25-letter words containing f, a, c, e
- point-and-drool interface — (abuse) (Or "point-and-grunt interface") A parody of "point-and-shoot interface", describing a windows, icons, and mouse-based (WIMP) graphical user interface. The implication, of course, is that such an interface is only suitable for idiots. See for the rest of us, WIMP, drool-proof paper.
- point-and-grunt interface — point-and-drool interface
- principal nursing officer — a grade of nurse concerned with administration in the British National Health Service
- principle of least action — the principle that motion between any two points in a conservative dynamical system is such that the action has a minimum value with respect to all paths between the points that correspond to the same energy
- principle of virtual work — the principle that the total work done by all forces on a system in static equilibrium is zero for a set of infinitesimally small displacements.
- public key infrastructure — (cryptography, communications) (PKI) A system of public key encryption using digital certificates from Certificate Authorities and other registration authorities that verify and authenticate the validity of each party involved in an electronic transaction. PKIs are currently evolving and there is no single PKI nor even a single agreed-upon standard for setting up a PKI. However, nearly everyone agrees that reliable PKIs are necessary before electronic commerce can become widespread.
- single document interface — (programming) (SDI) A limitation applying to an application program that only shows a single windows giving a view of one document at a time. The opposite is Multiple Document Interface (MDI).
- single wingback formation — an offensive formation in which the wingback lines up outside of and about one yard behind an end, the quarterback lines up lateral to the wingback but about midway between the same end and the center, the fullback is three or four yards behind the middle of the line, and the tailback lines up one yard behind the fullback on the other side of the line from the wingback and quarterback.
- single-lens reflex camera — a camera in which the image appears on a ground-glass viewer (focusing screen) after being reflected by a mirror or after passing through a prism or semitransparent glass; in one type (single-lens reflex camera) light passes through the same lens to both the ground glass and the film, while in another type (twin-lens reflex camera) light passes through one lens (viewing lens) to the ground glass and through a second lens (taking lens) to the film, the lenses being mechanically coupled for focusing.
- software through pictures — (programming, tool) (StP) A set of CASE tools distributed by Aonix.
- take up the cudgels (for) — to come to the defense (of)
- the calm before the storm — You can use the calm before the storm to refer to a quiet period in which there is little or no activity, before a period in which there is a lot of trouble or intense activity.
- the meteorological office — a British Government department supplying weather forecasts
- the scholastic profession — the profession of teaching
- time domain reflectometer — (hardware, networking) (TDR) An electronic device for detecting and locating short- or open-circuits in an Ethernet cable. TDRs can also measure how the characteristic impedance of a line varies along its length.
- to catch sight of someone — If you catch sight of someone, you suddenly see them, often briefly.
- to keep a watchful eye on — If you keep a watchful eye on someone or something, you watch carefully to make sure there are no problems.
- to someone's satisfaction — If you do something to someone's satisfaction, they are happy with the way that you have done it.
- total internal reflection — the effect that occurs when light meets the interface between the medium in which it is traveling and a medium of smaller refractive index at an angle of incidence greater than the critical angle, all light being reflected back to the first medium.
- track and field athletics — a collection of sporting events that involve running, sprinting, throwing, jumping and walking
- trading standards officer — a person who works for a trading standards office
- transport layer interface — (networking, programming) (TLI, or "Transport Level Interface") A protocol-independent interface for accessing network facilities, modelled after the ISO transport layer (level 4), that first appeared in Unix SVR3. TLI is defined by SVID as transport mechanism for networking interfaces, in preference to sockets, which are biased toward IP and friends. A disavantage is that a process cannot use read/write directly, but has to use backends using stdin and stdout to communicate with the network connection. TLI is implemented in SVR4 using the STREAMS interface. It adds no new system calls, just a library, libnsl_s.a. The major functions are t_open, t_bind, t_connect, t_listen, t_accept, t_snd, t_rcv, read, write. According to the Solaris t_open man page, XTI (X/OPEN Transport Interface) evolved from TLI, and supports the TLI API for compatibility, with some variations on semantics.
- transport level interface — Transport Layer Interface
- under the watchful eye of — If you do something under the watchful eye of someone who has authority over you, they watch you carefully to make sure there are no problems.
- uniform naming convention — Universal Naming Convention
- uniform resource citation — (web) (URC) A set of attribute/value pairs describing an object. Some of the values may be URIs of various kinds. Others may include, for example, athorship, publisher, datatype, date, copyright status and shoe size. A URC is not normally considered as a string, but a set of fields and values with some defined free formatting.
- war of the grand alliance — the war (1689–97) in which England, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, and the Holy Roman Empire in league with Bavaria, Brandenburg, Savoy, and the Palatinate opposed France.