Talk:Magic smoke

Appearance in popular culture

Would it be relevant to include a reference to the BOFH story BOFH 2006 Episode 19 which includes a detailed explanation of the Magic Smoke theory using the compound Managerium —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 72.141.221.112 (talk • contribs) . Basically it's Vickers fault.

Duplicate

The two external links refer to the same text from Usenet.

Would expanding this to include reference to the use of smoke in shamanic and other spiritual / religious (is blessed smoke from a censer appropriately magic?) be appropriate? Lorax 03:54, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

No. Articles are about topics, not words. Shamanic smoke would need to be in a different article, possibly with a disambiguation link from this one. — Omegatron 18:34, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

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Odor of Allen-Bradley

I think this page might benefit from an explanation of exactly what gives magic smoke its subtle aroma. Zaphraud 22:59, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

Which flavor do you mean? The classic scorched Bakelite of a toasted discrete carbon resistor, the more pungent scent of a popped electrolytic cap, or the even more loathesome stench of a roasted transformer? Oil-filled items are the worst. __Just plain Bill 23:28, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

Smoke in the Wires

Is this related in any way to the old joke about the phone company having to blow air through the wires to clean them out? Maybe they're clogged with smoke residue? :) Airship 16:04, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

"Blinding flash test" and "Noise-emitting diode"

"Blinding flash test" brings up a grand total of 3 Google hits, one of which is this article; I'm not convinced by its notability by a long shot. Therefore, I'm removing this again, for now.

"Noise-emitting diode" brings up 134 hits, which is slightly better. However, a link to a forum is not appropriate for a source. I'm removing this as well, but would be happy to see it re-added if it had a more suitable source, and were phrased more objectively (e.g. "A similar joke is the 'noise-emitting diode', which is said to be..."), rather than in its current tongue-in-cheek tone. Oli Filth^(talk) 23:34, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

I saw those same 3 hits for "blinding flash" which goes in the context of the web: auto mechanics are far less likely to blog about their jargon than electronics sorts are. Noise-emitting diodes and single-use LED's are more likely to show up in a search; I just grabbed the first hit that looked like something for that link. @ end of day, google is not a reliable indicator of notability, but more of a first-order sanity test. I figure these two items fit pretty well with what amounts to a frivolous topic here... I'll dig around a bit more... later, __Just plain Bill 23:46, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

I appreciate that it's not reliable, but zero hits (essentially) is usually a pretty good indicator. At the very least, it means it's going to be difficult to source, which, unfortunately, means it can't really go into the article at this stage, no matter how frivolous the topic may seem (otherwise anyone could add any old nonsense that they just made up). If suitable sources can be found, then I completely agree that they would fit well as addenda to this article (under a heading of "Similar concepts" or something). Oli Filth^(talk) 00:13, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

Lucas, prince of darkness.

This joke pre-dates silicon components. It was common amongst owners of British cars at least as far back as the early 1950's. Most British-made cars used electrical components made by a company called "Lucas" - which were notoriously shoddy and unreliable. The high probability of your headlamps failing resulted in the mythical figure of "Lucas, Prince of Darkness" - and then the story of factory-installed smoke.

Here are a few examples of the hundreds of online references to Lucas' magic smoke - mostly from classic car owners with vehicles made in the 1950's and '60s when the joke was most common:

http://www.mez.co.uk/lucas.html http://www3.telus.net/bc_triumph_registry/smoke.htm http://www.sw-em.com/Lucas...RIP.htm

...I'm unable to find a reference that dates these jokes to before the electronics industry adopted it - but I recall hearing the joke from my father who learned it in the early 1950's...but that's WP:OR.

SteveBaker (talk) 16:21, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

Debian

Currently, there is a Debian logo and the following text in the article: "The emblem of the Debian free software project is a swirl. Bruce Perens has claimed that the swirl represents magic smoke, although the logo's creator has never offered an official explanation and others have offered competing theories." I think the claim by one person (even if it's Perens) is not enough for inclusion of this text in the article, so I will remove it. --HelgeStenstrom (talk) 07:45, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

References

It appears to me that many of the external links are used as references. If this is so, they should be transferred to the references section. In addition, the notice about relying on only one source should then be removed. Piguy101 (talk) 18:38, 9 February 2014 (UTC)

External links modified

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Checked, seems fine. Rchard2scout (talk) 15:45, 8 July 2017 (UTC)