Grab an Uncrustable and settle in for the newest episode of The Dev Morning Show (At Night)! This episode features an interview with Christina Zhu, Software Engineer at Square. Christina is a conference speaker, tech enthusiast, and she founded her university’s hackathon, HackDavis. In this episode, Cassidy and Zach sit down with Christina to discuss the importance of asking for help, Myspace, and Pokémon.
Grab an Uncrustable and settle in for the newest episode of The Dev Morning Show (At Night)! This episode features an interview with Christina Zhu, Software Engineer at Square. Christina is a conference speaker, tech enthusiast, and she founded her university’s hackathon, HackDavis.
In this episode, Cassidy and Zach sit down with Christina to discuss the importance of asking for help, Myspace, and Pokémon.
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Episode Timestamps:
(06:41): What Christina’s day-to-day looks like
(07:58): What editors and terminals Christina uses
(09:16): What got Christina into the industry
(14:59): Rapid Fire Questions
(24:49): Random Segment Generator
(35:10): Cassidy’s Sage Advice
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“I think the most important thing that I've actually learned over the years is just learning how to ask for help after a certain point. If you have the resource of having really smart people around you, the fastest way to learn is actually by reaching out and asking for their advice.” – Christina Zhu
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Links:
The Dev Morning Show (At Night) YouTube Page
Cassidy Williams: Welcome to the Dev Morning Show (At Night). My name is Cassidy Williams and I am your host, and I am accompanied by my lovely co-host, Zach. Hey, Zach.
Zach Plata: Hey, Cass. I have a question for you. What is, how do you feel about Pineapple On Pizza?
Cassidy Williams: Great question. You know, I like it. It is not my first choice, but I will eat it if it's given to me.
Zach Plata: I appreciate that
answer, .
Cassidy Williams: Yeah. Also, I have a fun fact for you today. Oh, okay. Did you know that king salmon are the largest species of salmon and can weigh up to 129 pounds? A fish? A fish, a normal salmon? I do. People eat these? They do. They're delicious.
Zach Plata: Oh, well, the more you know .
Cassidy Williams: Speaking of amazing things, we have a guest today that I'm very excited to bring on.
Christina. Hello. Christina Zhu is a software engineer at Square. Welcome.
Christina Zhu: Hello. Hello. I am excited. Excited to be here.
Cassidy Williams: I'm so glad. Did you know that about the king salmon?
Christina Zhu: No, that's shocking. But as a salmon lover, it's always, you know, a good news to hear about more salmon. Being available for my consumption.
same.
Cassidy Williams: I feel like whenever I've gone out to sushi, it's basically just the salmon show with Cassidy and like other things are good, but salmon top tier.
Christina Zhu: I agree.
Zach Plata: Is this the one that tastes like chicken? I'm not a seafood person,
Cassidy Williams: no. Oh, it's just a salmon.
Christina Zhu: It is. Which fish are you talking about? , I think too
Zach Plata: is the chicken.
You know how people are
Christina Zhu: like, Oh yeah, it taste like
Cassidy Williams: chicken. Do call with the chicken of the sea. Yeah. Hmm. Never really thought of it that way. Well, huh. Anyway, . Anyway. Christina, what are you working on right now, ?
Christina Zhu: Um, um, there's actually, uh, two things that I'm working on right now. So first, um, recently set up my desk, so I really want one of those, you know, really cool e girl streaming.
Light activated, light panel things, you know, so they can play music.
Cassidy Williams: I love those things. Yes. And you know,
Christina Zhu: it's, it's so great. Have a little rave in my room, so, um, looking into like the different setups I could have and the configuration, so that's really exciting. Um, the other thing I'm working on is getting better at this game called Valant.
Um, Oh, you're one of those? Yes, I know of those, but, um, so it's my first shooting game. Wow. So what that means is that I'm terrible at it, , and I'm actually in the bottom 5% of players, you know, So I'm, I'm pretty, pretty rare in that regard. You know, I talked to a couple of my friends about it and they were like, Wow, Christina, like, it's actually amazing that you got placed in iron because, you know, I was trying.
Make another account so I could play with my little, little friends. I threw every match on purpose. died a lot, you know, lost as hard as I could. I still got placed in gold. So, you know, it's . It's really impressive that you still somehow got placed in iron and you were trying and I was like, Thank you. I guess so what a compliment.
I know it really warms your heart. So, yeah, I've been, um, trying to get out of iron and maybe, you know, get into bronze by the end of the year. Ooh. .
Cassidy Williams: Wow. Yeah. That, that is a tough thing to learn. My first shooting game was Fortnite, and I still play it. I'm still not that good. But you gotta like, catch up to all the people who've been playing shooters like their whole lives.
Christina Zhu: Yeah. Yeah. I definitely, um, had motion sickness when I first started, so. Oh, oh yeah. Yeah. Um, I don't get motion sick anymore. . I'm still terrible. So there's still still some stuff to work on. Yeah, that's okay.
Cassidy Williams: Zach, did you play a bunch of shooters? I,
Zach Plata: not much, honestly. I, Fortnite is probably the most recent one I can remember playing with, and it's like I am also horrible.
As soon as I see someone like doing the building thing, I run away. I'm like, panic. It's not happening today.
Cassidy Williams: I really like what I call the bush strategy. You just hide in a bush and then eventually you'll be in like the top 20 and that's when you can start to panic and try to
Zach Plata: try to actually
Christina Zhu: I do like that strategy.
Have you guys ever gotten, Um, first? Yes. Wow. I know that must have been a rush.
Cassidy Williams: It took a very long time to get to that point though. Like embarrassingly
Christina Zhu: long. Was it the bush, The
Cassidy Williams: bush? 100. So, okay, I'm going to paint you a picture. I know that we have like technical things to talk about, but this, this was a time where my sister and I were playing.
Neither of us were very good because we didn't grow up with shooters and it was winter and. Because it was winter, they had these outfits where you could hide as a snowman on the map. Hmm. It was very cute, very fun. And there's a point where we were just like, What if we hidden the snowmen and just stayed as still as possible?
And there came a point where we realized, oh my gosh, it's just us and one other person, . Like everybody. Everybody was just shooting around us and didn't realize that we were hiding right there. And we were just screaming, holding our controllers. And then eventually we're. This is it. We have to actually play.
And so we both jumped out and just were screaming, smashing the button, and we won. And it was the biggest rush I'll ever feel.
Zach Plata: That's amazing. I wish I was there to see that. I can just imagine you both in a room just like panicking and just Yeah.
Cassidy Williams: Scrambling. There was so much screaming. Yeah. Meanwhile, like.
My husband was there in the room and he was just like, You guys aren't even playing. This is the most stupid thing I've ever seen. And we're like, Oh, but we're hiding .
Christina Zhu: They were like natural snowmen spawned on the landscape as
Cassidy Williams: well? Yes. Oh, I see. So that's why it was particularly sneaky. We hid amongst the real snowmen.
Amazing. Yeah. Good stuff. Speaking of amazing things, we have an ad. The
Zach Plata: Dev Morning Show (At Night) is a sponsored podcast, means someone has to pay the bills around here we're sponsored by LaunchDarkly. And LaunchDarkly is the first scalable feature management platform. That means dev teams can innovate and get better software to customers faster.
How? By gradually releasing new software features and shipping code whenever. Fast tracking their journeys to the cloud and building stronger relationships with business. Thanks for the money
Christina Zhu: launched darkly. So
Cassidy Williams: anyway, Christina, outside of Valor and setting up your desk, what does your day-to-day look like?
Christina Zhu: So I usually wake up, um, I'm tired, so I have that morning coffee so I can be tired with a faster heart rate. Yes. And then after that, you know, it gets started with work. , Um, just do some coding, open up all my stuff, get in the zone. I have a whole ritual. I have spray all my air plants, I open the windows.
Mm-hmm. , I take my vitamin D pills. Um, Wow. You know, and then I opened up my IDs, you know, check in with my coworkers and, you know, just do whatever needs to be done that day. So usually, usually some coding, um, which is pretty fun. And then, um, after that, . Um, you know, if I feel like treating myself, I'll go get a chicken sandwich from Popeye's, you know.
Nice. A special occasion. Yes, Yes. With the, with the, um, biscuits. Wow. What a treat. I know. Um, after that it's usually just a personal project time or, you know, hanging out with friends. Um, besides that, you know, just pretty normal I think software engineering stuff. A lot of coffee, a lot of code. Yeah,
Zach Plata: I feel that.
And so during your work day, or when are your, like working on your personal projects, Like what kind of tools do you use? Um, on the daily, like editor or terminal or
Christina Zhu: whatever. Yeah. Um, So on my personal projects, um, I'm a boomer, so I use Adam, um, .
Cassidy Williams: Wow. You still,
Christina Zhu: isn't it dead? It's pretty dead, Yeah. . But it depends.
I think it depends on, you know, what I'm feeling nowadays, but, you know, I'm pretty used to it, you know, I have all my extensions on it. I have, you know, my custom color palette and everything, so it's just like nice and familiar. I bet I could, you know, upgrade to a different one nowadays, but it's, uh, that's just, uh, what I, who's got the time.
Exactly. Yeah. Vs. Code is really nice too. Um, I will say that. Yeah. Uh, as for terminal, I use it term two. Because couple years ago when I was in college, I read an article called How to Pimp Out Your Terminal. So , I followed all the instructions on it. Um, it was a Medium article and you know, just have a really sick eye term to, uh, terminal
Cassidy Williams: And you've never changed? I've never changed. I respect it. ? Yes. Honestly, I think I probably read a very similar article because I also haven't changed my I term setup. Five years. If it works, it works. Yeah. . Okay. So what got you into the industry in the
Christina Zhu: first place? Ooh, okay. So are we talking about, you know, the actual computer science, academic industry, or my first coding experience?
Because those two are like very far apart. I guess I can talk about both. So yeah, a little bit of both. Yeah. My first coding experience was, uh, playing neo pets when I was seven or eight years old and, you know, Nice. We really had to make our pet pages, um, as swanky as possible. so learned a lot as css? Yes.
All that. So much CSS and html. I didn't know it was like considered coding at the time because I was just like, I need to have. 40 pixel wide, you know, cursor for whoever visits my page and be as obnoxious as possible. Um, lots
Cassidy Williams: of my space too. Yeah, that's a massive cursor for the resolution
Christina Zhu: screens back then too.
I know, but like, you know, when. When you're playing neo pets and you're eight years old and you manage to get a fairy paintbrush and paint your pet, you know, to a fair better, have a matching fairy cursor. You know what I mean?
Zach Plata: So that is a flex, if I've ever heard one that
Cassidy Williams: is actually a massive flex.
Those paint brushes were expensive. Mm-hmm. ,
Christina Zhu: they were, I actually, uh, managed finally to, uh, get back into my Neo Pets account after being locked out, um, for like about a decade. . Um, I'd email Neo Pet support once a year, uh, to, I told my parents to see if they would ever reply, and eventually they replied.
It's because when I was, uh, when I was 10 years old, I was like, I'm not giving out my real birthday to these people. So I put a fake birthday. Oh. And I just forgot. I was just too smart for my own security. Good. Mm. Um, but I got back in so, so that, that was a good day. That's what matters. Yeah. But all my CSS and h team all don't work anymore.
Oh, that's a big sad gosh. But as for, uh, so besides that, like 10 years passed and I didn't do any coding. whatever, . Um, but so what happened was I went into college as a computer, uh, no, not as a computer science major. I went in as a business slash economics major. Mm. Yeah. So I was, you know, really into, um, doing these kind of like business proposals.
Program management stuff in high school. It was really fun. So I decided to go into college to study that, but it turns out I'm really bad at economics and I got like a C minus in Intro to Microeconomics. No. Yeah, it was really hard. It was so hard that like, I didn't know, like supply demand graphs like.
That was just really hard for me. But I did manage to get an A in intro to computer science, so I was like, hmm, yeah, and maybe I should switch over. So I went to, I'm going to follow my strengths. Yeah, I went to a couple hackathons and that's kind of what convinced me to switch over to computer science just cuz I had like such a blast at those events.
Um, and you know, the fact that I was just not that great at economics, so , so yeah.
Cassidy Williams: It's, it's good to know your strengths and weaknesses. I'm, I'm
Zach Plata: curious, like, how do you, how do you find out about hackathons when you're in college? I
Christina Zhu: think at the time I just joined this Facebook group called Hackathon Hackers.
Mm-hmm. . Yes. So good times. Good times indeed. Um, and it was just something that was advertised there a lot. Um, just posted on Facebook everywhere. So if you were. interacting with computer science at all during that time, like 20 17, 20 18, on Facebook, you'd probably get some exposure one way or another to hackathon.
That was really like
Cassidy Williams: the heyday of hackathons. Cuz I feel like when I was in school and, and Zach and I went to school together, there was a point where in our computer science club we had said, who here has been to hackathon? Two people had, and then even just a couple years later, three years later, like it felt like every single tech person had gone to hackathons or organized hackathons for their school or, or something.
They really exploded in that time.
Zach Plata: Everything was like advertised through that mlh. Oh yeah. Major
Cassidy Williams: league hacking company. Yeah. They're still thriving.
Zach Plata: Oh, that's amazing. Yeah. Yeah. I was always wondering like what would happen after. C or, Yeah, not after. During, Uh, virtual hackathons.
Christina Zhu: Virtual hackathons.
Guess Actually, Yeah. One to one. So the, Oh, yeah. One, the one I started at my university hack Davis. Um, I go back every year because it's fun. Um. and to, you know, eat the uc Davis food that I really miss. But, uh, but during Covid they moved to a more digital format, so they had a discord. And I was actually super impressed with, you know, how they set it up because they had like virtual rooms for teams to like huddle in and the whole like ticket messaging system with, from a bot that they built themselves.
And it was like, Incredibly smooth, incredibly, like well run for a digital one. And I was like, you know, this is like just as good as an in person one. So I was just really impressed with how That's awesome. Yeah, how they managed to switch so effortlessly to like a digital format. Um, so it was pretty cool.
Cassidy Williams: Yeah, I feel like a lot of tech people could really try their hands at event planning because of all of the, like apps and bots and things that we'll build to make an event run smoothly virtually at this rate. Because, kinda like what you said, the ticketing system, I've seen people make like banners for every single hack that's been made or, or the variety of discord channels and, and things.
It, it's a whole industry. It's, it's very. Okay, it is time for rapid fire questions.
We are going to ask you questions rapidly. So first of all, we all have domain names, project ideas that we are squatting on. What are yours?
Christina Zhu: Um, so I have one domain name and it's just my name. Um, respect. The project I am squatting on is I want a See through refrigerator. that tells me what's in my refrigerator because I, if I can't see what's inside it, I just forget it's there.
And that's how I accumulate, like, you know, a week's worth of lectures. , um, . I think someone's working on that though. So the, there are
Cassidy Williams: some with like the glass doors. Mm-hmm. . Yeah. They're just
Christina Zhu: so expensive. Yeah. And I know like there's some really like high tech refrigerators that have like a screen that like logs what's inside your fridge.
But I don't know how that technology works. It's very advanced. . Yeah. .
Zach Plata: Yes. That's fair. Um, what is the most recent thing you over optimized?
Christina Zhu: Right? So I'm sure you two are familiar with the concept of Uncrustables. Yes, Yes, yes. Delicious. Yes. But for those who are not, it is a frozen peanut butter and jelly sandwich that are like shaped like a circle and they do not have a crust and they are frozen.
So I think the regular way you're supposed to eat Uncrustables is, By putting them in the toast. Like a regular human being. I think you're right. Yes, yes, yes. Um, but for people who cannot wait three minutes for the toaster, I attempted to use the microwave, which is not great because then it explodes. I was gonna say,
Cassidy Williams: so it doesn't get like lava hot.
Christina Zhu: Yes. It gets la laha and also bursts from the seam. So I was like, there must be a better way. So there was one point in recent memory where I was wearing a hoodie and I got an uncrustable. And then I realized I was late for a meeting, so I put the Uncrustable in my hoodie pocket and ran to my meeting and I completely forgot the Uncrustable was there.
And then after my meeting was over, I remembered the Uncrustables there, but it had fo slightly and it was the perfect temperature and consistency. Wow. Right. It was still like kind of nice and chilly in the middle too. So. Hey, that is my new way of eating Uncrustables, where I just put it in a hoodie pocket and I forget.
And I thought slowly with my body heat. Um,
Zach Plata: Smuckers, I hope you're listening.
Christina Zhu: Yes. This should be on the box. This is very important.
Cassidy Williams: fund this idea. Wow. My favorite way of eating Uncrustables is putting it like frozen on top of a cup of tea, kind of like those Stroop waffles or whatever. Mm-hmm. . And then this steam from the tea heats up the
Christina Zhu: encrust.
No one actually toasts it. This is what I'm learning. Like no one, No one toasts. They're uncrustable like a normal human being.
Cassidy Williams: No. And then I told my mom about this, and she's like, Why can't you just make yourself a sandwich? And that's, She doesn't get it. She doesn't
Christina Zhu: understand . Yes. Uncrustables are in a whole nother league by themselves.
Cassidy Williams: Mm-hmm. . Best thing since sliced bread. Un crusted bread, frozen. Anyway. What is your golden rule for coding?
Christina Zhu: Um, I think the most important thing that I've actually learned over the years is, doesn't have to do like technical coding or like technical skill per se, but just learning how to ask for help after a certain point.
Mm-hmm. , which is definitely something that I've struggled with for it a lot because I didn't wanna seem stupid or I wanna figure things out by myself, but I realize, you know, if you have the resource of having like really smart people around you, the fastest way to learn is actually by, you know, reaching out and asking for their.
So for me, um, if you're stuck for more than an hour, I'd say try and ask someone who knows more than you. And I feel like that way you both can learn something. So yeah, that's great.
Zach Plata: What is your favorite? It depends.
Christina Zhu: Question. Okay. So this may be a little controversial, but it must be do like in and Out or Shake Shack better.
And I have to say it depends because I feel like personally they are in two different categories of Burger just by the price point. So you have to think about the Shake Shack Burger at the price point of $9 versus the in and out burger, the price point of $3. I feel like depending on what you're looking for, you know, it really truly depends what category of burger you are rating them from.
Like there's just no way to compare the. Yes, I agree with you
Cassidy Williams: completely. Mm-hmm. . Cause I, I do want them at different times. And this is also a very Californian question. I don't know. There, there might be people out there who haven't had in and out, it's a very good burger, but it's different from Shake Shack.
But they're both better than McDonald's, for
Christina Zhu: example. There is always a time and place for McDonald's though. True? Yes, very true. 1000%. Yes.
Cassidy Williams: Yes. I am loving it. . Thank you. Thank you very much,
So what is the oldest piece of tech that you still own?
Christina Zhu: Right, so I was going to say my game queue, but I recently remembered, well, recently as in 10 seconds ago, I remembered. The one thing I still own is the first iPod Shuffle ever, which wow is the size of a USB stick this big. There was no screen and it didn't have, um, I think it had four buttons like play, pause, forward, backwards, up and down, and I have no idea how I navigated that thing without a.
It was the size of a USB stick, and I remember I just, you know, put on Avro Levine, Lincoln Park mm-hmm. Put in my headphones mm-hmm. And just walk back and forth from middle school, you know, in my angst, my teenage angst. So , so I actually found it the other day, unfortunately, I forgot to bring it. But, um, yeah, it was, it was pretty ancient and I was really excited to have it because my sister had a walk.
I,
Cassidy Williams: Oh man. So yeah, that was an upgrade. Yeah, I, I do remember that time where it was like you would add a song to this iPod Shuffle, and you just had to keep hitting next and wait for it to come up, because if it was out of some order, then it was just gone in the ether of this
little
Christina Zhu: device. Yeah, you'd have to just keep looking for.
Zach Plata: I guess I never thought of it that way. Why? It was called iPod Shuffle. I did, yeah. I just assumed you could have your set order in iTunes or something, but
Cassidy Williams: like that makes sense. But if you messed something up, your music was just somewhere in there. .
Christina Zhu: Yeah. Like if you sorted your thoughts alphabetically, you just have to memorize you know, where each song was and just click, keep clicking cuz there were no screens back then.
They were really, truly living in the dark ages.
Cassidy Williams: Man. The mems, though they were such fun, colorful pieces too. Chuck has gotten very like gray and sleek, and I miss the colorful days.
Christina Zhu: Do you guys have the, uh, The max from like the computer labs in your childhood that were like rainbow jelly colored.
Cassidy Williams: So cool.
Oh yeah. So cool. It was only like in the special computer lab, right where they had those, The rest of 'em were just the giant C RT monitors and stuff.
Christina Zhu: Yeah, and you'd play like zoom beanies on them. Those were the days.
Cassidy Williams: Rip.
Zach Plata: All right. Moving on. gonna awkwardly transition. Um, have you written a piece of crunchy code and if so, what was
Christina Zhu: it? Yeah, I, I think, um, every, I feel like every developer has had that moment where they write so, and then they don't know why it works and it looks disgusting, but you realize if you remove it, everything would break.
So you have no choice what to put it in. Then you write a comment that says you shouldn't remove this because if you remove it, it will break. Right. And then you write an apology in the comment to, I'm sorry. Then you submit it for pr and then the pr, you try to explain yourself your terrible life choices to whoever you're doing it.
You say, I'm really sorry. I know this looks really bad, but I could figure out another way to do it. , can you just please approve this? And you know, we could maybe a senior engineer can look at it later. Feel like we all
Cassidy Williams: don't
Christina Zhu: look at me. Yeah, don't look at me. I hope no one else looks at this. Um, I feel like we've all had that piece of.
Cassidy Williams: Yeah. It, it's scarring, but it's a rite of passage, I think.
Christina Zhu: I mean, if it works in production. Cool.
Zach Plata: All right. Um, what is your most used emoji?
Christina Zhu: Ooh, okay. That's a, that's a great question. I am thinking my top seven emojis. Trying to remember which one is the least cringe . It's okay. We love the guys. They're all good.
Okay. Okay. So I, I think, um, my favorite, my favorite new emoji is the one where, where they're doing like the Yes sir. Salute. You know, I think that's fair. Yeah. The, it's a fairly recent one. Um, very flexible, can use it in many situations, Mostly sarcastic at your siblings, of course. At your parents, at your coworkers
Um, yeah, I, I think, uh, to use most recently, that's my most used one. Um, but besides that, I think I'm mostly sticking out with the classics, like a Heart, the Smile. Um, oh, and then another one of the new ones that I really like is like the big googly eyes. And you're smiling and there's tears in your eyes, you know?
Oh, yeah.
Cassidy Williams: Yeah, I know one.
Christina Zhu: That is definitely
Cassidy Williams: a mood. It is now time for the random segment generator.
A random segment is going to pop up and we're gonna roll with it. And the first one is dev. Opposites. What do you do outside of your day job? We already know about Valant, but what else during.
Christina Zhu: Like many other people, I decided to pick up a Covid hobby. Unfortunately, it was not anything useful like crocheting or learning a new skill like cooking.
I decided to, um, become a gambler and get invested in Pokemon cards instead. So you're one of those, one of those? Yes. I'm ashamed to admit it, but um, Wow. I. really getting into Pokemon cards cuz I had some when I was a child and I realized my childhood collection could have been worth hundreds of thousands of dollars.
And then I went home and my parents told me they tossed it away many years ago, so that wasn't very heartbreaking. Um oh. So I went kind of real deep into that. You know, they're kind of like stocks. Um, they go up, they go, They really are. Yeah. They go up wild, they go down. No rhyme or reason to it. Um, so I did spend an embarrassing amount of money, you know, buying packs, um, and ripping o ripping them open, getting some cards, and then sending them to like these official grading companies to like look at my card and tell me like, Yeah, this is a good card.
And then they like grade it from one to 10, and if it's a 10, you can resell it for. way more money because 10 is like the highest score you can get. So yeah, that's a, that's a whole thing. Do
Cassidy Williams: you do the thing where like, I, I remember seeing a thing where when you get a new deck, you have to like put some of the cards in front and then you have to open them in a specific order.
Yeah. Do are you on, do you do that? Is that actually important? Um,
Christina Zhu: I. If you're opening it for other people to watch, they like the suspense of it. If it's myself, I'm just very impatient and I'm just like, Okay, just show me if I want anything or not, you know? Um, but if you're trying to, you know, build some suspense and you have a bunch of people cheering you on and hoping that your $200 purchase was not worth, you know, $20, um, you try to like, you know, draw it out and make it like fun.
So I think it's also just like a ritual. Yeah.
Cassidy Williams: Feel like you, like stream it or anything? Sorry, Zach.
Christina Zhu: Okay. Uh, no, mostly to just, uh, personal friends and stuff. Um, but it was really fun, you know? Um, you and your friends during lockdown, you all just sit together with your webcams on ripping open packs, losing money together, getting some Pokemon
Yeah.
Zach Plata: I feel like I've seen the straight, like on TikTok. There'll be random like live videos where people do that thing like you were talking about cast, where they like flip one card over or like move it around and then just start like showing it off and I'm like, this is fascinating. I don't know any of these new gen Pokemon, but like.
I still found myself watching for like 15 minutes. .
Cassidy Williams: It's, it's very interesting to watch and, and a friend of a friend started a Twitch channel where he does this and, and people will mail him their packs just so he can open them and mail them back. Which again, it's a whole world. I'm, I'm sure you know, and he's made a lot of money on, on these Pokemon cards.
It's fascinating, like what a world it has grown into.
Christina Zhu: Yeah, I think the streamers in particular, um, people. We'll send them money while they're streaming for, to like buy packs from the streamer. And the streamer will open packs for them and like send them the shiny cards. Um, and they usually charge premium, but people are willing to pay because the streamers have, you know, usually like a couple hundred people watching.
And when they open your pack and you get something good, you have like hundreds of other people cheering for you. So I think that's what you're paying for, like the sense of like you're in the stadium together screaming at Pokemon
Zach Plata: card. That is so cool.
Cassidy Williams: Whew. This is probably an ignorant question and I'm somewhat ashamed of asking it, but can the cards be shiny?
I knew they could be holographic. Oh, but I thought that was only in the games. Oh, yes.
Christina Zhu: Like the digital games, there are, um, shiny Pokemon cards. They were introduced, um, in the first couple sets, so I think one of the most, Popular ones is called like a shining Charizard. And it's worth a couple thousand dollars cuz it because it's black.
Cause it's black, it looks super cool. It's Charr. Um, and yeah, it's definitely a thing. They're not called Shin, but they're called like shining. Um, and they're, they're like, you know, the different color schemes and whatnot, they're dragonite are green for whatever reason. Yeah.
Cassidy Williams: Okay, this might be getting way too deep into this topic, , but the fact that dragonite are green when Tini and dragon are are purple, no sense why?
Christina Zhu: Makes no sense why. I just feel like whoever decided that the last evolution of tini should be orange with arms. True. You know, I think they just, they just messed. The first, the first danger noodle, evolution. Cute. Second level danger noodle, Elegant third level. It's not even a noodle anymore. Like it's just,
Cassidy Williams: it's just a drink.
I know. ,
Zach Plata: that's totally fair. Yeah. I haven't thought about it that way.
Christina Zhu: We, we don't talk about it. Yeah, .
Zach Plata: All right. Moving on to the next random segment. It's, what are you proud of? So, um, talk about something that you shipped or created that you're really proud of. Yeah.
Christina Zhu: Uh, I touched upon this a bit earlier, but I think definitely doing like my university's hackathon is something probably the biggest thing I've shipped to date.
Um, so back when I started it was the, Uc, the University of California University that didn't have a hackathon at the time. Um, I had gone to every other ucs hackathon at that point and I was like, Okay, well when is Davis gonna have one? I went to uc, Davis and apparently no one was thinking about it or going to do it.
So me and my friends just got together. We were playing pool at someone's apartment complex, and we were like, Oh, yeah, we should, we should do it. So then we decided to do it , which was, you know, we completely underestimated how much time and money it would. Um, but it was a super rewarding experience. So the first year, you know, it was like 300 people.
Then the next year was 600 and the next year was like 700. So that was just really fun. Um, and then I graduated, but you know, I come back every year. I don't know anyone on the team anymore. They don't know who I am either, but that's okay. Um, , but it's always been like great to see, you know, this organization that I started.
Flourish and continue to grow to this very day. So I just think that's really awesome. And I think what's also great is that I see that the school and the computer science department is actually supporting them now. Um, because back when we first started , we tried to pitch it, you know, to our computer science department and they're like, Why should we.
Do this. Hackathons are a waste of time, and we're just like, Oh, okay then. Oh, . But it seems like now, um, the, the university and the department have realized, you know, that it's a pretty cool thing to do. So that's also just been like great to see.
Cassidy Williams: That is so awesome and the fact that it's continued for this long,
Christina Zhu: that's amazing.
Yeah. Yeah. The team has done such a good job. It makes me feel like I did a terrible job, uh, back when I first started. Like I look at the website now and I'm like, Wow, this is amazing. Like I could never done this. Um, but yeah, they iterations.
Zach Plata: Sure. It's not true. True, true.
Cassidy Williams: Yeah. Someone has to make a V1 in order for the other ones to follow.
Christina Zhu: That's some good advice. I should keep that. I
Zach Plata: like that .
Cassidy Williams: Okay, our last random segment is 4 0 4 s and heartbreak. What is something that's been taken off the internet or it's just returns? A page not found that breaks your heart.
Christina Zhu: I don't know if this counts, um, but. I really miss my space sometimes. Mm. Yeah.
I mean, I know it's technically still alive in a different form. It's a different energy now. It's definitely a different social media. Yeah. But you know, I realized there is a space for something like My Space, when I saw people on. Instagram and Facebook talking about, you know, it'd be really cool if we could, you know, put music on our pages and have it auto play when someone does our pages.
And I'm like, Oh, you have no idea. Um, but it's the best choice. It was the best choice. Uh, yeah, that was, uh, definitely something that I miss going to everyone's. Terrible profiles, you know, and listening to their terrible music choices. Um, , the one thing I don't miss about my spaces though, was like the fact they had to rank your best friends on your page.
That was I was gonna, that
Cassidy Williams: it's probably a
Christina Zhu: good thing to get. Yeah. That, that was kind of toxic cuz you know, you'd know when people were in a fight, when they drag your, your friend from first place to like fifth place, you know? Spicy drama going
Zach Plata: on. That was drama. Yeah.
Cassidy Williams: Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I feel like that era of the internet was.
And granted the pros and cons of everything, it just felt like it was much more personal because it wasn't just like all of these ad tracking things trying to deliver you information just for you. It was like you creating that space for yourself. And I do, I do miss that aspect
Christina Zhu: of it. Yeah, definitely. I think the customization options are missing from a lot of today's social medias and um,
Yeah. It'd be great if we could, you know, change the colors and the photos on our igs and Facebook. I mean, I know some of them would be incredibly ugly. Um, but, you know, but they'd be your ugly, you know, like you'd be expressing yourself
Zach Plata: 40 pixel
Christina Zhu: cursors. Exactly. Yeah, Exactly.
Cassidy Williams: If you wanted it. , huh? Well, I think we just decided we're going to make a new social network.
We'll reconvene offline.
Christina Zhu: Yes. And circle back on that.
Cassidy Williams: Yeah, for my last email,
All right. Anyway, we have now gotten to the sage advice portion of this show.
This one is very near and dear to my heart, both in this place in time and also just based on what we talked about today, and it's just kind of make your. Whether it's around your desk or online, make your space on the internet, because right now there's so many companies that want your attention, want your focus, want your data, and a lot of them are very good at it and it's very fun.
But it's important to create that space for yourself so that way you can kind of bloom where you're planted, Create something that is yours, have something that you could point at, whether you're job hunting or just showing off the things that you can do. And also just to be comfortable. In an environment and be around people who also make their own spaces as well.
So do that. Figure out how you wanna do it, whether it's virtually or in real life, what a concept, but do it. That being said, Zach, Christina, thank you so much for being on the show. Yeah, yeah.
Christina Zhu: Thanks. Thanks for having me.
Cassidy Williams: Christina, where can people find you? Do you have anything
Christina Zhu: that you wanna plug? Um, I don't have anything to plug, but, you know, I always enjoy talking to people and you can find me on Twitter at CS Z H U.
Um, the CS does not stand for computer science is . I have had people ask me that the CS stands with Christina and S stands for my middle name. Um, but yeah, uh, come chat with me anytime. I love meeting new. As
Cassidy Williams: my marriage name starts with an S, so I understand the CS very, Oh
Christina Zhu: boy.
Cassidy Williams: Also, I'm going to plug Christina's Twitter because it's very funny and she makes very good memes and I think
Christina Zhu: that's very important.
Oh, thank you. I will, I will try and, um, make more memes. I harvest them organically. Non GMOs. Fresh from the farm.
Cassidy Williams: Handcrafted. Exactly. Artisinal memes. Exactly. And once again, because making podcasts is expensive, this show is brought to you by LaunchDarkly. LaunchDarkly toggles. Peaks of 20 trillion feature flags each day, and that number continues to grow, and you should use them.
You can head over to LaunchDarkly.com and learn about how. Thank you for making this show possible. LaunchDarkly. I've been Cassidy Williams. You can find me at cassidoo, C A S S I D O O on most things. And I'm CTO over at
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Zach Plata: And I'm Zach, and I'm a DevRel at Rive. And you can find me on Twitter at
ZachPlata
Cassidy Williams: thank you for tuning into the Dev Morning Show (At Night). Make sure you head over to our YouTube channel where you can like and subscribe. You can also listen to the audio version of this wherever you get your podcasts.