Linus Åkesson personal blog
/dev/zero has infinite electrons and /dev/null has an infinite appetite for them
Delightfully useless epiphany: Suppose the null-byte is an electron. Then, /dev/zero provides an infinite supply of electrons and /dev/null has an infinite appetite for them. Let's call these devices Vss and Vdd , respectively.
- Points
- 250
- HN comments
- 51
- Submissions
- 3
- Cited by
- 4 commenters
Software EngineeringHistory & Retro Computing2012
On Hacker News
| Submitted | Title on HN | Points | Comments |
|---|---|---|---|
| Jun 4, 2012 | /dev/zero has infinite electrons and /dev/null has an infinite appetite for them by sgt | 250 | 23 |
| May 10, 2018 | Pipe Logic (2011) by Tomte | 178 | 18 |
| Sep 29, 2017 | Pipe Logic – Simulating circuits in the Unix shell (2011) by Ivoah | 111 | 10 |
Cited in comments
Linked from 4 Hacker News comments by 4 different people, from Aug 2014 to Oct 2025.
Most recent:
- jihadjihad · Oct 24, 2025
- elteto · Mar 13, 2022
- cptnapalm · May 22, 2019
- boyaka · Aug 20, 2014
