The Coolest Thing I Learned Today
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01/01/20:
The iceberg theory, coined by Hemingway, states that the real meaning to a story should be implicit, not explicit. Most of the meaning should lie beneath the surface like an iceberg, and the author should focus on aptly covering "surface elements" while leaving much of the interpretation to the reader. (Ref: Wikipedia.)

01/02/20:
"Anacoluthon" (plural "anacolutha") is the Greek-derived word for a sentence with an abrupt shift in "line of thought," basically a switch to another idea WITH AN ACCOMPANYING SWITCH TO ANOTHER TYPE OF SENTENCE STRUCTURE. For example: "I opened my eyes, stop eating potatoes" or "I just got here – where are my keys?" Note that anacolutha are not the same as non sequiturs (although apparently the Greeks used to refer to non sequiturs as anacolutha). My interpretation is that anacolutha emphasize syntactic inconsistencies, while non sequiturs emphasize logical inconsistencies. (Ref: Wikipedia, Julaina Kleist-Corwin, Study.com.)

01/03/20:
The human gustatory system perceives five basic tastes: sweetness, saltiness, bitterness (unpleasant, associated with toxicity), sourness ("acidity"), and umami ("savory taste", e.g. dashi). All tastes come from all parts of the tongue. (Ref: Newlywedsfoods.com, Wikipedia.)

01/04/20:
An apéritif is a drink that stimulates the appetite before a meal. A digestif is a drink that aids digestion after a meal. Both are typically alcoholic. Apéritifs are usually dry (i.e. not sweet), and digestifs are usually taken neat (i.e. poured straight from the bottle at room temperature). (Ref: AGiM 54, Wikipedia.)

01/05/20:
A diving duck has a higher density than other birds, and will sometimes go 200 feet underwater to feed. It can hold its breath for several minutes at a time. (Ref: Ducks.org.)

01/06/20:
Supposedly, the Cara Cara orange (1976) arose from a mutation on a Washington navel orange tree in Venezuela. (Ref: Wikipedia.)

01/07/20:
Tidal locking is a phenomenon where a body orbits another body while looking at it with the same face at all times. TOI-700 d, the ~Earth-sized exoplanet which orbits the red dwarf star TOI-700, is tidally locked. Although TOI-700 d is in TOI-700's "habitable zone" (the range of distances for which liquid water could exist on the planet's surface), the tidal locking is bad for habitability because it causes unstable and extreme climates. One side is always hot. (Ref: Wikipedia, Space.com, NASA.gov, Kite et al.)

01/08/20:
A 24-year-old human is ~2 in dog years (whether the dog is small, medium, or large) and ~50 in tortoise years (using the lifespan-based relationship t = 255 / 122 * h). I am not sure what the average lifespan of a tortoise is; it does not seem to be documented. 255 is the estimated max. (Ref: Wikipedia.)

01/09/20:
Dennard/MOSFET scaling (1974) refers to the idea that transistors scale in size with constant power density, so that (e.g.) 1 billion larger transistors and 2 billion smaller transistors would consume equivalent amounts of power if they occupied the same total area. Under the providence of Dennard scaling, we were able to achieve massive gains in clock rate (via smaller transistors) for many years while keeping power consumption constant. However, this did not last. We say that power in CMOS chips is equal to _ * f * C * V^2 + V * I, where f is operating frequency aka CPU clock rate, C is capacitance, V is voltage, and I is leakage current. My understanding is that Dennard scaling ignored the leakage current term. But then as chips got smaller, the relative power consumption from leakage current increased up to the point where it would dominate total power consumption. To control this, we were forced to use a gate dielectric of at least a certain thickness, creating a lower bound for voltage. The inability to decrease voltage meant that we could no longer maintain constant power density (and avoid dangerous levels of heat) without capping the operating frequency. Because of this, we say that Dennard scaling "broke down" around 2006; since then, it has not been providing the power-relative performance gains that it once promised, and people have been focusing on parallel processing instead. (Ref: Bryan Chin, Wikipedia, Christian Märtin, William Gropp, Brian Bailey.)

01/10/20:
Within personality theory, the dark triad consists of narcissism, Machiavellianism (manipulation), and psychopathy ("callousness and cynicism"). In March 2019, Kaufman et al. published a research article proposing a counterbalancing "light triad": Kantianism (treating people as ends, not means), humanism (valuing every individual), and faith in humanity. (Ref: Scott Barry Kaufman.)

01/11/20:
"Pascal's mugging" describes a potentially problematic phenomenon where a rational agent always chooses the action associated with the highest expected value, in spite of the fact that the highest expected value might arise from an improbable outcome with an incredibly large utility. The term is derived from "Pascal's wager," and the illustrative hypothetical scenario has Pascal hand over his wallet to a philosophical mugger who promises Pascal "1000 quadrillion happy days of life" in return. Although there is only the most minute chance that the mugger can actually fulfill his promise, the idea is that the chance is still nonzero – and thus the absurd utility of "1000 quadrillion happy days of life" makes it a deal worth taking. (Ref: Wikipedia.)

01/12/20:
A hyperoperation is an operation which is defined recursively as an iterated version of the operation "before," with the first operation being the successor function S(b) = b + 1. The hyperoperations continue as addition (iterated succession), multiplication (iterated addition), exponentiation (iterated multiplication), tetration (iterated exponentiation), pentation (iterated tetration), and so on. (Ref: Wikipedia.)

01/13/20:
The scientific name for the black rat is Rattus rattus – a "tautonym." (Its generic name is "Rattus" and its specific name is "rattus.") Another species with a tautonymous name is the western lowland gorilla, whose scientific name is Gorilla gorilla gorilla. (Its generic name is "Gorilla," its specific name is "gorilla," and its subspecific name is also "gorilla.") (Ref: Wikipedia.)

01/14/20:
Glossolalia, or "speaking in tongues," describes a scenario where a speaker speaks in a language that he/she/* does not know. For example, followers of certain religions will speak in "divine languages" that they do not understand. Likewise, the song "Prisencolinensinainciusol" (1972, by Adriano Celentano of Italy) is supposed to sound like English even though it is gibberish to actual English speakers. (Ref: Wikipedia.)

01/15/20:
The Rohonc Codex and the Voynich manuscript are examples of ancient codices written in unknown languages. To this day, scholars have been unable to definitively decipher them. Conceivably they are hoaxes. (Ref: Wikipedia.)

01/16/20:
Our universe is full of cosmic dust. The dust is both _created from_ and _used to create_ stars. (Ref: Herschel Space Observatory.)

01/17/20:
The "principle of plenitude" says that anything that COULD exist MUST exist. In our infinite universe, all possibilities are present. (Ref: Oxford Reference.)

01/18/20:
The Dichotomy argument is a paradox of motion proposed by Zeno of Elea. It states that to get from point A to point B in a finite amount of time, you must first get 1/2 of the way there, and before you get 1/2 of the way there, you must get 1/4 of the way there, and before you get 1/4 of the way there, you must get 1/8 of the way there, and so on. In other words, you must complete an infinite amount of tasks in a finite amount of time (a supertask), which is impossible. Moreover, the "first" distance you would travel cannot exist, because there is always a smaller distance which would supersede any proposed "first" distance. Thus you can never get started at all, much less arrive at point B ≠ A, and motion is an illusion. Until you introduce limits... (Ref: Wikipedia.)

01/19/20:
There is a fruit called a peacotum which is a hybrid of peaches, apricots, and plums. It was developed by Zaiger's Genetics which creates new fruit via hybridization. The guy who founded Zaiger's Genetics also invented nectaplums, which have only one marketed variety: "Spice Zee." (Ref: Wikipedia.)

01/20/20:
At the Michelin 3-star restaurant Atelier Crenn in SF, the menu is presented as an original poem. Also, Michelin (the company which produces Michelin Guides) is a tire manufacturer. (Ref: Wikipedia.)

01/21/20:
An aeolian process is one in which the wind shapes the surface of a planet. For example, wind will sculpt rocks, carve alcoves, and build dunes in arid regions such as deserts. (Ref: Wikipedia.)

01/22/20:
Pirate Joe's (2012-2017) was a store in Vancouver whose business model was to buy products from Trader Joe's [in the United States] and resell them with markups in Canada. (Ref: Wikipedia.)

01/23/20:
"Eye dialect" is intentionally misspelled speech; when read, it suggests a certain dialect, or a lack of education, or just a general tendency to pronounce particular things in particular ways. Think _The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn_. (Ref: Wikipedia.)

01/24/20:
Ocularcentrism is a bias toward vision as the primary sense. Apparently it is especially prevalent in Western culture (dating back to Plato and Aristotle), where seeing is associated with reason and understanding ("I see"). (Ref: Oxford Reference.)

01/25/20:
In the "Maxwell's demon" thought experiment, a demon controls a door between two adjacent compartments of an isolated system filled with gas. The demon only opens the door for faster-than-average molecules going from compartment 1 to compartment 2, and for slower-than-average molecules going from compartment 2 to compartment 1. Thus the faster molecules all end up in compartment 2, and the slower molecules all end up in compartment 1. By organizing the molecules in this way, entropy/randomness is (theoretically) decreased and the second law of thermodynamics is (theoretically) violated. In practice, however, the total entropy of the system would still increase when you include the demon as part of the equation. (Ref: Auburn University.)

01/26/20:
Poioumenon is a type of metafiction that tells a story about the "process of creation" (e.g. the process of creating the story itself). _Pale Fire_ is an example. (Ref: Wikipedia.)

01/27/20:
It is ~170 miles (a three-hour drive) from NYC to Vermont. It is also ~170 miles from NYC to Baltimore. (Ref: Google Maps.)

01/28/20:
Narrative distance is the distance between the narration (/reader) and the story's subject. Where is the observational "camera" in the scene? Is it in the main characters' heads, thinking everything they think, or is it up above, observing events from an outsider's perspective? (Ref: Jennifer Ellis.)

01/29/20:
There are zero-viscosity "superfluids" (e.g. superfluid helium-4) which will flow over any surface without friction, produce fountains that never stop flowing, and form vortices that never stop rotating. (Ref: BBC, Wikipedia.)

01/30/20:
The margin of a leaf is the boundary/edge of the leaf. Broadly, margins can be smooth ("entire"), toothed, lobed, or parted. There are also a lot of more specific terms (crenate, dentate, serrulate, etc.). (Ref: Cactus Art.)

01/31/20:
A memento mori ("remember you will die") is a reminder of death's inevitability. See e.g. the skull that Anthony Horowitz keeps in his office. (Ref: Blur, Austere Academy.)

02/01/20:
Sandblasting refers to a process in which abrasive material (e.g. sand) is blasted against a surface for the purpose of smoothing, shaping, or cleaning the surface. An aeolian process will perform sandblasting naturally. (Ref: Wikipedia.)

02/02/20:
There are established services for delivering potatoes and eggplants with personalized messages. See e.g. Potato Parcel, Mail a Spud, and Eggplant Mail. (Ref: Wikipedia, Potato Parcel, Mail a Spud, Eggplant Mail.)

02/08/20:
Reduplication: repeat a word with an altered consonant or vowel ("sing sang sung"). If the vowels include I, A, and O, the corresponding words should appear in that order ("hip hop" versus "hop hip"). (Ref: Mark Forsyth / BBC.)

04/19/20:
The average human is ~neutrally buoyant. However, fat is less dense than water, and muscle is more dense than water. So if you don't have much fat, you might not be able to float. On the other hand, if you have a lot of fat and not much muscle, you will probably find floating easier. (Ref: Divers Alert Network.)