. At some point he moves back in with his parents.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;We talk while we play video games. Every so often he talks about his situation, how much he wants to have a job again. I'll ask if he's applied to any jobs, and his answer's sometimes yeah one or two, but usually no. As the months go on, he gets more worried about how the gap in his resume will play.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;I realize this is going to take him a while on his own. I suspect he's avoiding the prospect of rejection and experiencing paralyzing urgency. I know the feeling. So I decide to intervene in a small way.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;I tell him to come over, I tell him that we'll grill in my backyard. I tell him to bring his computer over, too, we can maybe play some games. When my friend arrives, I tell him we're not grilling right now. No, he's applying to jobs. I sit across from him in my kitchen, searching for jobs where he might be a fit and adding them to a list while he fills out applications.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;By the end of the afternoon, he's applied to a few dozen. My friend is tired. We don't grill that day.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Within a few days, some companies reach out and schedule some interviews. A few weeks later and my friend is choosing between multiple offers. He lands a job in the sciences despite having a humanities degree and zero experience in the field. He does well. Within a year, the company recognizes his ability, promotes him, gives him a substantial raise, and ships him off to another state to run a large project.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;~ ~ ~&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Helping my friend get this job he's done so well at was one of my proudest moments of 2022. And it took so little effort on my end – he had everything he needed.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;I have even more contempt for the concept of &lt;a href="https://twitter.com/vebaccount/status/1509169026173444101"&gt;revealed preferences&lt;/a&gt; than before &lt;a href="https://www.echevarria.io/blog/grilling/index.html#note-1"&gt;[1]&lt;/a&gt;. Did my friend &lt;em&gt;actually&lt;/em&gt; want to be unemployed and living with his parents? No! He's considerably happier working at a company that recognizes his work, and he enjoys having his own place.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;I'm left with a lot of questions. How many other places do I have this much leverage? Why did it work so well this time? Are there problems in my own life that would benefit from a similar intervention?&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;I have no clean answers. This is where I've landed for now: these moments of extreme leverage rarely just drop in your lap, and I got lucky. You can't force someone to be &lt;a href="https://csprimer.com/articles/consistency/"&gt;motivated&lt;/a&gt; or to &lt;a href="https://www.benkuhn.net/abyss/"&gt;stare into the abyss&lt;/a&gt;. But if someone has the urgency, as my friend did, and their actions still don't line up with their stated goals, they may need only a small push to move things along.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;br&gt;
&lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;[1]&lt;i id="note-1"&gt; Okay, before any economics nerds email me, I'll caveat that I'm talking about revealed preferences in the context of normal life, e.g., around people's employment or fitness or whatever. I'm not talking about consumer demand stuff.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Anyway, applying revealed preferences broadly betrays reflexive distrust, an underlying belief that people are stupid or liars. It suggests an incuriosity about the inner lives of others.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;It is far more fruitful to approach contradictions between stated goals and real actions by taking people at their word and trying to bridge the gap rather than saying "oh you must actually want your crappy situation."&lt;/i&gt;&lt;/p&gt;</description>
    <pubDate>Sun, 31 Dec 2023 00:00:00 -0000</pubDate>
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    <title>Crust Lightning Bolt Canti build</title>
    <description>&lt;p&gt;&lt;img alt="Bicycle in front of the San Francisco Bay" src="https://www.echevarria.io/blog/crust-lightning-bolt-canti-build/bay-sunset.jpg" /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;This August, I bought a Crust Lightning Bolt frame and had it built up at my &lt;a href="https://www.straightwheelcycling.com/"&gt;local bike shop&lt;/a&gt; (thanks Christian!). I have a good number of miles on it across road, trail, and even a bit of chunky singletrack. I'm very happy with the bike.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;h2 id="origins"&gt;Origins&lt;/h2&gt;
&lt;p&gt;In the summer of 2022, I was riding bikes a lot – mostly my &lt;a href="https://surlybikes.com/bikes/bridge_club"&gt;Surly Bridge Club&lt;/a&gt;, an all-road touring bike with flat bars. As I rode more and farther, I made changes for comfort and speed. I stuck bar ends the inside of my bars to approximate a hoods position. After doing a few rides almost exclusively on the bar ends, I wondered: should I just get a drop bar bike?&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;In December 2022, I read Jan Heine's book &lt;a href="https://www.renehersecycles.com/shop/print/books/the-all-road-bike-revolution/"&gt;The All-Road Bike Revolution&lt;/a&gt; and was introduced to the Bicycle Quarterly (BQ)- style bike – comfort on and off road, low trail, 650B wheels, wide tires, full fenders, front rack and bag. I was pretty sold on the overall vision.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;By April 2023, I had a good number of miles on the Bridge Club. I decided for certain that I'd get a drop bar bike. I wanted a bike that would ride well and look good. But I also wanted to de-risk. I didn't want to spend a lot of money on the bike and immediately realize that it just didn't work for me (insert dream build Bombora eBay listing meme here). So I bought a total beater on Craigslist with similar enough geometry for very cheap and rode it for a few hundred miles. By July I had developed strong enough opinions about what I liked and didn't like to commit to a build.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;h2 id="planning"&gt;Planning&lt;/h2&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;img alt="Bike parts in a box" src="https://www.echevarria.io/blog/crust-lightning-bolt-canti-build/parts.jpg" /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;I planned tentatively to get a Crust Lightning Bolt. I already Crust a lot, and the Lightning Bolt is explicitly inspired by BQ / Jan Heine thought. And I'm a sucker for horizontal top tubes.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;My main inspiration aside from Jan Heine's book was &lt;a href="https://ryanrando.com/crust-canti-lightning-bolt-build/"&gt;Ryan Rando's Canti Bolt build&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href="https://droppedchain.com/canti-bolt-gallery/"&gt;Ryan's build on Dropped Chain&lt;/a&gt; (two different Ryans).&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;A lot people spend many months curating parts for builds. I don't have that kind of patience. Over the course of a few days, I made a spreadsheet of potential components. Christian at my local bike shop, Straight Wheel Cycling, was gracious enough to look over my parts list to give feedback and make sure everything was compatible. The big decisions:&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;ul&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Drivetrain: on the cheaper side, 2x for bailout when climbing – 2x10 Tiagra brifters, &lt;a href="https://www.somafabshop.com/shop/new-albion-crankset-sc-g-w-guard-42-26t-11sp-5505?search=crank#attr=2022,1319"&gt;New Albion 42/26 crankset&lt;/a&gt;, 10 speed GRX rear derailleur with 11-36 cassette&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Wheelset: Crust's 650B rim brake wheelset with dynamo hub&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Brakes: Dia-Compe DC980s with Kool-Stop salmon pads&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Handlebar / stem: big old grandpa-sized Nitto Technomic stem to get the bars over the saddle and Nitto M151 compact drop bar&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;/ul&gt;
&lt;p&gt;The last big decision I had to make was frame size. I stand 5'8" and have 82.5cm PBH. I called Crust and asked which size I should get, and &lt;a href="https://www.instagram.com/garrettage/"&gt;Garrett&lt;/a&gt; said that I definitely should go with the M / 55cm (yeah, that's right, &lt;em&gt;the&lt;/em&gt; Garrett of &lt;a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kfd9aUysgjw"&gt;Crust Bikes: Chapter IV&lt;/a&gt;, the coolest bike video I've seen). He was so right, I can't imagine riding a smaller size.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;h2 id="initial-build"&gt;Initial build&lt;/h2&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;img alt="First assembly of bicycle" src="https://www.echevarria.io/blog/crust-lightning-bolt-canti-build/assembly.jpg" /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;After going over the component list one last time with Christian (seriously – thank you), I ordered all the parts. I dropped everything off with Christian, and around a week later I rode it home.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;I immediately liked how the bike rides. It's very responsive without feeling squirrely (except up &amp;gt;15% gradients with a front load). It's comfortable. The 42mm tires eat up bumps in the road. And the giant stem means I spend a good amount of time in the drops – they're useful, not aspirational.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;So what about the low trail? What about planing? I don't know, it rides like a bicycle, a nice bicycle. I lack vocabulary for differences at this level, and I'm still pretty blind to them.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;h2 id="rack"&gt;Rack&lt;/h2&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;img alt="Rene Herse UD-1 rack installed on a front" src="https://www.echevarria.io/blog/crust-lightning-bolt-canti-build/rack.jpg" /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;After riding for a few hundred miles, I knew the bike wasn't going to need any major changes, so I decided to get a rack and fenders. I had my heart set on a Rene Herse rack – they look really nice, and they've been tested to 10kg capacity. (They don't have the absurdly low official weight limit of 4.4 lbs that other similar racks do.)&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;I was split on whether to get a rack that mounted to the canti bosses (M-13) or one with adjustable stays that mount to fork eyelets (UD-1)&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;I asked Garrett what he thought. He pointed out the Lightning Bolt has eyelets and that I might as well use them so that I don't have to futz with the rack if I ever need to change the brakes up. I hadn't considered this, and it's a great point, especially since the rack is also connected to the front fender.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;I bought the UD-1. Installation was easy, and I used a pipe cutter to trim the stays to length. I'm really happy with this rack – it seems quite well-made and it looks great.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;h2 id="fenders"&gt;Fenders&lt;/h2&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;img alt="Bicycle in front of the San Mateo Bridge" src="https://www.echevarria.io/blog/crust-lightning-bolt-canti-build/sm-bridge.jpg" /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Read this &lt;a href="https://somervillebikes.wordpress.com/2020/03/01/how-to-install-metal-fenders-part-i-achieving-a-proper-arc-radius/"&gt;fender installation guide from Eléctricalités A.T., the companion blog to velolumino.com&lt;/a&gt; if you ever intend to install metal fenders on your bike, ideally beforehand. You'll want to know what you're getting into. It was incredibly helpful for me. &lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;I got Rene Herse H80 fenders, which I understand are basically Honjo Smooth 62s with more coverage, different hardware, and nice instructions. The one oddity I'll note is that the Rene Herse stickers on the fenders are pretty crooked and off-center, but that doesn't matter to me since these things are going to get all dinged up anyway.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Installing the fenders was humbling. I foolhardily bought them thinking the difficult part would be drilling my own holes which didn't sound so bad. I was wrong. Drilling was the easy part.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;I found out that fenders need to be re-radiused, a time-consuming process where you massage it until the arc of the fender matches the arc of the tire precisely. Installation took me between 6 and 8 hours all-in. Hours of radiusing, fitting, removing, tweaking, measuring, drilling. Everything affects everything else. An example: fastening stays can (read: will) change the width of the fenders slightly which changes the radius of the fender.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;The description for the 2023 Lightning Bolt Canti says the fork is specifically designed for Honjo Smooth 62s and similar fenders. I assumed the frame would also fit 62s easily. Bad assumption! The frame's chainstays are too narrow, so I needed to &lt;a href="https://somervillebikes.wordpress.com/2020/03/12/how-to-install-metal-fenders-part-iii-installing-the-stays/"&gt;dimple the fenders&lt;/a&gt; to get them to fit. You don't cut a fender to fit narrow chainstays since that'll ruin the fender's structural integrity. I made a form out of wood, put a dowel on the other side of the fender, and tapped it with a hammer until the fender would fit between the chainstays.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;I'm pretty pleased with the job – you can't tell that the fenders are dimpled unless you're really looking:&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;img alt="Fender dimples" src="https://www.echevarria.io/blog/crust-lightning-bolt-canti-build/dimple.jpg" /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;The rear fender is a tight fit in another way: the front derailleur touches it a bit.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;img alt="Front derailleur touching front fender" src="https://www.echevarria.io/blog/crust-lightning-bolt-canti-build/fd-fender.jpg" /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;The front fender was easier. The Lightning Bolt's fork really is designed to fit them perfectly. My trouble here was the stay. The wheel spacing is 135mm on the rear and 100mm in the front – this means that you need to bend front fender stay inward a bit more than the rear one. This affects the radius of the fender stay's curve, which affects the width of the fender, which changes the radius of the fender. I ended up overworking and totally butchering the front stay but got a decent radius despite all that.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;I also got more fender sticking out over the front of the wheel than I wanted. It was late and I got sloppy with my measurements. Oh well!&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;I now have some light toe overlap because of the fenders. I don't mind too much because I ride flat pedals and &lt;a href="https://www.echevarria.io/blog/crust-lightning-bolt-canti-build/toe-overlap.png"&gt;can just shift my feet&lt;/a&gt; a bit when negotiating super tight curves.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;I considered buying mudflaps from Berthoud or Rene Herse, but I decided to go the cheap route and make them myself. I used &lt;a href="https://www.renehersecycles.com/rene-herse-mudflaps/"&gt;Jan Heine's trick of cutting up a black plastic folder&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;h2 id="bag"&gt;Bag&lt;/h2&gt;
&lt;p&gt;After installing the rack and fenders, I got a Berthoud Sans Decaleur 25 (SD 25) bag. I wanted that classic rando bag look and function but without the cost, weight, and complexity of a decaleur. The bag's lack of decaleur doesn't hurt at all: this thing stays put.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;The SD 25 is always always on my bike. I keep my phone in one of the rear pockets and tools in other. The main compartment's capacity is huge. I have plenty of room for food, miscellaneous supplies, and extra layers (not that I've needed them yet in the SF Bay Area). It's also great for picking up takeout, though not &lt;em&gt;quite&lt;/em&gt; large enough for grocery runs.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Jan Heine &lt;a href="https://www.renehersecycles.com/we-test-everything-we-sell-before-we-sell-it/"&gt;says he's not selling Berthoud SD bags yet&lt;/a&gt; because they're not sturdy enough for the Oregon Outback. I'm not doing anything as demanding, so the SD 25 is good enough for me.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;h2 id="dynamo-light"&gt;Dynamo light&lt;/h2&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;img alt="Bicycle in front of marsh by the San Francisco Bay" src="https://www.echevarria.io/blog/crust-lightning-bolt-canti-build/bay.jpg" /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;The last thing I added to the bike was a dynamo light, a Busch &amp;amp; Müller IQ-X. What a revelation! How different from a battery-powered light could a good dynamo light be? Very different. It's so liberating. Now I go out for rides before sunrise or well after dark, and I don't have to think about charging anything. The IQ-X's beam pattern is excellent. It has so much coverage, and it's so even. I see plenty riding trails at night, and the beam's shape stops it from blinding people.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Dynamo lights rule. I don't think I'll get another bike without one.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;h2 id="future-changes"&gt;Future changes&lt;/h2&gt;
&lt;p&gt;I'm happy with everything on the bike right now. Well, everything but the rear derailleur, I don't like that thing. It's a little noisy, but much worse, it's difficult to get my rear wheel off even in the bike stand. I dread the day I need to fix a rear flat in the middle of nowhere. I'll have to give up a few teeth on my largest cog – probably drop from 36 to 30-34ish – but that seems entirely worth it.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;I'll probably fabricate a better mount for the headlight and place it on the non-drive side. I was thinking I'd draw something up, maybe a fun shape, and use a service like &lt;a href="https://sendcutsend.com/"&gt;SendCutSend&lt;/a&gt; to get it cut out of aluminum.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;My current compact handlebars have reach and drop that's a tad on the short side. They work well for me right now, but I do want to switch to the Rene Herse Randonneur handlebars in the future. The shape looks quite comfortable, and the bars' rise would also let me drop my stem.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Some miscellaneous, blingier things I may get in the future: Rene Herse cranks, Paul Touring Canti brakes, and a Berthoud titanium-rail saddle.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;In the far future, assuming I'm still riding this bike and it's intact, I may have the frame repainted the green that the first prototypes were. They look so good.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;h2 id="build-list"&gt;Build list&lt;/h2&gt;
&lt;ul&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Frame: Crust Lightning Bolt Canti, M / 55cm&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Wheelset: Crust 650B rim brake wheelset with SV-8 dynamo hub&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Tires: Grand Bois Hetre 650Bx42&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Handlebar: Nitto M151 40cm&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Brake levers / shifters: Shimano Tiagra 4700&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Bar tape: Brooks Microfibre&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Stem: Nitto Technomic 60mm&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Saddle: Brooks B17 carved&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Seat post: Simworks Beatnik&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Crankset: New Albion 42/26, 170mm cranks&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Chainring guard: Blue Lug chainring guard&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Crank caps: Blue Lug brass&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Pedals: MKS Gamma&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Bottom bracket: Tange Seiki 68mm 110mm&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Brakes: Dia-Compe DC980&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Brake pads: Kool Stop Thinline Salmon&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Front derailleur: Shimano Tiagra 4700&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Rear derailleur: Shimano GRX RX400&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Chain: Shimano 10 speed&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Cassette: Shimano HG-50 11-36T&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Dynamo light: B&amp;amp;M IQ-X&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Headset: Crust 24 Palms&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Headset spacers: Nitto&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Bar ends: Nitto&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Rack: Rene Herse UD-1&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Fenders: Rene Herse H80 650B&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Mudflap: homemade&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Front bag: Berthoud Sans Decaleur L (SD 25)&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Front cable hanger: Dia-Compe&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Rear cable hanger: Nitto AS-1&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Downtube cable stops: Yokozuna&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Cable ferrules: brass via Analog Cycles&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;/ul&gt;</description>
    <pubDate>Sat, 04 Nov 2023 00:00:00 -0000</pubDate>
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    <title>March 2022 – June 2023</title>
    <description>&lt;p&gt;&lt;img alt="photograph of the shoes my wife and I wore when we married" src="https://www.echevarria.io/blog/march-2022-to-june-2023/marriage-shoes.jpg" /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;It's been a &lt;em&gt;long&lt;/em&gt; time since I did one of these updates. The big changes:&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;ul&gt;
&lt;li&gt;got married&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;finished the &lt;a href="https://bradfieldcs.com/csi/"&gt;Bradfield CSI&lt;/a&gt; coursework&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;started riding bikes&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;switched teams at work from product to infrastructure&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;/ul&gt;
&lt;h2 id="march-2022"&gt;March 2022&lt;/h2&gt;
&lt;p&gt;I start the Bradfield CSI Operating Systems module.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;I reach 6 months at my job. I remember one of my interviewers saying that the firm will take as much as you give, that exercising boundaries is important. I'm not exercising my boundaries well.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;I invite a friend to my house under false pretenses ("we're going to grill") and make him instead apply to several dozen jobs. He gets some offers and decides to work in a lab. Later in the year, the company promotes him to designing and setting up labs. They move him to Pittsburgh in early 2023.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;h2 id="april-2022"&gt;April 2022&lt;/h2&gt;
&lt;p&gt;I visit a college friend in Austin and help him set up his garage for woodworking.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;I go to the Oakland Zoo. The gibbons (small apes, not monkeys) are my favorite. They're kept in pairs in enclosures with shallow moats and very low fences – they could easily leave. But they like their islands and their arranged marriages, so they choose to stick around. I wonder how many people would be happier like this: paired up, given an island, provided for by super-intelligent space aliens.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;The chimps are in a giant cage. Can't trust them.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;I finish the Bradfield CSI Operating Systems module. My biggest takeaway is how constructed, how arbitrary it all is, much more so than databases or networks. I think this is because there are more degrees of freedom and fewer objective measures of what an operating system is or should be. I start the Bradfield CSI Databases module.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;At work, the firm lays off 9% of employees.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;h2 id="may-2022"&gt;May 2022&lt;/h2&gt;
&lt;p&gt;I visit Yosemite with my fiancée and two of our friends. What a place! The depth of the valley never registered until I actually visited.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;My fiancée and I stay in Portland, OR for 10 days for a friend's wedding. The wedding is lovely. I ride an electric &lt;a href="https://biketownpdx.com/"&gt;BIKETOWN&lt;/a&gt; bike and am blown away. I resolve to buy an ebike when I get home.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;I finish the Bradfield CSI databases module.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Song of the month: "Blessing" by Alex G.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;iframe class="bandcamp-player" style="border: 0; width: 100%; height: 42px;" src="https://bandcamp.com/EmbeddedPlayer/track=2712508306/size=small/bgcol=ffffff/linkcol=0687f5/transparent=true/" seamless&gt;&lt;a href="https://sandy.bandcamp.com/track/blessing"&gt;Blessing by Alex G&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/iframe&gt;

&lt;h2 id="june-2022"&gt;June 2022&lt;/h2&gt;
&lt;p&gt;I visit Virginia for a wedding. Go up to NYC for one night. Meet a friend late at night in Koreatown, get a giant plate of dessert. Stay in a wretched little room in a hotel with tiny communal bathrooms. In the morning I don't have time to wait in line for the shower. Go to the Guggenheim and get some good pizza with coworkers. Catch my train back to Virginia.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;I buy an ebike in California. I ride it a lot, farther than I ever have before on bicycle.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;I start the CSI Distributed Systems module.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Song of the month: "Back in our Town" by Ivy.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;iframe class="bandcamp-player" style="border: 0; width: 100%; height: 42px;" src="https://bandcamp.com/EmbeddedPlayer/album=272457084/size=small/bgcol=ffffff/linkcol=0687f5/track=1716312549/transparent=true/" seamless&gt;&lt;a href="https://ivy-band.bandcamp.com/album/apartment-life-25th-anniversary-edition"&gt;Apartment Life (25th Anniversary Edition) by Ivy&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/iframe&gt;

&lt;h2 id="july-2022"&gt;July 2022&lt;/h2&gt;
&lt;p&gt;I help a friend move; I rent a U-Haul van and drive it. My fiancée and I hike up Montara mountain. No view at all because of the fog, but that was its own kind of fun. My mom visits. She likes the ebike a lot. My sister visits a little later. It's her first time in the Bay Area in five years.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;I start the Bradfield CSI System Design module.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;At work, there are credible rumors of another, larger round of layoffs. I am deeply ambivalent at the prospect of being laid off. I oscillate from wanting it very badly to being afraid of what it will do to my ego. I am giddy at the prospect of severance, of being forced to go my own way. But I also know that my father worked in software and was never laid off, even when his employer shrank from hundreds to a few dozen. If I leave I want it to be on my own terms, but I also believe I won't leave soon without getting laid off. I want to get to at least a year at the firm. But then I think about all the free time I could have to ride bicycles, read books, and program...&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;I send a message to a colleague who I respect to share with the rest of my team if I'm laid off. &lt;/p&gt;
&lt;h2 id="august-2022"&gt;August 2022&lt;/h2&gt;
&lt;p&gt;I'm at the office when the firm lays of 23% of employees. I'm sad for the many I know. I oscillate between relief and disappointment for myself.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;The &lt;a href="https://robinhood.com/us/en/support/articles/partner-stock-program/"&gt;product I worked on for the last several months&lt;/a&gt; launches. I watch closely for the duration of the program. I care a lot about the customers.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;I finish the Bradfield CSI System Design module. What an incredible experience. For each of the problems, I use everything I've learned in the last year of the Bradfield CSI to sketch my solutions. That's the end of Bradfield coursework. It was so worthwhile.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;I buy an iPhone. It's a really good piece of hardware running quite good software. It's nice to use something that &lt;em&gt;just works&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;I realize that I don't actually need the electric assist in the bicycle. I buy a bicycle from &lt;a href="https://www.boxdogbikes.com/"&gt;Box Dog Bikes&lt;/a&gt; and ride it a lot.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;h2 id="september-2022"&gt;September 2022&lt;/h2&gt;
&lt;p&gt;I reach 1 year at my job. Have a reputation for reliability and rigor. I am competent and unhappy. In my notes I write this is not the work I aspire to.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Songs of the month: "Collage of Dreams" by John Beltran and "Kaini Industries" by Bibio.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;iframe class="bandcamp-player" style="border: 0; width: 100%; height: 42px;" src="https://bandcamp.com/EmbeddedPlayer/album=770281207/size=small/bgcol=ffffff/linkcol=0687f5/track=551258983/transparent=true/" seamless&gt;&lt;a href="https://peacefrog.bandcamp.com/album/ten-days-of-blue-album"&gt;Ten Days Of Blue (Album) by John Beltran&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/iframe&gt;
&lt;iframe class="bandcamp-player" style="border: 0; width: 100%; height: 42px;" src="https://bandcamp.com/EmbeddedPlayer/album=2893281365/size=small/bgcol=ffffff/linkcol=0687f5/track=1655022122/transparent=true/" seamless&gt;&lt;a href="https://warprecords.bandcamp.com/album/warp20-recreated"&gt;Warp20 (Recreated) by Bibio&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/iframe&gt;

&lt;h2 id="october-2022"&gt;October 2022&lt;/h2&gt;
&lt;div style="text-align: center;"&gt;
  &lt;img class="img-horiz" style="width: 45%;" src="https://www.echevarria.io/blog/march-2022-to-june-2023/marriage-fitzgerald.jpg" alt="photo of husband and wife in a grove of trees"/&gt;
  &lt;img class="img-horiz" style="width: 45%;" src="https://www.echevarria.io/blog/march-2022-to-june-2023/marriage-chapel.jpg" alt="photo of bride and groom in a municipal building"/&gt;
&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;p&gt;My wife and I marry. Her brother, my sister are our witnesses. We go to the courthouse in the morning, get lunch at &lt;a href="https://www.lafondasanmateo.com/menu"&gt;La Fonda&lt;/a&gt;, and visit &lt;a href="https://www.smcgov.org/parks/fitzgerald-marine-reserve"&gt;Fitzgerald Marine Reserve&lt;/a&gt; after.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;My dad visits a bit later. We ride bikes along the San Francisco Bay.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;At work, I tell my manager I want to switch teams. He's immediately supportive and introduces me to other managers. I begin an exhaustive search for my next team within the firm.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;h2 id="november-2022"&gt;November 2022&lt;/h2&gt;
&lt;p&gt;My wife and I go to Scottsdale for Thanksgiving. Visit Tempe and like it &lt;em&gt;a lot&lt;/em&gt;. I see &lt;a href="https://culdesac.com/"&gt;Culdesac&lt;/a&gt; in person.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;At work, the most senior engineers at the firm take time to speak with me. They think my interests line up best with the Service Discovery and Communication (SD&amp;amp;C) or Container Orchestration (CO). I start the process of joining SD&amp;amp;C.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;h2 id="december-2022"&gt;December 2022&lt;/h2&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;img alt="photograph of my wife and I before our luncheon to celebrate our marriage" src="https://www.echevarria.io/blog/march-2022-to-june-2023/family-dinner.jpeg" /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;My wife and I spend our first Christmas together in Virginia. We put on a small luncheon to celebrate our marriage with some of my family.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;We go to a wedding in Charlottesville with her parents. It's a nice town. I particularly like &lt;a href="https://www.bluewhalebooks.com/"&gt;Blue Whale Books&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;At work, my team switch is officially ok'd. I am thrilled with the level of support I've gotten through the entire process. I am happy I decided to look inside the firm instead of leaving.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;At the company Christmas party, I oafishly tell a user researcher I've worked with before that I'm switching teams because I want to work with computers more and people less. In hindsight, this isn't even true.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Song of the month: "Headroom Piano" by Alex G.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;iframe class="bandcamp-player" style="border: 0; width: 100%; height: 42px;" src="https://bandcamp.com/EmbeddedPlayer/album=1701099020/size=small/bgcol=ffffff/linkcol=0687f5/track=2630722265/transparent=true/" seamless&gt;&lt;a href="https://sandy.bandcamp.com/album/god-save-the-animals"&gt;God Save The Animals by Alex G&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/iframe&gt;

&lt;h2 id="january-2023"&gt;January 2023&lt;/h2&gt;
&lt;p&gt;My friend and I take Caltrain to South San Francisco and hike our bikes up to the top of San Bruno Mountain. Ride the trail at the top. It's terrible for bicycles. Eventually get to the parking lot where there's a sign forbidding bikes from going on the trail we were on. Makes sense!&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;I'm only riding my regular bike, so I sell the ebike.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;At work, I start on SD&amp;amp;C. My teammates are citing manpages at each other. I love it. My manager and I hit it off immediately. It turns out he read &lt;a href="https://www.echevarria.io/blog/flowers-make-a-nice-gift/index.html"&gt;Flowers make a nice gift&lt;/a&gt; when I first wrote it.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;h2 id="february-2023"&gt;February 2023&lt;/h2&gt;
&lt;p&gt;My college friend visits the SF Bay for &lt;a href="https://www.effectivealtruism.org/ea-global/events/ea-global-bay-area-2023"&gt;EA Global&lt;/a&gt;. I take a Bradfield friend to dinner with this college friend and go to an EA Global afterparty. We stay for a half hour. It reminds all three of us of undergrad.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;I &lt;a href="https://www.echevarria.io/file:///Users/ivan/Github/iechevarria.github.io/blog/caltrain-ridership/index.html"&gt;make&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href="https://caltrainridership.com/"&gt;caltrainridership.com&lt;/a&gt; out of frustration at how hard it was to get simple ridership numbers from Caltrain itself.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Songs of the month: "Naqi" by Mansur Brown, "Angelo Azzuro" by SSIEGE.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;iframe class="bandcamp-player" style="border: 0; width: 100%; height: 42px;" src="https://bandcamp.com/EmbeddedPlayer/album=3110060064/size=small/bgcol=ffffff/linkcol=0687f5/track=1214958008/transparent=true/" seamless&gt;&lt;a href="https://mansurbrown.bandcamp.com/album/naqi-vol-2"&gt;NAQI Vol.2 by Mansur Brown&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/iframe&gt;
&lt;iframe class="bandcamp-player" style="border: 0; width: 100%; height: 42px;" src="https://bandcamp.com/EmbeddedPlayer/album=103704281/size=small/bgcol=ffffff/linkcol=0687f5/track=121340449/transparent=true/" seamless&gt;&lt;a href="https://theyouthlabel.bandcamp.com/album/ssiege-fading-summer-yocs2"&gt;SSIEGE - Fading Summer - YOCS2 by YOUTH&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/iframe&gt;

&lt;h2 id="march-2023"&gt;March 2023&lt;/h2&gt;
&lt;p&gt;I go to an &lt;a href="https://oxide.computer/"&gt;Oxide&lt;/a&gt; event. It's just like an episode of &lt;a href="https://oxide.computer/podcasts/oxide-and-friends"&gt;Oxide and Friends&lt;/a&gt;, but with more profanity.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;img alt="photograph of an oxide computer company sled" src="https://www.echevarria.io/blog/march-2022-to-june-2023/oxide-sled.jpeg" /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;The Oxide folks bring hardware for people to pass around.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;img alt="photograph of an oxide computer company board" src="https://www.echevarria.io/blog/march-2022-to-june-2023/oxide-board.jpeg" /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Storms keep me inside for more of the month than I would like.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Song of the month: "Forest on the Sun" by Thrupence.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;iframe class="bandcamp-player" style="border: 0; width: 100%; height: 42px;" src="https://bandcamp.com/EmbeddedPlayer/album=3956203677/size=small/bgcol=ffffff/linkcol=0687f5/track=3353617191/transparent=true/" seamless&gt;&lt;a href="https://thrupence.bandcamp.com/album/ideas-of-aesthetics-lp"&gt;Ideas of Aesthetics (LP) by Thrupence&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/iframe&gt;

&lt;h2 id="april-2023"&gt;April 2023&lt;/h2&gt;
&lt;div style="text-align: center;"&gt;
  &lt;img class="img-horiz" style="width: 45%;" src="https://www.echevarria.io/blog/march-2022-to-june-2023/scottsdale-cake.jpg" alt="husband and wife with cake"/&gt;
  &lt;img class="img-horiz" style="width: 45%;" src="https://www.echevarria.io/blog/march-2022-to-june-2023/scottsdale-tables.jpg" alt="tables set up for a marriage celebration"/&gt;
&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;p&gt;My wife and I go to Scottsdale to celebrate our marriage with her family. Her parents put on a beautiful event in their home and backyard.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;We go to Tempe with my parents. I like it a &lt;em&gt;lot&lt;/em&gt; less than last time. It's noisy and full of people. I realize my I only liked it last November because it was empty, and I love empty cities.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Songs of the month: "Sunrise" by Young American Primitive, "Digital Arpeggios" by Percussions.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;iframe class="bandcamp-player" style="border: 0; width: 100%; height: 42px;" src="https://bandcamp.com/EmbeddedPlayer/album=1116396347/size=small/bgcol=ffffff/linkcol=0687f5/track=901399245/transparent=true/" seamless&gt;&lt;a href="https://youngamericanprimitive.bandcamp.com/album/young-american-primitive"&gt;Young American Primitive by Young American Primitive&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/iframe&gt;
&lt;iframe class="bandcamp-player" style="border: 0; width: 100%; height: 42px;" src="https://bandcamp.com/EmbeddedPlayer/track=3520133569/size=small/bgcol=ffffff/linkcol=0687f5/transparent=true/" seamless&gt;&lt;a href="https://percussions.bandcamp.com/track/digital-arpeggios"&gt;Digital Arpeggios by Percussions&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/iframe&gt;

&lt;h2 id="may-2023"&gt;May 2023&lt;/h2&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;img alt="photograph of friends at dinner" src="https://www.echevarria.io/blog/march-2022-to-june-2023/friends-dinner.jpg" /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;My wife and I celebrate our marriage with some friends at a picnic, dinner, and lunch. The photo above captures the vibe of the dinner (rowdy) pretty well. Somebody takes a picture of their bare ass with an instant camera. I catch up with folks I haven't seen in several years. &lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;I scan a lot of photos afterward.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;img alt="photograph of my table as I scanned photos" src="https://www.echevarria.io/blog/march-2022-to-june-2023/scanning.jpg" /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;h2 id="june-2023"&gt;June 2023&lt;/h2&gt;
&lt;p&gt;I visit Portland and do one last little marriage celebration, a backyard barbecue with my Mom's family. My wife and I go to &lt;a href="https://www.instagram.com/parallelworldsbookshop/"&gt;Parallel Worlds&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href="https://www.instagram.com/melville_books"&gt;Melville Books&lt;/a&gt;. I pick up a copy of &lt;em&gt;A Canticle for Leibowitz&lt;/em&gt; and nearly finish it in a day. It's my favorite piece of fiction ever.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;With my newfound interest in Catholic monastic life via &lt;em&gt;Canticle&lt;/em&gt;, I come home and play &lt;a href="https://pentiment.obsidian.net/"&gt;Pentiment&lt;/a&gt; straight through in a weekend. It's great, it takes real advantage of the medium. And it doesn't have the tinge of being made for adolescents that most other games have.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;At work, I am refining a single design doc. It's not fun for a while, but then it becomes really fun: the most senior engineer at the firm gives an exceptionally thorough and rigorous review. Being forced to answer these questions gives me more confidence in my proposal. He approves the design. This is a highlight in my time at the firm.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;I enjoy my commute. I walk through a nice neighborhood to a train station, work on the train, walk through a nice neighborhood, and get to the office. I call friends on my walk home. I like the train (when it's not extremely and unpredictably delayed), and I like all the walking.&lt;/p&gt;</description>
    <pubDate>Sun, 16 Jul 2023 00:00:00 -0000</pubDate>
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    <title>Caltrain ridership</title>
    <description>&lt;p&gt;Caltrain's ridership numbers are a pain to get a hold of, so I made &lt;a href="https://caltrainridership.com"&gt;caltrainridership.com&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;If you go to Caltrain's official &lt;a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20220629064038/https://www.caltrain.com/about-caltrain/statistics-reports/ridership"&gt;ridership page&lt;/a&gt;, you get links to three different sources, only one of which, the Caltrain Board of Directors monthly meeting agendas, is up-to-date. Each agenda PDF has at most a year of ridership numbers, but some only have the actual average weekday ridership number for that specific month. The format has changed several times, so it's not even doable to programmatically extract ridership numbers. It shouldn't be this hard.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;So I read through old meeting agendas and found individual months' average weekday ridership back to July 2017. I dropped these numbers in a CSV which you can go get for yourself in the &lt;a href="https://github.com/iechevarria/caltrain-ridership"&gt;project GitHub repo&lt;/a&gt;. And I picked up the &lt;a href="https://caltrainridership.com"&gt;caltrainridership.com&lt;/a&gt; domain and made a little site with graphs and a table.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;It took effort to collect these numbers in the real world – distributing them should be the easy part. If Caltrain won't, I will.&lt;/p&gt;</description>
    <pubDate>Mon, 20 Feb 2023 00:00:00 -0000</pubDate>
    <link>blog/caltrain-ridership/index.html</link>
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    <title>Bill and Ted and what art is for</title>
    <description>&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure&lt;/em&gt; is funny, stylish, and imaginative. I think it's close to perfect. It's also, at least in part, an ironic reflection on how ineffective art is as a tool for social change.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;The film ends with a character explaining how Bill and Ted's band shapes the course of history:&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p class="quote"&gt;
"Wyld Stallyns' music has become the foundation of our whole society... eventually your music will help put an end to war and poverty. It will align the planets and bring them into universal harmony, allowing meaningful contact with all forms of life, from extraterrestrial beings to common household pets. And... it's excellent for dancing."
&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;It's so overblown – aligning the planets? The hyperbole is funny on its face. But this absurd grandeur also invites us to consider the real ambitions of those who forgot that art &lt;a href="http://mason.gmu.edu/~rnanian/Auden-InMemoryofYeats.html"&gt;makes nothing happen&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Recent history is littered with such failure. Kurt Vonnegut said this about artists' efforts to stop the Vietnam War:&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p class="quote"&gt;
"[E]very artist worth a damn in this country, every serious writer, painter, stand-up comedian, musician, actor and actress, you name it, came out against [our war in Vietnam]. We formed what might be described as a laser beam of protest, with everybody aimed in the same direction, focused and intense. This weapon proved to have the power of a banana-cream pie three feet in diameter when dropped from a stepladder five-feet high."
&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;If your highest priority is solving a concrete problem like hunger or poverty, art is the wrong tool. "[P]oems and pictures cannot by themselves save anyone." &lt;a href="https://www.echevarria.io/blog/bill-and-ted-on-art/index.html#note-1"&gt;[1]&lt;/a&gt; At some point, you need to actually move food or money or whatever else.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;None of this is to say that art is useless or not worthwhile &lt;a href="https://www.echevarria.io/blog/bill-and-ted-on-art/index.html#note-2"&gt;[2]&lt;/a&gt;. Others have written better than I can about art's value &lt;a href="https://www.echevarria.io/blog/bill-and-ted-on-art/index.html#note-3"&gt;[3]&lt;/a&gt;, but put simply, art reveals beauty that clarifies life, and it helps us endure. The best art is made with knowledge of its power – and its limits.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;br&gt;
&lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;[1]&lt;i id="note-1"&gt; Robert Adams in his essay Photographing Evil&lt;/i&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;[2]&lt;i id="note-2"&gt; I'm writing this because of how seriously I take art, not because I want to diminish it.&lt;/i&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;[3]&lt;i id="note-3"&gt; Robert Adams's book &lt;a href="https://aperture.org/books/beauty-in-photography/"&gt;Beauty in Photography&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href="https://github.com/iechevarria/reading-notes/blob/master/2021/beauty-in-photography-adams-1981.md"&gt;(my notes)&lt;/a&gt; contains my favorite writing about art's purpose and limits.&lt;/i&gt;&lt;/p&gt;</description>
    <pubDate>Sun, 01 May 2022 00:00:00 -0000</pubDate>
    <link>blog/bill-and-ted-on-art/index.html</link>
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    <title>February 2022</title>
    <description>&lt;p&gt;I spent many of my weekends and evenings working on the Data Structures for Storage and Retrieval module of the &lt;a href="https://bradfieldcs.com/csi/"&gt;Bradfield CSI&lt;/a&gt;. I think this may have been my favorite yet. Unlike your typical data structures class, the Bradfield one focused on practical applications of data structures and is centered around implementing a key-value database from scratch. In the process, I learned about skip lists, SSTables, and Bloom filters.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;h2 id="vacuuming"&gt;Vacuuming&lt;/h2&gt;
&lt;p&gt;I don't like sweeping, so looked for and bought a vacuum that does a good job with hard floor pickup. In the process of searching, I fell deep into the rabbit hole of vacuum YouTube. Some videos have vacuum reviewers running vacuums through precise and reproducible vacuum tests. Others have vacuum enthusiasts demonstrating old vacuums and lecturing about vacuum history.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;It's all amazing. The enthusiasm is contagious. I had tickets for a concert on one Friday night, but I stayed home and skipped it because I wanted to read about vacuums instead.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;I ended up with a Dyson V7 with a fluffy cleaner head, and I've been really enjoying it.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;h2 id="watching"&gt;Watching&lt;/h2&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure&lt;/em&gt; was excellent, and it was a more cutting satire I was expecting. I think it's extremely pessimistic about art's ability to change the world, a perspective I'm sympathetic to. I intend to write more about this.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;I also saw &lt;em&gt;La La Land&lt;/em&gt; for the first time this month. I initially thought it was a story about weak-willed people and that if the two leads were so in love, they should have made more of an effort to be together. But my girlfriend changed my mind a bit by pointing out how short-lived the central relationship is and that the movie sort of subverts the typical Hollywood romance.&lt;/p&gt;</description>
    <pubDate>Tue, 08 Mar 2022 00:00:00 -0000</pubDate>
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    <title>Bradfield School of Computer Science is phenomenal</title>
    <description>&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Nobody asked me to write this, and I don't benefit materially from you joining.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Choosing to take courses at &lt;a href="https://bradfieldcs.com/"&gt;Bradfield School of Computer Science&lt;/a&gt; is probably the best decision I've made for my career and my craft. If you're a software engineer, you should consider applying.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;This is a loose collection of thoughts about my time in the &lt;a href="https://bradfieldcs.com/csi/"&gt;Computer Science Intensive (CSI)&lt;/a&gt; and at Bradfield generally. I wrote this to make a slightly more personal case for taking courses at Bradfield and to fill in some gaps in existing information. If you're totally unfamiliar with Bradfield, go read the &lt;a href="https://bradfieldcs.com/"&gt;official site&lt;/a&gt; first.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Contents:&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;ul&gt;
&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href="https://www.echevarria.io/blog/bradfield-is-phenomenal/index.html#my-background-and-why-i-started-taking-bradfield-courses"&gt;My background and why I started taking Bradfield courses&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href="https://www.echevarria.io/blog/bradfield-is-phenomenal/index.html#who-takes-bradfield-courses"&gt;Who takes Bradfield courses?&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href="https://www.echevarria.io/blog/bradfield-is-phenomenal/index.html#quality-of-instruction"&gt;Quality of instruction&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href="https://www.echevarria.io/blog/bradfield-is-phenomenal/index.html#workload"&gt;Workload&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href="https://www.echevarria.io/blog/bradfield-is-phenomenal/index.html#value-in-interviews"&gt;Value in interviews&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href="https://www.echevarria.io/blog/bradfield-is-phenomenal/index.html#value-on-the-job"&gt;Value on the job&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href="https://www.echevarria.io/blog/bradfield-is-phenomenal/index.html#community"&gt;Community&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href="https://www.echevarria.io/blog/bradfield-is-phenomenal/index.html#money"&gt;Money&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href="https://www.echevarria.io/blog/bradfield-is-phenomenal/index.html#accreditation"&gt;Accreditation&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href="https://www.echevarria.io/blog/bradfield-is-phenomenal/index.html#other-students-reviews-of-bradfield"&gt;Other students' reviews of Bradfield&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href="https://www.echevarria.io/blog/bradfield-is-phenomenal/index.html#closing-thoughts"&gt;Closing thoughts&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;/ul&gt;
&lt;h2 id="my-background-and-why-i-started-taking-bradfield-courses"&gt;My background and why I started taking Bradfield courses&lt;/h2&gt;
&lt;p&gt;I studied computer science and math at &lt;a href="https://www.wm.edu/"&gt;William &amp;amp; Mary&lt;/a&gt;, a public university in Virginia. I did well in school – I graduated &lt;em&gt;summa cum laude&lt;/em&gt;, was inducted into Phi Beta Kappa, and got a computer science department award.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;But I graduated with a lot of gaps in my computer science knowledge. I couldn't tell you how a computer physically operated, or how a database worked, or what an operating system's responsibilities were, or anything at all about computer networks. Some of this was because I was unlucky with course selection. The bigger reason is that I didn't absorb as much because I was learning to program at the same time I was learning computer science. These are different skills. Fighting to get a grip on language syntax and conventions occupied most of my attention.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;After a few years of work, I was a much better programmer, but I started feeling the gaps in my computer science knowledge more acutely. I wondered why my code was slow and didn't have a good answer. I found out about Bradfield, and I signed up for a standalone course. It was more than I hoped it would be. I’ve now taken three standalone courses, and as of writing, I'm three modules into the CSI (about 1/3 of the way through). &lt;/p&gt;
&lt;h2 id="who-takes-bradfield-courses"&gt;Who takes Bradfield courses?&lt;/h2&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Students at Bradfield come from a broad range of backgrounds. Most are people who did coding bootcamps and have been working for at least a few years. Others studied computer science at university – some of my classmates at Bradfield have undergraduate degrees from the best computer science departments in the world. All of my classmates have gotten enormous value from Bradfield, I think in approximately equal measure.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;h2 id="quality-of-instruction"&gt;Quality of instruction&lt;/h2&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Oz and Elliott, the instructors at Bradfield, are phenomenal teachers. Their knowledge of the subject matter is encyclopedic, but they also take teaching seriously as its own skill. Oz seems to read a lot of pedagogical theory (though he says not &lt;em&gt;too much&lt;/em&gt; &lt;a href="https://www.echevarria.io/blog/bradfield-is-phenomenal/index.html#note"&gt;[1]&lt;/a&gt;), and Elliott continuously hones his courses. &lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;The most important thing that Oz and Elliott teach is a mindset: that everything on a computer is knowable with a bit of effort. Need to figure out what's going on with a network? Open &lt;a href="https://www.wireshark.org/"&gt;Wireshark&lt;/a&gt; and capture some packets. Not sure what a certain system call is doing? Check the &lt;a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man_page"&gt;man page&lt;/a&gt;. Don't know how to use a protocol? Read the &lt;a href="https://www.rfc-editor.org/"&gt;RFC&lt;/a&gt;. Want to figure out how this language feature works? Go to the source code. When a student asks something and the instructor says "huh, I don't know," they find out and in the process show the rest of us how to answer our own questions.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;A small list of other things I like about instruction at Bradfield:&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;ul&gt;
&lt;li&gt;A strong emphasis on learning by doing. Most class pre-work involves a hands-on exercise.&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Historical motivation as a teaching method. The instructors will take us back to a historical context and ask us how we'd solve a problem to help us understand how the world ended up as it is.&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Tangents/rants. Get ready to hear about how programmers ought to be more like woodworkers and make more of their own tools, why the space / time complexity tradeoff is kind of a lie, and why microservices are not a great fit for most organizations.&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;/ul&gt;
&lt;h2 id="workload"&gt;Workload&lt;/h2&gt;
&lt;p&gt;The CSI workload is heavy, there's no getting around that. You have two to three hour classes twice a week plus optional hour-long check-ins. Every class has pre-work. Expect to spend ten hours a week on CSI at minimum.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Should you join CSI, you should expect to fall behind at some point. Don't let it psych you out. Keep showing up to class. Oz and Elliott won't get mad at you.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;If you're thorough, you can easily spend as much time on Bradfield as you do at a full-time job. It's absolutely not necessary, though – I only say this because some people in my cohort did this for a few months.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;h2 id="value-in-interviews"&gt;Value in interviews&lt;/h2&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Taking Bradfield courses makes you a stronger candidate when interviewing for jobs. Some of my classmates have interviewed for jobs at level &lt;em&gt;X&lt;/em&gt; and done so well that they received offers at level &lt;em&gt;X&lt;/em&gt; + 1. I got offers that previously would have been unattainable.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;An example: I interviewed at an autonomous vehicle company last year. One of my interviewers was clearly perplexed when our session started and said outright that someone must have made a mistake. I had professionally only worked with Python, and his interview was about high-performance systems. "What's a Python programmer doing here," he said.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;I said that while my experience was only Python and that I liked Python, I did care about performance and I understood why Python was slow. He said, fine, explain. So I used what I learned in Bradfield: I talked about how cache utilization in Python is bad for a few reasons (pointer-heavy data structures, everything is an object so takes more space, etc.). I was able to rattle off latency numbers to argue why this was so harmful.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;My interviewer’s demeanor changed completely. “It’s unusual for a Python programmer to think about caches at all.” He tested my knowledge a bit more, but the rest of the interview felt more like a friendly conversation than an interrogation. I had a great time, and I ended up with a good offer.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;I don’t think I would have passed this interview if not for my time at Bradfield. I was able to speak comfortably and confidently because I put the work in at Bradfield. I did the reading, and more importantly, the exercises, and that gave me a strong intuition for this stuff.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;None of this is to say that you can just sign up for Bradfield and never have to study Leetcode-style problems again, but it makes you a lot stronger for everything else.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;h2 id="value-on-the-job"&gt;Value on the job&lt;/h2&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Bradfield's biggest benefit for me on the job has been simply having confidence that everything on a computer is knowable with a bit of effort. I can't give a dramatic example like I can with interviewing because real work isn't like interviewing, but I can tell you I'm faster and more capable, and that I have stronger engineering instincts.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;There are some benefits more immediately related to class material. Just last week, I debugged some microservices by reading network activity directly. One of my classmates sped up a critical process by at least a factor of 2 (maybe a lot more?) by applying knowledge straight from a course. Another upgraded his whole company from HTTP/1.1 to HTTP/2.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;h2 id="community"&gt;Community&lt;/h2&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Bradfield is the community of programmers I've been searching for. Students at Bradfield are serious in a low-ego, genuinely-trying-to-help-each-other way. It's energizing to be around other people with so much enthusiasm for the subject matter. I like being around everyone in my cohort without exception.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;I've tried joining other programming communities in the past, but they weren't what I was looking for. I found an undercurrent of insecurity and sweat that ruined the vibes for me. There's none of that at Bradfield.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;h2 id="money"&gt;Money&lt;/h2&gt;
&lt;p&gt;The year-long CSI is $19,500. The shorter 9-week course, &lt;a href="https://bradfieldcs.com/courses/ssba/"&gt;Software Systems: Behind the Abstractions&lt;/a&gt;, is $3,600. Either is worth it, easily. Sure, that's nothing to sneeze at, but it's cheap for what you get.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;I'm confident that if the CSI's price tag feels like too much, the program can get you to a place career-wise where it doesn't. Many students in CSI cohorts switch jobs, and some make twice as much as they did before. Recently, one quadrupled his income. I paid for CSI with a fraction of the signing bonus I got when I joined my current employer – a job I got thanks in large part to Bradfield courses.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Obligatory disclaimer: the labor market is unusually hot right now so maybe don't count on doubling your income next year, but maybe don't count it out either.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;h2 id="accreditation"&gt;Accreditation&lt;/h2&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Bradfield is not an accredited school. I think you can get a certificate of completion if you ask for one? I don't know, whatever. That's not why you do Bradfield. You do Bradfield to attain mastery, to actually get better in real life. You do Bradfield because &lt;a href="https://twitter.com/oznova_/status/1479254530470518786"&gt;this stuff works&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Seriously, though, we're lucky to work in an industry that &lt;a href="https://ozwrites.com/masters/"&gt;cares less about credentials than most others&lt;/a&gt;. There's some advantage to having a formal degree in computer science, but that largely ends after you get your first job.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;h2 id="other-students-reviews-of-bradfield"&gt;Other students' reviews of Bradfield&lt;/h2&gt;
&lt;p&gt;You don't just take it from me that Bradfield is great – other students have written even more thorough accounts of their time at Bradfield:&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;ul&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Rohan wrote &lt;a href="https://gist.github.com/RP-3/67c77a81274ba6ad4db9e27af8d014cc"&gt;My experience of the Bradfield Computer Science Intensive&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Julius wrote &lt;a href="https://gist.github.com/rouxcaesar/9eced2261681efc268789f3fb2c8f958"&gt;My Thoughts on Bradfield&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Clifford wrote &lt;a href="https://gist.github.com/cliffordfajardo/03e580083a3b497e48fa52bfe3d6c04b"&gt;My Experience at Bradfield CS&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;/ul&gt;
&lt;h2 id="closing-thoughts"&gt;Closing thoughts&lt;/h2&gt;
&lt;p&gt;If you're a software engineer, you'll likely benefit tremendously from courses at Bradfield. This stuff works.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;If you have questions about Bradfield, you should reach out to them via their contact information on the &lt;a href="https://bradfieldcs.com/"&gt;Bradfield website&lt;/a&gt;. If you're looking for a student perspective, I'm happy to answer any questions via email at &lt;a href="https://www.echevarria.io/mailto:ivan@echevarria.io"&gt;ivan@echevarria.io&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;br&gt;
&lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;[1]&lt;i id="note"&gt;
Oz disputes that he read a lot on pedagogy: "[F]or the record, I don’t read up a whole bunch on pedagogy (some people *really* go overboard) but I do read some and do try to get actively better at teaching so I guess it’s the same sentiment :)"
&lt;/i&gt;&lt;/p&gt;</description>
    <pubDate>Sun, 06 Feb 2022 00:00:00 -0000</pubDate>
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    <title>January 2022</title>
    <description>&lt;p&gt;January was fun. I published a &lt;a href="https://www.echevarria.io/blog/the-matrix-looks-different-hulu-hbo-max/index.html"&gt;blog post about streaming versions of the Matrix&lt;/a&gt;, and it unexpectedly blew up. I got a ton of traffic from Google – I'm still not quite sure what people were searching for that brought them to my site. A Japanese website published &lt;a href="https://gigazine.net/news/20220108-matrix-hulu-hbo-max-color/"&gt;a translation&lt;/a&gt; and called me a computer scientist. Delightful.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;I also continued the &lt;a href="https://bradfieldcs.com/csi/"&gt;Bradfield CSI&lt;/a&gt;. January covered computer networking, and it was, as Bradfield always is, excellent. I'm very eagerly looking forward to February's module: data structures for storage and retrieval.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;h2 id="reading"&gt;Reading&lt;/h2&gt;
&lt;p&gt;The &lt;a href="https://leadelimination.org/"&gt;Lead Exposure Elimination Project&lt;/a&gt; published &lt;a href="https://leadelimination.org/annual-review-2020-21/"&gt;a review of their first year&lt;/a&gt;. Such incredible progress! I encourage you to &lt;a href="https://leadelimination.org/donate/"&gt;donate&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href="https://www.noemamag.com/chinas-inclusive-authoritarianism/"&gt;China's Inclusive Authoritarianism&lt;/a&gt; was a super interesting article about the way China's authoritarian surveillance state actually makes it more democratically responsive to its citizens. I think it's bad to be an authoritarian surveillance state (hot take, I know), but it's plausible citizens could become attached because of the real utility they get from it. In the past year, I've become interested in understanding how systems that harm people still have appeal and utility. I've mostly focused on neoliberal capitalism from the 1970s until COVID, but this lens is fruitful when looking at present-day China too.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href="https://moxie.org/stories/money-machine/"&gt;The Money Machine&lt;/a&gt; is a short anecdote about when the winning move is not to play. &lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href="https://palladiummag.com/2022/01/06/quit-your-job/"&gt;Quit Your Job&lt;/a&gt; makes me want to quit my job. Not soon, but someday.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;h2 id="watching"&gt;Watching&lt;/h2&gt;
&lt;p&gt;I did my annual get-HBO-for-a-month-and-then-cancel in mid-December, so I watched some HBO shows.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;How To with John Wilson&lt;/em&gt; season 2 was more &lt;em&gt;How To with John Wilson&lt;/em&gt;, so it was great. The episode about Bang Energy drink was the highlight of the season for me.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Succession&lt;/em&gt; was okay. Maybe just stick to season 1? After finishing season 3, I was hit with an inescapable feeling that I had wasted a lot of time. The &lt;a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/12/13/on-succession-jeremy-strong-doesnt-get-the-joke"&gt;New Yorker article about how weird actor Jeremy Strong is&lt;/a&gt; is a lot more compelling than the show itself.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;h2 id="listening"&gt;Listening&lt;/h2&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Vegyn released  &lt;a href="https://vegyn.bandcamp.com/album/dont-follow-me-because-im-lost-too"&gt;Don't Follow Me Because I'm Lost Too!!&lt;/a&gt;, and I listened to it all the way through as soon as it came out. It made my day. Here's one of the many tracks I liked:&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;iframe class="bandcamp-player" style="border: 0; width: 100%; height: 42px;" src="https://bandcamp.com/EmbeddedPlayer/album=3767420141/size=small/bgcol=ffffff/linkcol=0687f5/track=3027248650/transparent=true/" seamless&gt;&lt;a href="https://vegyn.bandcamp.com/album/dont-follow-me-because-im-lost-too"&gt;Don&amp;#39;t Follow Me Because I&amp;#39;m Lost Too!! by Vegyn&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/iframe&gt;</description>
    <pubDate>Sat, 05 Feb 2022 00:00:00 -0000</pubDate>
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    <title>The Matrix looks dramatically different on Hulu versus on HBO Max</title>
    <description>&lt;p&gt;&lt;img alt="Comparison of HBO Max and Hulu " src="https://www.echevarria.io/blog/the-matrix-looks-different-hulu-hbo-max/split.jpg" /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;div class="img-note"&gt;Hulu on the left, HBO Max on the right&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;p class="note"&gt;
&lt;b&gt;Hulu stopped streaming &lt;i&gt;The Matrix&lt;/i&gt; on January 1, 2022.&lt;/b&gt; You can stream &lt;i&gt;The Matrix&lt;/i&gt; with an HBO Max subscription, or you can pay to rent it from your service of choice.
&lt;br&gt;
&lt;br&gt;
It seems like a lot of you are searching "the matrix hulu" and ending up on this page. This was not my goal. But this is what happened, so I figured I'd give you the information you're actually looking for.
&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;HBO Max has &lt;em&gt;The Matrix&lt;/em&gt; (1999) available for streaming, and Hulu did until a day or two ago, but their respective versions look very different.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;The Matrix&lt;/em&gt; already has a history of extreme variation across versions. The initial DVD release had a neutral-warm color palette while the 2008 Blu-ray added a heavy green cast to match the sequels. &lt;em&gt;The Matrix&lt;/em&gt;'s 2018 UHD Blu-ray release apparently hews closer to how the film looked in theaters with a more purple-blue tint &lt;a href="https://www.echevarria.io/blog/the-matrix-looks-different-hulu-hbo-max/index.html#note"&gt;[1]&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Now it seems that this version fragmentation extends to streaming releases. The Hulu version had a strong green cast, and I suspect it used the 2008 Blu-ray version at its source. Meanwhile, the HBO Max version is more purple and blue, so it seems likely that it came from the 2018 UHD Blu-ray.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Here are some comparisons with the HBO Max version on top and the Hulu version on the bottom:&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;img class="img-really-no-pad" src="https://www.echevarria.io/blog/the-matrix-looks-different-hulu-hbo-max/hbo6.jpg" alt="Screenshot of The Matrix from HBO Max"/&gt;
&lt;img alt="Screenshot of The Matrix from Hulu" src="https://www.echevarria.io/blog/the-matrix-looks-different-hulu-hbo-max/hulu6.jpg" /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;The Hulu version's heavy green tint is apparent in this comparison. This is fairly representative of the versions' differences across the entire film.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;img class="img-really-no-pad" src="https://www.echevarria.io/blog/the-matrix-looks-different-hulu-hbo-max/hbo7.jpg" alt="Screenshot of The Matrix from HBO Max"/&gt;
&lt;img alt="Screenshot of The Matrix from Hulu" src="https://www.echevarria.io/blog/the-matrix-looks-different-hulu-hbo-max/hulu7.jpg" /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Outdoor scenes in daylight get a little weird.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;In the shot above, you can see the green tint in Hulu's version, but you can also see that highlights roll off more gracefully. On the HBO Max version, Smith's forehead and the woman's blouse in the background are so bright that they lose definition.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;img class="img-really-no-pad" src="https://www.echevarria.io/blog/the-matrix-looks-different-hulu-hbo-max/hbo2.jpg" alt="Screenshot of The Matrix from HBO Max"/&gt;
&lt;img alt="Screenshot of The Matrix from Hulu" src="https://www.echevarria.io/blog/the-matrix-looks-different-hulu-hbo-max/hulu2.jpg" /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Again, the HBO Max version's highlights are way too bright, and the shadows on the building building's roof take on a too-bright cyan color. Hulu's version again has a green cast and controls its highlights better.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;img class="img-really-no-pad" src="https://www.echevarria.io/blog/the-matrix-looks-different-hulu-hbo-max/hbo3.jpg" alt="Screenshot of The Matrix from HBO Max"/&gt;
&lt;img alt="Screenshot of The Matrix from Hulu" src="https://www.echevarria.io/blog/the-matrix-looks-different-hulu-hbo-max/hulu3.jpg" /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Another outdoor shot shows overcooked highlights on Neo's forehead in HBO Max's version while Hulu's handles them fine.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;The over-bright highlights on the HBO Max version makes me think there may have been an error in how the file was created for streaming. It looks like someone took an HDR image and did a bad conversion. Or maybe the HBO Max's version of &lt;em&gt;The Matrix&lt;/em&gt; looks great on a super high-end HDR display, and nobody tested it on more typical consumer devices.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Even if you ignore the highlights conundrum, you're still left with the problem that &lt;em&gt;The Matrix&lt;/em&gt; varies by streaming service. Some people genuinely like the green cast of the 2008 Blu-ray. Others want something closer to how it looked in theaters. When you steam &lt;em&gt;The Matrix&lt;/em&gt;, you don't know which version you're going to get, and that stinks.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;br&gt;
&lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;[1]&lt;i id="note"&gt;
&lt;a href="https://youtu.be/KEdgmNZnLs4"&gt;This video&lt;/a&gt; goes into more detail about the history of Matrix remasters.
&lt;/i&gt;&lt;/p&gt;</description>
    <pubDate>Sun, 02 Jan 2022 00:00:00 -0000</pubDate>
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