Snow

Snow is a form of precipitation in which the falling water starts as miniature ice crystals.

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What it is
No two snowflakes are alike… unless you're talking about columns and plates, which all look alike, more or less.

Tiny ice crystals formed in clouds whose shape varies based on temperature and humidity. Shapes range from the famous six-fold radial symmetry to simple needles and columns. Thus, the claim "every snowflake is unique" and the nauseating phrase "special snowflake" is somewhat misleading. While not every six-sided variant of snowflake is unique in terms of shape, two are rarely alike.

What it's not

Crazy nanomachines from the government, somehow related to chemtrails. When a chunk of snow is burned at any temperature with a butane lighter, the snow does not seem to liquefy but rather turns black and shrinks. In actuality, the melted snow in liquid form is absorbed back into the snowball and the blackness is from the carbon in butane (C4H10) attaching itself to the snowball.[1]

Snow also doesn't disprove the existence of climate change.[citation NOT needed] In the real world, climate change can cause more wild storms to occur as more water is vaporized into clouds with wind being stronger in these instances.

Usage as a snarl word

People on all parts of the political spectrum, though more associated with the (extreme) political right (especially the alt-right), frequently call their opponents "snowflakes" or "special snowflakes" to insult them, particularly mocking their perceived over-sensitivity and inflated sense of "special treatment". This snarl word plays on the partially-true idea that "no two snowflakes are alike". As with most snarl words, this ubiquitous term has lost all power, and it just sounds dumb, as if being unique, symmetrical, cool, beautiful, and coming in different shapes depending on the temperature is a bad thing. In Taiwan they are known as strawberries, which are also fragile but more common near the Tropic of Cancer.[2]

gollark: Also, as I said (prompting this discussion), current computers take time to do things, draw electricity, emit EM radiation, etc.
gollark: Even handling/generating/whatever but not evaluating thunks technically does consume power.
gollark: Yes, but most of them aren't (allegedly) functionally pure.
gollark: You may laugh, but side channel attacks are a real and problematic thing!
gollark: HASKELL PROGRAMMERS DON'T WANT YOU TO KNOW: all Haskell programs are impure because they have measurable side effects like power draw, execution time and even electromagnetic radiation emitted from the circuits or whatever.

See also

References
  1. http://on.msnbc.com/LAvA40
  2. See the Wikipedia article on Strawberry generation.
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