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18-letter words containing a, g, r, o, s, t

  • lithostratigraphic — Of or pertaining to lithostratigraphy.
  • logarithmic spiral — log r = aθ
  • logarithmus dualis — (mathematics)   (ld) Latin for logarithm base two. More commonly written as "log" with a subscript "2". Roughly the number of bits required to represent an integer.
  • long-stay car park — a car park (eg at an airport) where cars can be left for a long time
  • low-start mortgage — a mortgage in which interest only is repaid for a fixed period at the outset, to make it more affordable
  • magic switch story — Some years ago, I was snooping around in the cabinets that housed the MIT AI Lab's PDP-10, and noticed a little switch glued to the frame of one cabinet. It was obviously a homebrew job, added by one of the lab's hardware hackers (no-one knows who). You don't touch an unknown switch on a computer without knowing what it does, because you might crash the computer. The switch was labelled in a most unhelpful way. It had two positions, and scrawled in pencil on the metal switch body were the words "magic" and "more magic". The switch was in the "more magic" position. I called another hacker over to look at it. He had never seen the switch before either. Closer examination revealed that the switch had only one wire running to it! The other end of the wire did disappear into the maze of wires inside the computer, but it's a basic fact of electricity that a switch can't do anything unless there are two wires connected to it. This switch had a wire connected on one side and no wire on its other side. It was clear that this switch was someone's idea of a silly joke. Convinced by our reasoning that the switch was inoperative, we flipped it. The computer instantly crashed. Imagine our utter astonishment. We wrote it off as coincidence, but nevertheless restored the switch to the "more magic" position before reviving the computer. A year later, I told this story to yet another hacker, David Moon as I recall. He clearly doubted my sanity, or suspected me of a supernatural belief in the power of this switch, or perhaps thought I was fooling him with a bogus saga. To prove it to him, I showed him the very switch, still glued to the cabinet frame with only one wire connected to it, still in the "more magic" position. We scrutinized the switch and its lone connection, and found that the other end of the wire, though connected to the computer wiring, was connected to a ground pin. That clearly made the switch doubly useless: not only was it electrically nonoperative, but it was connected to a place that couldn't affect anything anyway. So we flipped the switch. The computer promptly crashed. This time we ran for Richard Greenblatt, a long-time MIT hacker, who was close at hand. He had never noticed the switch before, either. He inspected it, concluded it was useless, got some diagonal cutters and diked it out. We then revived the computer and it has run fine ever since. We still don't know how the switch crashed the machine. There is a theory that some circuit near the ground pin was marginal, and flipping the switch changed the electrical capacitance enough to upset the circuit as millionth-of-a-second pulses went through it. But we'll never know for sure; all we can really say is that the switch was magic. I still have that switch in my basement. Maybe I'm silly, but I usually keep it set on "more magic".
  • magistrate's court — a court having limited jurisdiction over minor civil and criminal matters, as matters of contract not exceeding a particular amount of money.
  • magistrates' court — law: handles minor crimes
  • magnetic resonance — the response by atoms, molecules, or nuclei subjected to a magnetic field to radio waves or other forms of energy: used in medicine for scanning
  • magnetocrystalline — (physics) Describing the interaction between the magnetization and the crystal structure of a material.
  • manufactured goods — products made by machine
  • margaret of valois — ("Queen Margot") 1533–1615, 1st wife of Henry IV of France: queen of Navarre; patron of science and literature (daughter of Henry II of France and Catherine de' Medici).
  • mato grosso do sul — a state of W central Brazil: formed in 1979 from part of Mato Grosso state. Capital: Campo Grande. Pop: 2 140 624 (2002). Area: 350 548 sq km (135 318 sq miles)
  • menthol cigarettes — cigarettes that are flavoured with menthol
  • microsoft exchange — (messaging)   Microsoft's messaging and enterprise collaboration server. Exchange's primary role is as an electronic mail message store but it can also store calendars, task lists, contact details, and other data.
  • moccasin telegraph — the transmission of rumour or secret information; the grapevine
  • molecular genetics — a subdivision of genetics concerned with the structure and function of genes at the molecular level.
  • mortgage insurance — policy to compensate for property loan payments
  • national guardsman — guardsman (def 2).
  • neo-pythagoreanism — a philosophical system, established in Alexandria and Rome in the second century b.c., consisting mainly of revived Pythagorean doctrines with elements of Platonism and Stoicism.
  • netscape navigator — (networking, tool, product)   /Mozilla/ (Often called just "Netscape") A web browser from Netscape Communications Corporation. The first beta-test version was released free to the Internet on 13 October 1994. Netscape evolved from NCSA Mosaic (with which it shares at least one author) and runs on the X Window System under various versions of Unix, on Microsoft Windows and on the Apple Macintosh. It features integrated support for sending electronic mail and reading Usenet news, as well as RSA encryption to allow secure communications for commercial applications such as exchanging credit card numbers with net retailers. It provides multiple simultaneous interruptible text and image loading; native inline JPEG image display; display and interaction with documents as they load; multiple independent windows. Netscape was designed with 14.4 kbps modem links in mind. You can download Netscape Navigator for evaluation, or for unlimited use in academic or not-for-profit environments. You can also pay for it. Version: 1.0N. E-mail: <[email protected]>.
  • neuroleptanalgesia — a semiconscious nonreactive state induced by certain drug combinations, as fentanyl with droperidol.
  • new storage system — (storage)   (NSS) A major Multics implementation project during the 1970s. The initial Multics file system design had evolved from the one-huge-disk world of CTSS. When multiple disk units were used they were just assigned increasing ranges of disk addresses, so a segment could have pages scattered over all disks on the system. This provided good I/O parallelism but made crash recovery expensive. NSS redesigned the lower levels of the file system, introducing the concepts of logical volume and physical volume and a mapping from a Multics directory branch to a VTOC entry for each file. The new system had much better recovery performance in exchange for a small space and performance cost.
  • nightmare scenario — If you describe a situation or event as a nightmare scenario, you mean that it is the worst possible thing that could happen.
  • nonaggression pact — an agreement between two nations not to attack each other, usually for a specified period of years
  • nonpartisan league — a political organization of farmers, founded in North Dakota in 1915, and extending to many states west of the Mississippi, with the aim of influencing agricultural legislation in state legislatures.
  • not a pretty sight — If you say that someone or something is not a pretty sight, you mean that it is not pleasant to look at.
  • off-street parking — spaces for cars located on private property rather than on a public street
  • offset lithography — offset (def 6).
  • on the danger list — critically ill in hospital
  • open heart surgery — surgery performed on the exposed heart while a heart-lung machine pumps and oxygenates the blood and diverts it from the heart.
  • open-heart surgery — surgery performed on the exposed heart while a heart-lung machine pumps and oxygenates the blood and diverts it from the heart.
  • operating expenses — Operating expenses are expenses related to carrying out normal business activities.
  • operating software — software used in the operation of a computer system, typically by performing such tasks as memory allocation, job scheduling, and input/output control
  • operations manager — business director
  • organic solidarity — social cohesiveness that is based on division of labor and interdependence and is characteristic of complex, industrial societies.
  • orthotungstic acid — an oxyacid acid of tungsten. Formula: H2WO4
  • osteogenic sarcoma — osteosarcoma
  • owen stanley range — a mountain range in SE New Guinea. Highest peak: Mount Victoria, 4073 m (13 363 ft)
  • ox-tongue partisan — a shafted weapon having a long, wide, tapering blade.
  • parathyroid glands — any of several small oval glands usually lying near or embedded in the thyroid gland.
  • passing-out parade — a ceremonial parade of cadets who have completed their training
  • phantasmagorically — having a fantastic or deceptive appearance, as something in a dream or created by the imagination.
  • population figures — population totals; statistics relating to the size of populations
  • portuguese guinean — of or relating to Portuguese Guinea, a former name for Guinea-Bissau, or its inhabitants
  • positively charged — having a positive charge
  • postal storage car — a railroad car for transporting unsorted mail.
  • postmaster general — the executive head of the postal system of a country.
  • pragmatic sanction — any one of various imperial decrees with the effect of fundamental law.
  • press photographer — a photographer who works for a newspaper, magazine, etc
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