Resources:cassie.codestwitter.com/cassiecodesAmelia's TwitterNate's TwitterKurt Vonnegut and Narrative ArcsSara Soueidan's Post on SVG Filters: The Crash CourseWelcome to the newline podcast. Our show is a conversation with experienced software engineers where we discuss new technology, career advice, and help you be amazing at work.I’m Nate Murray and I’m Amelia Wattenberger and today we're talking with creative coder Cassie Evans.In this episode we talk about something often neglected in web design today: how to bring whimsy and joy to your usersIn our chat we talk about how the old web had entry points to programming and where we might find find that today.And open with a story about how she, as a child, sold animated cursors for donuts, which felt like magic - and how even today snippets of code feel like magic spells.We loved our conversation with Cassie, and think you will too, let's dig in!Cassie Evans PodcastAmelia: [00:00:00] Welcome to the newline Podcast. Nate: [00:00:08] Our show is a conversation with experienced software engineers, where we discuss new technology, career advice and help you be amazing at work. I’m Nate. Amelia: [00:00:17] And I’m Amelia Wattenberger. Today, we’re talking with creative coder, Cassie Evans. In this episode, we talk about something often neglected in web design today, how to bring whimsy and joy to your users. In our chat, we talk about how the old web had entry points to programming and where we might find that today. Nate: [00:00:35] We open with a story about how Cassie as a child, sold animated cursors for donuts, which felt like magic. And how even today, snippets of code still feel like magic spells. We loved our conversation with Cassie and we think you will too. Let’s dig in. Cassie: [00:00:53] We’re not Nate: [00:00:54] live and so we just it to be fun. One of things is I really love your talks and you talked about how the web needs more whimsy. I just love that so much. In one of your talks, you mentioned that you sold neopets pages for donuts. Cassie: [00:01:11] Yes. Nate: [00:01:11] Like when you were a child. Can you tell me more about that? For context, I think you and I grew up with some of the similar early web stuff. For example, when I was younger, I once got on the Internet for hours and then my parents were furious, because my dad had gotten an accident at work and his boss was supposed to call. I’d been tying up the Internet, because I was on dial-up for hours. Yeah, I just love the old classic web style, like Myspace and neopets. We can get into that some, but can you tell me about how you sold neopets pages for donuts? Cassie: [00:01:40] Yes, definitely. Yeah, firstly you mentioned dial-up. I missed that so much. It's so close to my heart, because I remember we had one computer at home, that was our home computer and I was only allowed to use it for educational things for a lot of times. I used to wait until my parents were asleep and then I’d creep downstairs with blankets and I’d have to wrap the whole computer up in the blanket, so that it wouldn't make the noises, so that I could dial-up to the Internet. I just sit there clutching it to my chest, trying to dampen down the noises, so they wouldn't wake up. Why Nate: [00:02:15] were modems so loud, right? Cassie: [00:02:17] So loud. Nate: [00:02:18] Yeah. Cassie: [00:02:21] Even that noise now gives me anxiety, because it sounds like being downstairs, terrified that my parents are going to wake up at any moment. I love that. Yeah, the donuts. I didn't have money for the tuck shop when I was younger. I got school dinners. I didn't have packed lunch boxes and they weren't really into giving us sugary snacks. They were quite healthy. I got quite jealous about all of the other kids having donuts from the tuck shops. Around that time, everyone started making Myspace profiles and neopets pet pages. My one was really good and lots of people asked me whether I could make them sparkly cursors and stuff. I started up a little side hustle and swapped sparkly cursors for donuts. It was excellent. Amelia: [00:03:11] What is the deal? Is it one cursor for one donut? Cassie: [00:03:15] Yeah, I think it was something like that; a cursor for a donut. This Nate: [00:03:19] is amazing. I don't actually understand how this would work. How much programming was it? Were you finding GIFs? I’m interested in particularly one, for the entrepreneurship side, two, because it's on-brand that you're adding sparkles. Then three, is the learning programming aspect. I love this idea, for example, that some of the best ways to learn are just when you're self-motivated and you're just trying to do stuff. I learned how to program, because I was tweaking web pages this similar way and I worked my way down. I’m interested. I didn't actually use neopets necessarily, but what were these cursors and how did that work for as much as you remember? Cassie: [00:03:53] As much as I remember. I think it ...
