Pixie dust
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Pixie dust is the trail of sparkling material that often follows mythical creatures such as pixies and fairies in general when they are visually represented. Sometimes, this trail is interpreted as being a tangible substance, often imbued with magic powers. The most notable example of this is in the 1953 Disney version of Peter Pan, where pixie dust allows one to fly if one is thinking happy thoughts, specifically the song "You can fly". In the book and play of Peter Pan, it was called fairy dust.
"Pixie dust" is also the informal name that IBM used briefly in a series of 2001 press releases for its antiferromagnetically-coupled (AFC) media technology, which can increase the data capacity of hard drives. In 2005 IBM announced plans to begin using "magnetic pixie dust" to enhance hard-drive capacity.
"Pixie dust" is also an informal name for silly actions or activities done for stated reasons such as claiming something is being done for "Legal Reasons" when in fact there is no such legal requirement to take that particular action.
