In another instance of geek culture leaking into the mainstream, the New York Times ran an article today, This Is Funny Only if You Know Unix about Randall Munroe's Internet comic strip xkcd.
The Times article makes an attempt to explain the humor of the comic at right, explaining that "sudo" is a Unix command "that temporarily grants godlike powers" but like all humor, the enjoyment comes from a recognition that we've been there before:
$ rm foo
rm: Permission denied
$ sudo rm foo
Password:
$
