Editing 1395: Power Cord
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Because humans are warm-blooded, human breath is slightly warmer than the surrounding air, and therefore has slightly fewer molecules per unit volume. This is also true of hot air balloons, but they operate at much higher temperatures than human breath and are therefore able to obtain a greater amount of net buoyancy. There is a standard cartoon convention that {{tvtropes|AllBalloonsHaveHelium| inflating something with breath}} nonetheless makes it lighter than air. Also, given Beret Guy's many manifestations of inexplicable phenomena, it is not too far fetched to believe his body is, in fact, expelling some form of lighter-than-air gas, similar to the character Rigel on Farscape who could "fart helium". | Because humans are warm-blooded, human breath is slightly warmer than the surrounding air, and therefore has slightly fewer molecules per unit volume. This is also true of hot air balloons, but they operate at much higher temperatures than human breath and are therefore able to obtain a greater amount of net buoyancy. There is a standard cartoon convention that {{tvtropes|AllBalloonsHaveHelium| inflating something with breath}} nonetheless makes it lighter than air. Also, given Beret Guy's many manifestations of inexplicable phenomena, it is not too far fetched to believe his body is, in fact, expelling some form of lighter-than-air gas, similar to the character Rigel on Farscape who could "fart helium". | ||
| β | The title text involves some jokes on {{w|Unix}} systems. On Unix, {{w|everything is a file}}; even most of the hardware can be referenced by a (virtual) file. These virtual files usually are in /dev or another virtual filesystem like /sys or /proc. While /dev/input really exists and points to the input system (mice, keyboards, gamepads, etc.), /dev/inside doesn't. {{w|gzip}} is a common tool to compress files. The first joke is to compress the air inside the laptop (with the command <code>gzip /dev/inside</code>) in order to deflate the laptop back to normal size. It is a pun with the literal meaning of "deflate", which is also the {{w|DEFLATE}} algorithm used by gzip (compressing files is also called "deflating"). Another joke is "{{w|Pipeline (Unix)|piping}}", the act of using the output of one operation as the input to another. As the output of the gzip command would be compressed air, a ''physical'' pipe could be used to direct the air somewhere useful. The output of a command can also be redirected to a file. Since the hardware is a file, the suggestion is to direct the air to /dev/input (which, in this case, means the keyboard, but would actually be a directory on real system, which can't normally be piped into) to clean it, similar to "compressed air" dusting cans. The complete command would be <code>gzip /dev/inside | + | The title text involves some jokes on {{w|Unix}} systems. On Unix, {{w|everything is a file}}; even most of the hardware can be referenced by a (virtual) file. These virtual files usually are in /dev or another virtual filesystem like /sys or /proc. While /dev/input really exists and points to the input system (mice, keyboards, gamepads, etc.), /dev/inside doesn't. {{w|gzip}} is a common tool to compress files. The first joke is to compress the air inside the laptop (with the command <code>gzip /dev/inside</code>) in order to deflate the laptop back to normal size. It is a pun with the literal meaning of "deflate", which is also the {{w|DEFLATE}} algorithm used by gzip (compressing files is also called "deflating"). Another joke is "{{w|Pipeline (Unix)|piping}}", the act of using the output of one operation as the input to another. As the output of the gzip command would be compressed air, a ''physical'' pipe could be used to direct the air somewhere useful. The output of a command can also be redirected to a file. Since the hardware is a file, the suggestion is to direct the air to /dev/input (which, in this case, means the keyboard, but would actually be a directory on real system, which can't normally be piped into) to clean it, similar to "compressed air" dusting cans. The complete command would be <code>gzip /dev/inside > /dev/input</code>. As this might cause a spray of unpleasant detritus (compare [[237: Keyboards are Disgusting]]), the reader is advised to avert their eyes. |
==Transcript== | ==Transcript== | ||
