Allison (00:00)

See what you really need is that, you guys ever seen that meme and it's that hole in the tank and water's coming out and they slap duct tape on it? That's what Hero Devs does. There we go. I could be in marketing.

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Shelby (00:08)

Yeah.

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Wendy Hurst (00:09)

Yes. Yeah, you could.

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Welcome to Ship It Anyway, the show from Hero Devs that's part game show and part conversation. Two guests will compete in a series of games about real tech quirks, fails, and features with hot takes in between. About those times in life when things might not be perfect, but sometimes you just have to ship it anyway. I'm your host, Wendy Hurst. Today I've invited two guests from Hero Devs to compete for the winning title. In one corner, and in no particular order, we have Shelby Kelly who joins us from Denver, Colorado today. Shelby is a senior software engineer at Hero Devs, specializing in enterprise level consulting and security, which is basically just one giant puzzle with higher stakes and fewer instructions. When she's not securing systems or untangling code that should never have seen the light of day, she's solving actual puzzles, playing video games or running for health, reluctantly. Shelby, welcome to the show. Security experts are trained to think like hackers.

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Shelby (01:17)

Hi.

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Wendy Hurst (01:21)

How much time do you spend at work trying to break things just to prove that you can?

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Shelby (01:30)

I don't know, quite often. I'm just sort of a nice hour a day just to mess around.

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Wendy Hurst (01:38)

In the other corner we have Allison Vorthman who joins us from Nebraska today. She's worked for the Department of Defense in medical staffing and security, which means that she's seen enough bad code, security risks and edge cases to know that if something can go wrong, it probably will. Now she applies that same meticulous approach to her everyday work as a senior software engineer at HeroDevs and can often be found fixing things before you even notice. Welcome Allison.

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Allison (02:05)

Hello.

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Wendy Hurst (02:06)

If you had to describe your job using only horror movie titles, which one would you pick?

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Allison (02:13)

the crazies. You ever seen it?

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Wendy Hurst (02:15)

I haven't, but if it's describing your job, then maybe.

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Allison (02:22)

Yeah, I'm gonna stick with that one. That was perfect.

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Wendy Hurst (02:24)

Our first game today is called This or That. This game doesn't have any winners. It's just a fun way to get to know you a little bit. I'll just say two things and you say which one you would choose. Shelby, you're first. Are you ready? Here we go. Feature freeze or last minute hotfix?

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Shelby (02:38)

Yes. Future free freeze that alliteration that was rough. Infinite meetings or infinite merge conflicts. Solve a mystery or explore a new place.

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Shelby (02:55)

Boy, merge conflicts. No, those are my two favorite things. Like a cat. I have mystery.

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Wendy Hurst (03:10)

Street food adventure or fancy restaurant dining?

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Shelby (03:14)

street food.

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Wendy Hurst (03:14)

Crime thriller or nature documentary?

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Shelby (03:16)

Favorite things? Yeah, the crime.

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Wendy Hurst (03:23)

Trapped in a comedy or trapped in a sci-fi.

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Shelby (03:25)

The sci-fi sounds scary!

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Wendy Hurst (03:31)

Last one: always have to whisper or always have to shout.

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Shelby (03:36)

Whisper.

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Wendy Hurst (03:38)

Okay, Allison over to you. Number one, startup or enterprise.

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Allison (03:44)

Ooh, startup.

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Wendy Hurst (03:46)

Undefined is not a function or infinite loop crashing your browser.

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Allison (03:49)

Undefined.

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Wendy Hurst (03:53)

Spontaneous trip or plan every detail in advance?

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Allison (03:57)

Spontaneous.

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Wendy Hurst (03:57)

Expert at one thing or decent in everything?

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Allison (04:00)

Hmm, decent at everything.

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Wendy Hurst (04:03)

Wake up early or stay up late.

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Allison (04:10)

Wake up early and then stay up late.

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Wendy Hurst (04:11)

Okay, houseboat or treehouse?

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Allison (04:14)

Not a houseboat, definitely tree house. But I'm allergic to trees, so I don't know. But I don't want to live on the water, so tree house, I guess. That I'll die in. Yeah.

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Shelby (04:19)

Hmm.

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Wendy Hurst (04:24)

House you'd rather have allergies than drown. And finally zombie apocalypse or alien invasion?

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Allison (04:33)

Zombies are the evil I know. There's so many variables with aliens. Zombies.

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Wendy Hurst (04:43)

They're the evil I know.

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Allison (04:45)

At least he's in the movies. Maybe he'll be my neighbor. I don't know.

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Wendy Hurst (04:50)

Well, that was fun. We're gonna move on now to a little bit about your career journey. Shelby, tell me a little bit about what you did before you came to Hero Devs.

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Shelby (04:59)

Well, I had a brief stint at a doggy daycare company called Camp Awa. I thought it might be a fun change of pace after being a consultant for quite a few years before that. But then I realized it's much more enjoyable working for a company that actually cares about technology. yeah, I got to hang out with a bunch of dogs, though. That was fun. Bringing your dog to work day every day. So that was cool.

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Wendy Hurst (05:33)

That's fun. How many dogs do you have?

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Shelby (05:36)

I only have one. I want all of them. We also have two cats, which I also want all of them as well. Ideally, I would just have a ranch full of dogs and cats.

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Wendy Hurst (05:53)

Allison, how about you? Tell us a little bit about what you did before you came here.

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Allison (05:57)

I just started out at the DOD and that was pretty cool. I got to work on a application that, was helping anthropologists identify prisoner of war remains.

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Wendy Hurst (06:10)

what's one misconception people have about your job?

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Allison (06:12)

I like I'm ready to my job under the bus slightly here, but whenever I'm like, I'm a senior software engineer, they're like, oh, you must be so smart. I'm like, you know, also, also sometimes I'm really dumb. So, um, I think, I think a lot of people overestimate how hard it is in some ways and underestimate, like, I would say that the hardest part, um, about the job is the logic. Like if you can work your way through logic puzzles, then that's like 90 % of the job. And then everything else is just more puzzles really.

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Shelby (06:50)

Or Google searching. Yeah, I actually get that a lot too. Like, you must be really smart. And it's like, I mean, I don't want to put myself down, but you don't have to be really smart to be a developer or an engineer. Like I think the assumption that, you know, you have to be good at math, which I do like math that I'm good at, but you don't have, like, I don't think I use it.

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Allison (06:51)

But it was okay. Right.

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Shelby (07:19)

So yeah, it's definitely more accessible than people think, but definitely, you know, it's not an easy job, but I feel like a lot of people that don't think they can do it, can do it.

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Allison (07:20)

Yeah, you just have to be persistent, right? Like you have to be able to work on a bug for three days straight and yeah.

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Shelby (07:41)

And then figure out that it was like the simplest thing and not cry. That is crucial. You could cry a little bit, but try not to.

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Allison (07:46)

Yeah. Yeah. Well, you can cry. Yeah, just do it off camera. Go hide. And then it's fine. Like, never happened.

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Wendy Hurst (07:58)

It's okay to be raw with your emotions. What's a skill you had to learn the hard way on the job?

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Shelby (08:07)

Reading comprehension. I was never very good at it in school. Yeah, it's reading documentation that makes me sleepy. Just finding new ways to process that information so that I can actually do the job and not do a bunch of trial and error just to figure it out. So yeah, reading comprehension.

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Wendy Hurst (08:08)

hahahahaha -- Reading is hard. How about you, Alison?

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Allison (08:41)

Dealing with the business because like and more so at like the enterprise I worked at it was like okay I need to just add a button to this page and we're gonna put it on the next page not this page and they're like no the users don't want to click one more page I'm like they have to go to that page anyways like that's where the button needs to go logically that's where the button needs to go and that just, yeah, so dealing with the business needs and wants and even when they don't make a whole lot of sense.

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Wendy Hurst (09:17)

What would you say is the most unexpected way that your career has evolved?

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Shelby (09:22)

Well, I have a degree in anthropology. I have a degree in computer science as well, but I did want to be an archaeologist. So I think I went the furthest away I possibly could from that. So yeah, didn't see that one coming at first.

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Wendy Hurst (09:41)

So you said anthropology and Allison also said anthropology. Our listeners might wonder, is that how you met?

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Shelby (09:43)

Yeah. No, I would love to have that DOD job. That sounds so fun. And then I could say that my first degree wasn't a complete waste. But no, we met here at HeroDevs

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Wendy Hurst (10:01)

What about you, Allison? What's the way that your career changed that you didn't expect?

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Allison (10:04)

I probably like at the beginning of my career, I was really, I went to school for international business actually. And then I took a semester off because I was like, this isn't it. I went back as a cyber security major and then I fell in love with web development. So I steered away from cyber security for a while and now I'm back here at Herodive working in the security sphere.

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Wendy Hurst (10:28)

What's your favorite thing about the job you have now?

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Shelby (10:30)

I like that it's not set in stone. Like, okay, you're like a web developer, so you're only going to be working in JavaScript. That's what you're going to be doing all day, every day. There's opportunity to just be like, hey, know, I'm decent at Python. Can I go into that realm? And so the flexibility there and the ability to not be pigeonholed to something is really great.

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Allison (10:56)

I've long thought and like one of my first teachers taught me, know, like in IT it's always evolving and if you're not learning something new, like on the daily, then you are slowing down and you're doing yourself a disservice. Even though we worked on like end of life software and have to go back and look at old software, constantly learning new things and like trying to figure out ways to integrate it to work with, you know, all the new stuff.

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Wendy Hurst (11:24)

If you had to switch careers tomorrow, what would you want to do instead?

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Shelby (11:28)

Park Ranger. 100%. I know. I actually almost became a Park Ranger as well, because that was like a transition from anthropology.

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Wendy Hurst (11:30)

Nice. But unfortunate timing.

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Allison (11:43)

I would want to be somewhere in supply chain management. I think it's incredibly interesting. I love working with like all that big data

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Wendy Hurst (11:53)

What's something that you wish people knew about being a senior software engineer?

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Allison (11:53)

Yeah. That it's still okay to say you don't know how to do things. I think engineers in general, especially the higher up you get, they tend to develop a bit of an ego. And you can just learn so much more when you're honest and be like, hey, I may not know this, but I can either figure it out or if you want to talk it through with me, I can learn a lot more.

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Shelby (12:25)

Yeah. And I think to add to that too, it's like, you can be wrong. Like just because seniors in my name doesn't mean I'm right all the time. Doesn't mean I know everything. you know, a junior developer could come in and know something that I don't like, and, or think that I know it's not true. So just keeping an open mind, I think is a lot easier to get to that. Like, I don't know, you know, it's okay not to know. And that helps you keep learning and keep growing.

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Wendy Hurst (12:58)

Hero Devs actually supports older code and maybe someone from the outside might look in and be like, well, that's not fun. I don't wanna work on old stuff. why do you do it?

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Allison (13:09)

Because I think even old stuff, you know, it, challenges your way of thinking. Right. So in my time here, I've gone across five or six languages. Right. and it's always a new, like, wow, they do it this way. And even if you're not learning the latest and then most like groundbreaking, you're learning how to recognize new things. And I think that's really important.

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Shelby (13:41)

Yeah, it kind of feels like technology archaeology. Like a lot of times, you know, trying to figure out like, why did they build it like this? And, you know, it's easy to assume like, this is dumb, but they didn't have necessarily the resources or the same setup we have now. So it's like learning why did they do that instead of immediately being frustrated that like, ah, this is so annoying to figure out. It's more like research of like, why did they do it this way? How could that affect me now?

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Allison (14:14)

I also think that there's something to be said and like some of these older technologies deserve some credit because to Shelby's point, like they were made like 20 years ago and they're still running, which is pretty impressive. I don't think anyone ever planned for them to run that long. So that the fact that so many people and companies still depend on these old languages and frameworks, I think is a testament to how well they were written at the time. And how well they have stood up, honestly.

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Shelby (14:47)

Yeah, I agree. It's like beauty in the simplicity of some of these things where it's like, it is complex, but once it's all piled down and all that, it's like so simple.

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Wendy Hurst (14:58)

Our next game is called What Could Go Wrong? History is full of decisions that seemed great at the time, but turned out to be maybe less than ideal. the $125 million Mars Climate Orbiter because one of the team members used metric units while another team used imperial measurements.

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The spacecraft burned up in the Martian atmosphere because of a simple conversion error. Or in 2017, when an Amazon Web Services engineer mistyped a command and accidentally shut down a massive chunk of the internet, affecting major websites, smart home devices, and online services. Or in 2018, when Hawaii's emergency alert system mistakenly sent out a ballistic missile warning to every resident. People panicked, hid in bathtubs, and called loved ones to say goodbye, all because of a poorly designed user interface. These problems weren't caused on purpose. They were just shipped without the foresight needed to prevent them. Sometimes without enough testing, sometimes under pressure, and sometimes because, well, no one thought to ask what could go wrong. So this game is about an unexpected, this game is about the unexpected consequences of technical decisions. I will present a real world tech situation that went awry. Each contestant must choose which unintended consequence actually happened. Each answer earns one point. Shelby, you get to go first. Are you ready? Number one, a company developed an AI chatbot to engage with users on social media. What unexpected behavior did it exhibit? Was it A, it started posting offensive content, B, it began promoting a rival company's products, or C...It only responded in Shakespearean English.

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Shelby (16:51)

If only people were so lovely. I'll go with A.

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Wendy Hurst (16:56)

The answer is A, it started posting offensive content. You get a point. In 2016, Tay, which was a chat bot originally released by the Microsoft Corporation as a Twitter bot, caused controversy when the bot began posting inflammatory and offensive tweets through its Twitter account, causing Microsoft to shut down the service only 16 hours after its launch. Microsoft claimed this was caused by trolls who

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Shelby (16:58)

Of course it was.

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Wendy Hurst (17:24)

Attacked the service as the bot made replies based on its interactions with people on Twitter. Number two, a company introduced a voice activated home assistant. What unexpected behavior did users notice? Was it A, it laughed spontaneously without command? B, it ordered items online without user consent? Or C, it recorded conversations and then sent them to random contacts.

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Shelby (17:52)

Those seem horrifying and plausible. Hmm. I feel like it's C.

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Wendy Hurst (18:01)

C. Recorded conversations and send them to random contacts. Incorrect. It was A. It laughed spontaneously without command. Creepy, right? in 2018, users of Amazon's Alexa reported that the voice-activated assistant would spontaneously laugh without prompting.

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Shelby (18:10)

That might be the worst one.

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Wendy Hurst (18:20)

Many users suspected that certain similar sounding phrases like patio off could also sound like how do you laugh, which would prompt her to laugh at unexpected times. Amazon later fixed it. That's so creepy. I don't like it.

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Shelby (18:34)

No, thank you.

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Wendy Hurst (18:37)

Number three, a fitness tracker was launched with social sharing features. What unintended consequence did this have? Was it A, it revealed secret military bases by sharing soldiers running routes? B, it posted users' locations to public forums without consent? Or C, it shared users' health data with insurance companies?

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Shelby (19:00)

I feel like it did all of those, but... Should I go the test route where you don't like circle the same number for each one? You kind of like mix it up. I know, trying to guess. I think the most entertaining would be A for me.

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Wendy Hurst (19:09)

I mixed it. I mixed it all over.

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Wendy Hurst (19:19)

The answer is A, it revealed secret military bases by sharing soldiers running routes. In 2017, a fitness app called Strava released a data visualization map that showed all the activity tracked by all users of its app, which allows people to record their exercise and share it with others. However, military analysis noticed that the map was detailed enough that it potentially gave away sensitive information about military personnel on active service.

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Shelby (19:24)

That's hilarious.

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Wendy Hurst (19:47)

All right, Shelby, you got two questions correct. You have two points. Allison, it's your turn. Number one.

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Allison (19:52)

No, I'm not going to do better.

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Wendy Hurst (19:56)

A major bank attempted to correct account balances, but instead an error caused what massive issue? Was it A, it temporarily deleted thousands of accounts, erasing all transaction history? B, it accidentally credited a customer with more money than the United States national debt? Or C, it mistakenly closed accounts, leaving customers without access to their money?

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Allison (20:24)

I think it's B.

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Wendy Hurst (20:24)

The answer is B. Accidentally credited a customer with more money than the United States national debt. How is it that like you could just type in whatever you want and there was no like guardrail in place?

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Wendy Hurst (20:40)

I feel that way on all of these, but this one in particular just like, it makes my eye twitch.

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Shelby (20:45)

Yeah, shocking, I'm not surprised.

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Allison (20:48)

Yes, yes.

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Wendy Hurst (20:48)

In February 2025, this is recent. This is this year. Citigroup mistakenly credited a customer with $81 trillion. That's trillion with a T instead of $280.

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Allison (21:02)

I literally cannot fathom that much money.

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Wendy Hurst (21:03)

As of February 2025, the U.S. national debt was only $36.2 trillion. No funds left Citibank, which disclosed the near miss is what they're supposed to do in situations like this. But like that just is it's 2025. That's it hurts. It hurts right here. (touches heart)

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Number two. A routine security update caused a global IT meltdown in 2024. What was the cause of the message outage? Was it A, a Windows update bricked millions of computers worldwide? B, a cybersecurity firm's faulty software update crashed Microsoft Windows systems? Or C,

A widespread ransomware attack locked users out of their Windows devices.

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Allison (21:45)

It's the second one because it was the third party. Their name was like Blackhawk or Strikes Something or something, right? They were like a security company. Final answer.

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Wendy Hurst (21:58)

The answer is B is cybersecurity firm faulty software update crash Microsoft Windows systems You're absolutely right except on the name

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Allison (22:02)

Too many names are all the same. What was the name again?

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Wendy Hurst (22:12)

It's called CrowdStrike. You were so close. Yes. In July, 2024, CrowdStrike, a cybersecurity company, released a flawed update that inadvertently crashed millions of Microsoft Windows devices. This also happened during the... There was a breach, which is not part of these questions, by the way. There was a breach of a software that the most...

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Allison (22:15)

I was close. I was very close.

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Shelby (22:16)

It's on the backpack.

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Allison (22:19)

Yeah.

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Wendy Hurst (22:41)

Car dealerships used around the United States. Do you guys remember that? It made it so that all car dealerships, like all, they couldn't get into any of their stuff. A hacker came in and they held it for ransom and they just couldn't use it. And then CrowdStrike, like the update from CrowdStrike happened and they were like, we're just using pen and paper today. Like there's no end in sight. It was unfortunate that I needed maintenance on my car at the same time. That's the only reason that I know any of that information.

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Allison (22:46)

So now back on. Yeah, yeah, I remember that. No, no.

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Wendy Hurst (23:08)

Question number three. The last one. An AI powered transcription tool used in hospitals was found to do what unexpectedly? Was it A, accurately transcribe medical consultations without errors? B, invent fictitious text not spoken by patients or doctors or C, translate medical jargon into layman's terms automatically.

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Allison (23:32)

Listen, I'm torn because the last two answers have been B. But B, he's done calling me, so I'm gonna call out, gonna do C. Let's do C.

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Wendy Hurst (23:44)

The answer is B. It invented fictitious texts not spoken by patients or doctors. Number A was like a sneaky dumb one, which was accurately transcribed medical consultations without errors. So it was B. The answer is B.

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Allison (23:46)

Wasn't that A? Yeah, yeah. You literally tricked me. That was some weird psychology stuff, because you told Shelby, I'm mixing it all up, and then you give me all Bs. Either way, we tied, so Shelby doesn't get bragging rights.

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Wendy Hurst (24:09)

That's right, it's a tie. OpenAI's transcription tool called Whisper was discovered to just make stuff up. Even entire sentences that they called hallucinations, which added content, including racial commentary, violent rhetoric, and imagined medical treatments. This raised significant concerns about the reliability of AI in critical settings, especially when accurate transcriptions are essential for patient care.

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Allison (24:18)

We love AI.

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Shelby (24:43)

That's great. It's wonderful. Glad to see it. Maybe do a couple of test rounds before just letting that loose. Yeah.

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Wendy Hurst (24:44)

Whew, that was a, that's a bad one. That's bad. That's bad. I do have a tiebreaker question.

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Allison (24:45)

Yeah.

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Wendy Hurst (24:55)

Just set it free in the medical system. my gosh. Tiebreaker question. A financial services company experienced a data breach due to what vulnerability? Was it A, an unpatched software bug, B, a phishing attack on employees, or C, physical theft of servers.

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Allison (25:19)

A

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Shelby (25:21)

I was gonna say A. I know, fine. I'll say A too.

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Wendy Hurst (25:23)

You can both say A if you think that's the right answer. Okay, the answer is A.

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Shelby (25:30)

Yeah.

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Wendy Hurst (25:35)

An unpatched software bug. 2017, Equifax suffered a massive data breach that affected 147 million customers. The breach was attributed to an unpatched vulnerability in their Apache struts software. This highlighted the critical importance of keeping software updated to protect sensitive information.

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Speaking of vulnerabilities in open source software like Apache Struts, this is a perfect time to talk about what HeroDevs does. So over to me.

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(ad)

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And back to me. Welcome back to Ship It Anyway. I'm here with Allison and Shelby from Hero Devs. What is...the worst feature you have ever seen added to a product?

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Shelby (26:47)

Got one.

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Wendy Hurst (26:49)

Hit me with it.

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Shelby (26:50)

nested expandable tables. So like a table that expands into a table. I had to make it and I had left before the requirement evolved into a third table. so I don't know if that feature got added, but it was supposed to. It would be a table that opened to a table that opened to a table.

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Wendy Hurst (27:04)

No.

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So what problem was it trying to solve?

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Shelby (27:17)

Just accurately showing the data relationship instead of having a user leave the screen or a bit of modal or some other way. Just having it displayed in the most aggressively flat way possible. Yeah, it haunts me.

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Wendy Hurst (27:39)

"It haunts you." (laughs) You didn't even finish it and you still remember it.

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Shelby (27:48)

No, because I predicted it would be three tables and I was I don't want to do it. And I started that and someone had to finish it and so I have ruined someone else's day as well.

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Wendy Hurst (27:54)

If you're out there, person, Shelby is sorry.

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Shelby (28:04)

I'm so sorry.

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Wendy Hurst (28:07)

What about you, Allison?

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Allison (28:09)

I worked in Microsoft dynamics for a while and there was a nested if or with like 50, 50 levels deep of if or, and it controlled like the most important part of our, of our business logic. And it was terrible. And you had to have like five people review it anytime you changed it because if you broke it you broke our business so that was terrible we never should have done it.

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Wendy Hurst (28:43)

People who were affected out there. We're sorry.

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Allison (28:48)

Yeah.

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Wendy Hurst (28:55)

What is the weirdest bug you've ever encountered in production?

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Shelby (28:59)

I just forget them as soon as I fix them. Just block it out. one weird thing is using the wrong version compatibility.

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Allison (29:02)

Yeah.

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Shelby (29:13)

I'd have to double click a button in order for it to work. So like fixing the version that was being used in the dependencies made it so that a button you could click and it would work instead of having to double click the button. I don't know what the actual bug there is. I just know I changed the version that was being used and it worked.

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Wendy Hurst (29:35)

people out there who were affected by that bug, you're welcome. Shelby fixed it.

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Allison (29:40)

For nothing.

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Shelby (29:40)

You'll never know.

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Wendy Hurst (29:45)

Allison, what about you?

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Allison (29:46)

My worst bugs, I'm going to be real, this is probably slightly embarrassing, but my worst bugs are always the self-made ones with the syntax errors and like, why won't this work? And I debug it for an hour and it's like, I was missing a semicolon. And those are the worst bugs because they're so simple. Should not be confident that since I wrote the code, should work. So that's the actual bug. I am the bug.

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Wendy Hurst (30:19)

So I used to work in QA. I'm not an engineer, but I did have to explain a lot of issues to engineers because that's literally what a QA engineer's job is. And I don't know about the weirdest bug, but the most frustrating ones were the ones that were invisible. Like I couldn't show when a page wasn't loading or why.

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Wendy Hurst (30:38)

So instead of that, I got used to just, would draw this little graph, a very simple graph like this. This is frustration over time. And it would just, it was just up into the right. Like the longer this happens, the more frustrated I become. I still use it to this day. Like when I'm putting in a bug for...

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Wendy Hurst (30:58)

We for a CRM or whatever system I'm using when I find an issue that I can't I can only describe and I can't send a picture It has a surprisingly high response rate Versus just being ignored. So I keep it in my back pocket. Feel free to use that if it ever applies

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Allison (31:16)

I like it.

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Shelby (31:17)

I mean, you got

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Allison (31:17)

I like it.

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Shelby (31:18)

it. That's the ultimate rivalry, feel like. QA, versus dev. Yeah. Just like, what do you mean it doesn't work? Of course it works. I made it. It's like, you can't, you can't prove it.

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Allison (31:23)

yeah. Yeah.

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Wendy Hurst (31:29)

Of I made it.

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What is a piece of outdated tech that you secretly miss using?

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Shelby (31:36)

Okay.

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Wendy Hurst (31:37)

This one's tricky, I know, because we literally use outdated tech every day here.

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Shelby (31:41)

I mean, it's not tech, but I miss Myspace. I miss the simpler times.

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Wendy Hurst (31:46)

You miss my space. Were you an engineer back when MySpace existed? Like, did you like create some sweet? Okay.

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Shelby (31:54)

I'm not that old.

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Allison (31:56)

Okay

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Shelby (31:58)

Close but not that old. No, but I was prime teenage years of my space and social media is just not the same. It doesn't hit the same.

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Allison (32:09)

This is probably going to be a very unpopular opinion, especially among our team. know. I really liked Pearl. that's what I learned. I learned it in the terminal. I thought it was so cool. I felt like a hacker. It's not a great language, but, yeah, we should bring it back. Pearl 2025. Let's do it. P E A R L.

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Shelby (32:30)

Interesting. That's why she's always quiet. You're always quiet when everybody's making fun of Perl.

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Allison (32:39)

Yep. Yep.

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Shelby (32:41)

I have just a love for Lodash and I feel so conflicted because I've never gotten to use it because every team I've been on, they're always like, oh no, we can't use Lodash. It's not safe and all that stuff. And no one wants to use it. But every time, it has so many helpful functions that would have been so nice to use so many times. Instead I had to like either write it myself or use now a deprecated package instead of Lodash and stuff like that. I just like we have Lodash and I got to bring it in and I was just like we meet again and now it's safe and I feel like people people should love Lodash.

Bring back Lodash.

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Allison (33:31)

I would say I recently got to work on our Rails offering. So Ruby Gems and that one was pretty cool getting to work on that and interesting.

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Wendy Hurst (33:47)

Well that brings us to our final game of the show called Not My Job. I'll ask you three questions that have absolutely nothing to do with your job in the real world or anything we've talked about today and everything to do with what you know about food combinations that somehow exist.

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It is still a tie. Shelby has three and Allison has three. Normally I'd have the winner go next, but I'm just going to pick someone at random. It's going to be Allison. I'm going to ask you three questions. These are all for you.

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Number one, which of these bizarre fast food items was actually sold by Burger King in Japan? Was it A, a black bun burger made with squid ink? B, a burger topped with gummy bears? Or C, a whopper flavored milkshake?

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Allison (34:35)

I'm doing squid ink

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Wendy Hurst (34:36)

The answer is A, a black bun burger made with squid ink. It featured a black bun, black cheese, and black sauce made from squid ink. Not for me. Nope, nope. Question number two. Which of these food combinations was a real limited edition release? Was it A, pickle flavored cotton candy, B, ketchup flavored ice cream, or C, ranch dressing soda?

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Allison (34:46)

Mm-mm. All are re all so terrible. C.

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Wendy Hurst (35:09)

The answer is C, ranch dressing soda! Very good!

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Allison (35:13)

People in the Midwest love the ranch. We just drink it straight here. yeah, that checks out.

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Wendy Hurst (35:19)

Yeah? Okay, was a company called Lester's Fixins that made ranch dressing flavored soda, along with other questionable flavors like bacon soda and buffalo wing soda. I wonder how those ones did.

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Allison (35:36)

I feel like this is a Midwest company. I feel like, yeah. Yeah.

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Wendy Hurst (35:39)

It might be. We should look it up. Question number three. Which pizza topping combination is an actual menu item in Sweden? Is it A, bananas and curry powder, B, chocolate chips and onions, or C, shrimp and peanut butter?

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Allison (35:55)

Hmmmm. C?

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Wendy Hurst (36:02)

Incorrect. The answer is A, bananas and curry powder. They say it's surprisingly sweet and savory at the same time. Okay. Shelby, you're up next. Here we go. Question number one. What unusual item did Heinz release as a condiment mashup? Was it A, mayonnaise mixed with Oreo crumbs? B,

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Allison (36:13)

No thank you.

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Wendy Hurst (36:30)

Ketchup mixed with ranch dressing or C, mustard mixed with chocolate syrup.

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Shelby (36:38)

Only B sounds mildly reasonable.

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Wendy Hurst (36:42)

The answer is B, ketchup mixed with ranch dressing. It may have also done well in the Midwest, we don't know. Heinz created Crunch, a mix of ketchup and ranch, as part of their bizarre sauce combinations, which also included mayo-chup, which was mayonnaise and ketchup. In Utah, the combination of mayonnaise and ketchup is called fry sauce. I think also in Idaho.

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Shelby (36:44)

Okay, thank God. It definitely did.

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Allison (36:49)

Yeah.

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Shelby (36:54)

You

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Allison (37:08)

I think that's pretty common.

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Wendy Hurst (37:10)

It is. That's not a limited thing. Like that's standard here where I live. All right. Question number two. What strange food combo became a TikTok trend in 2021? Was it A, watermelon with yellow mustard, B, spaghetti topped with melted marshmallows, or C, French fries dipped in soy sauce and honey?

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Wendy Hurst (37:35)

I don't watch it either.

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Shelby (37:38)

Um... Okay, all those sounded so bad. Um, C?

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Wendy (37:39)

Incorrect! The answer is A. Watermelon with yellow mustard. People on TikTok started eating that. I don't know. I don't know why they would do that. It's pretty nasty though. In my opinion. Whatever. Everyone can choose for themselves. Question number three.

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Allison (37:49)

That's distressing.

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Shelby (37:50)

Why did you ruin watermelon?

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Yes. Don't yuck there, yum.

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Allison (38:02)

No. Or do.

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Shelby (38:07)

I do.

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Wendy Hurst (38:08)

Yeah. Question number three. Which of these unlikely ice cream flavors actually exists? Is it A, Cheetos ice cream? B, soy sauce ice cream? Or C, chicken noodle soup ice cream?

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Shelby (38:27)

What are people doing in life? What is happening? Out of all these questions, I've only been confident about the first one, and it's gone downhill since. And not mine, Allison's first one. It's been downhill a while.

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Shelby (38:47)

I don't... I'm gonna go C again.

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Wendy Hurst (38:51)

Incorrect. The answer is B, soy sauce ice cream.

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Shelby (38:55)

Was gonna say that but who would eat that?

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Wendy Hurst (38:58)

Soy sauce ice cream is very popular in Japan, which offers a mix of sweet and umami flavors. All right, round up of points. means Shelby has four points and Allison has five, which means that Allison is the winner. Yay.

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Shelby (39:16)

Allison knows more weird food than me.

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Wendy Hurst (39:22)

That's all for this episode of Ship It Anyway. Big thanks to my guests, Shelby and Allison, for playing along and sharing their insights. If you enjoyed this episode, you can find Hero Devs on LinkedIn, X.com, YouTube, and anywhere else podcasts are available for more entertaining tech content. We'll see you next time. Bye bye.