pluie.me
Source code + assets for pluie.me
new post: traffic cones?!
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src/_styles/components/misc.scss
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src/_styles/components/misc.scss
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src/blog/20230303-traffic-cone.md
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src/blog/20230303-traffic-cone.md
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---
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title: What's up with the traffic cones?!
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date: 2023-03-03 23:00:00 +08:00
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authors:
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- Leah
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---
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I got asked of that question a lot lately, even from multiple different people.
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Given it's apparently a Frequently Asked Question™ now, I might as well answer it here...
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<!-- MORE -->
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> A: Hey Leah?
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>
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> Me: Yeah?
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>
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> A: I see your avatar is wearing a traffic cone... why is that?
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>
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> Me: Well-
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>
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> A: Like, please don't tell me you've worn a traffic cone before in real life...?
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>
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> Me: Uhm, I have, but-
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>
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> A: Why, why would you do this to yourself, Leah...?
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>
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> Me: Because it all started from a meme. Now just shut up and let me explain-
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>
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> A: Ugh, kids these days...
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>
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> Me: *audible silence*
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Now, I'll admit that this meme is kinda strange, but it all started when I was in
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the Fabric Community Discord Server (or Fabricord for short) back in 2020.
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There was a prominent member called i509VCB (i5 for short), who'd later go on to found Quilt with a couple of other people.
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His avatar is nothing but unique—a rotating red traffic cone stuck between two escalator railings:
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<figure>
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<img src="https://avatars.githubusercontent.com/u/30619168" class="is-rounded my-4" width="300">
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<figcaption>
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(It was originally an animated GIF, but now all I can find is a static image. Lame.)
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</figcaption>
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</figure>
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And... can we just appreciate how surreal this is? The sight of a red traffic cone, with two railings
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sliding past it, applying torque to it and making it rotate at a constant speed, indefinitely.
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There's a mesmerizing quality to the image, no matter how absurd or pointless it is.
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Something about a plastic conical object spinning in a perfect loop, over and over again, activates the funny nerve
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in our primate brain.
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And such, some people in Fabricord started copying him. We started adding traffic cones to our own
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avatars, and naming ourselves with silly nicknames containing "cone". I even altered my old (pre-trans) avatar
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to include a traffic cone as well, but I'm not exactly proud of the person that avatar belongs to
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anymore, so I'll not display it here. In the end, lots of people got on the bandwagon, and everyone,
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for a time, was enamored with the traffic cone.
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However, the traffic cone fad, like all fads, died down sometime around 2021.
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That's the cruel reality of fads—they're just ephemeral, one-of-a-kind occurrences that quickly get
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replaced by other fads or other more important things going on in a community.
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(Fabricord in 2021 has... a _lot_ of things going on, something I will _not_ touch on today.)
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But I remained enamored with the traffic cone. When everyone else has taken the traffic cone off,
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I kept it on my old avatar. Somehow, the traffic cone made my crude stick figure pop out more
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as an interesting entity, and without it, my avatar became oddly spacious and incomplete.
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It lodged onto me as an important part of my internet persona, somehow.
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<figure>
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<img src="/img/avatar-big.webp" class="is-rounded my-4" width="300">
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<figcaption>
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Where we are now! :3
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</figcaption>
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</figure>
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And so, I became a hold-out of the traffic cone. In a way, I kinda even revived the traffic cone.
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As i5 left Quilt to focus more on his work on Wayland compositors (oh wow, that sounds cool) and
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I gradually climbed up the Quilt Management Echelon, people started calling me "the cone girl"
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due to my close association with it. Some even just call me "cone."
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Some people started wearing traffic cones in their avatars again, who weren't there during the
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traffic cone fad in Fabricord.
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In a way, I'm pretty surprised that I've clung to traffic cones for this long, but I'm happy to
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see it picking up steam again. After all, a big part in life is forging your own path, and
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letting an icon of yourself flow in people's memories, isn't it?
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I guess traffic cones serve as that icon for me, for now, though it is still admittedly pretty bizarre. :p