Pipe Logic: "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.
In this model, a UNIX pipe acts like a wire, that is, a conductor with parasitic capacitance. If the pipe is connected to Vss, its pipe buffer in kernel space quickly fills up with null-bytes, and the pipe acts like a negatively charged metal plate. If it is connected to Vdd, the pipe buffer is drained, and the pipe acts like a positively charged metal plate."
'via Blog this'
