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18-letter words containing f, u, r

  • considered harmful — (programming, humour)   A type of phrase based on the title of Edsger W. Dijkstra's famous note in the March 1968 Communications of the ACM, "Goto Statement Considered Harmful", which fired the first salvo in the structured programming wars. Amusingly, the ACM considered the resulting acrimony sufficiently harmful that it will (by policy) no longer print articles taking so assertive a position against a coding practice. In the ensuing decades, a large number of both serious papers and parodies bore titles of the form "X considered Y". The structured-programming wars eventually blew over with the realisation that both sides were wrong, but use of such titles has remained as a persistent minor in-joke.
  • constructive proof — (mathematics)   A proof that something exists that provides an example or a method for actually constructing it. For example, for any pair of finite real numbers n < 0 and p > 0, there exists a real number 0 < k < 1 such that f(k) = (1-k)*n + k*p = 0. A constructive proof would proceed by rearranging the above to derive an equation for k: k = 1/(1-n/p) From this and the constraints on n and p, we can show that 0 < k < 1. A few mathematicians actually reject *all* non-constructive arguments as invalid; this means, for instance, that the law of the excluded middle (either P or not-P must hold, whatever P is) has to go; this makes proof by contradiction invalid. See intuitionistic logic. Constructive proofs are popular in theoretical computer science, both because computer scientists are less given to abstraction than mathematicians and because intuitionistic logic turns out to be an appropriate theoretical treatment of the foundations of computer science.
  • continued fraction — a number plus a fraction whose denominator contains a number and a fraction whose denominator contains a number and a fraction, and so on
  • contract furniture — furniture designed and manufactured for commercial installation, as in offices, waiting rooms, or lobbies.
  • counterreformation — a reform movement to oppose a previous one
  • court of exchequer — (formerly) an English civil court where Crown revenue cases were tried
  • court of st. james — the British royal court
  • creeping featurism — (jargon)   /kree'ping fee'chr-izm/ (Or "feature creep") A systematic tendency to load more chrome and features onto systems at the expense of whatever elegance they may have possessed when originally designed. "The main problem with BSD Unix has always been creeping featurism." More generally, creeping featurism is the tendency for anything to become more complicated because people keep saying "Gee, it would be even better if it had this feature too". The result is usually a patchwork because it grew one ad-hoc step at a time, rather than being planned. Planning is a lot of work, but it's easy to add just one extra little feature to help someone, and then another, and another, .... When creeping featurism gets out of hand, it's like a cancer. Usually this term is used to describe computer programs, but it could also be said of the federal government, the IRS 1040 form, and new cars. A similar phenomenon sometimes afflicts conscious redesigns; see second-system effect. See also creeping elegance.
  • crude oil fraction — A crude oil fraction is a component of crude oil, which has its own particular molecular composition, weight, and boiling point.
  • cultural diffusion — act of diffusing; state of being diffused.
  • current efficiency — the ratio of the actual mass of a substance liberated from an electrolyte by the passage of current to the theoretical mass liberated according to Faraday's law
  • curvature of field — a monochromatic aberration of a lens or other optical system in which the focal surface is curved, the refracted image of an object oriented perpendicular to the axis of the lens lying on a curved surface rather than in a plane perpendicular to the axis.
  • curvature of space — (in relativity) a property of space near massive bodies in which their gravitational field causes light to travel along curved paths.
  • dafydd ap gruffudd — died 1283, Welsh leader. Claiming the title Prince of Wales (1282), he led an unsuccessful revolt against Edward I: executed
  • dangerous offender — an offender who is deemed by a court of law to be likely to engage in further violent conduct, and who thus becomes eligible for an indefinite prison sentence
  • defense calculator — IBM 701
  • departure platform — a raised area at a railway station from which passengers can board trains prior to their departing
  • diaminofluorescein — (organic compound) A fluorescein into which two amino groups have been substituted.
  • distress frequency — a radio frequency band reserved for emergency signals from aircraft or ships in distress.
  • distributed eiffel — ["Distributed Eiffel: A Language for Programming Multi-Granular Distributed Objects on the Clouds Operating System", L. Gunaseelan et al, IEEE Conf Comp Langs, 1992].
  • division of labour — a system of organizing the manufacture of an article in a series of separate specialized operations, each of which is carried out by a different worker or group of workers
  • dried-fruit beetle — a small beetle, Carpophilus hemipterus, of worldwide distribution, that infests ripe, dried, and fermenting fruits, especially figs and dates.
  • due process of law — the administration of justice in accordance with established rules and principles
  • duty-free shopping — the making of duty-free purchases
  • dwarf storage unit — (humour)   (DSU) An IBM term for a cupboard.
  • electrical failure — an instance when an electricity supply stops working
  • expected frequency — the number of occasions on which an event may be presumed to occur on average in a given number of trials
  • fall to the ground — (of a plan, theory, etc) to be rendered invalid, esp because of lack of necessary information
  • fascicular cambium — cambium that develops within the vascular bundles, producing secondary xylem and phloem.
  • fast-food industry — the industry surrounding fast-food restaurants
  • federal funds rate — The federal funds rate is the overnight rate between banks.
  • feeping creaturism — /fee'ping kree"ch*r-izm/ A deliberate spoonerism for creeping featurism, meant to imply that the system or program in question has become a misshapen creature of hacks. This term isn"t really well defined, but it sounds so neat that most hackers have said or heard it. It is probably reinforced by an image of terminals prowling about in the dark making their customary noises.
  • fettuccine alfredo — fettuccine in cream sauce with grated Parmesan cheese.
  • fibrocartilaginous — a type of cartilage having a large number of fibers.
  • fire in your belly — If you say that someone has fire in their belly, you are expressing approval of them because they are energetic, enthusiastic, and have very strong feelings.
  • first class module — (programming)   A module that is a first class data object of the programming language, e.g. a record containing functions. In a functional language, it is standard to have first class programs, so program building blocks can have the same status.
  • first duke of york — a member of the royal house of England that ruled from 1461 to 1485.
  • first-in first-out — (algorithm)   (FIFO, or "queue") A data structure or hardware buffer from which items are taken out in the same order they were put in. Also known as a "shelf" from the analogy with pushing items onto one end of a shelf so that they fall off the other. A FIFO is useful for buffering a stream of data between a sender and receiver which are not synchronised - i.e. not sending and receiving at exactly the same rate. Obviously if the rates differ by too much in one direction for too long then the FIFO will become either full (blocking the sender) or empty (blocking the receiver). A Unix pipe is a common example of a FIFO. A FIFO might be (but isn't ever?) called a LILO - last-in last-out. The opposite of a FIFO is a LIFO (last-in first-out) or "stack".
  • fissure of rolando — central sulcus.
  • fissure of sylvius — lateral fissure.
  • fitness instructor — physical trainer, exercise teacher
  • five hundred rummy — a variety of rummy in which the winner is the first player to score 500 points.
  • fixed-focus camera — a camera with an unadjustable focal length and with a relatively large depth of field.
  • floating underflow — underflow
  • flowers of sulphur — minute crystals of sulphur obtained by condensing sulphur vapour on a cold surface
  • fluegelman, andrew — Andrew Fluegelman
  • fluorescent screen — a transparent screen coated on one side with a phosphor that fluoresces when exposed to X-rays or cathode rays
  • fluorodeoxyglucose — (carbohydrate) A fluorine analog of glucose that is used in positron emission tomography.
  • football supporter — a person who supports a particular football team
  • for the rest of us — (abuse)   (From the Macintosh slogan "The computer for the rest of us") 1. Used to describe a spiffy product whose affordability shames other comparable products, or (more often) used sarcastically to describe spiffy but very overpriced products. 2. Describes a program with a limited interface, deliberately limited capabilities, non-orthogonality, inability to compose primitives, or any other limitation designed to not "confuse" a naïve user. This places an upper bound on how far that user can go before the program begins to get in the way of the task instead of helping accomplish it. Used in reference to Macintosh software which doesn't provide obvious capabilities because it is thought that the poor luser might not be able to handle them. Becomes "the rest of *them*" when used in third-party reference; thus, "Yes, it is an attractive program, but it's designed for The Rest Of Them" means a program that superficially looks neat but has no depth beyond the surface flash. See also point-and-drool interface, user-friendly.
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