14-letter words containing h, o, m, c, e, n
- schematization — to reduce to or arrange according to a scheme.
- scratch monkey — (humour) As in "Before testing or reconfiguring, always mount a scratch monkey", a proverb used to advise caution when dealing with irreplaceable data or devices. Used to refer to any scratch volume hooked to a computer during any risky operation as a replacement for some precious resource or data that might otherwise get trashed. This term preserves the memory of Mabel, the Swimming Wonder Monkey, star of a biological research program at the University of Toronto. Mabel was not (so the legend goes) your ordinary monkey; the university had spent years teaching her how to swim, breathing through a regulator, in order to study the effects of different gas mixtures on her physiology. Mabel suffered an untimely demise one day when a DEC engineer troubleshooting a crash on the program's VAX inadvertently interfered with some custom hardware that was wired to Mabel. It is reported that, after calming down an understandably irate customer sufficiently to ascertain the facts of the matter, a DEC troubleshooter called up the field circus manager responsible and asked him sweetly, "Can you swim?" Not all the consequences to humans were so amusing; the sysop of the machine in question was nearly thrown in jail at the behest of certain clueless droids at the local "humane" society. The moral is clear: When in doubt, always mount a scratch monkey. A corespondent adds: The details you give are somewhat consistent with the version I recall from the Digital "War Stories" notesfile, but the name "Mabel" and the swimming bit were not mentioned, IIRC. Also, there's a very detailed account that claims that three monkies died in the incident, not just one. I believe Eric Postpischil wrote the original story at DEC, so his coming back with a different version leads me to wonder whether there ever was a real Scratch Monkey incident.
- second chamber — the parliament of the Netherlands, consisting of an upper chamber (First Chamber) and a lower chamber (Second Chamber)
- servomechanism — an electronic control system in which a hydraulic, pneumatic, or other type of controlling mechanism is actuated and controlled by a low-energy signal.
- soil mechanics — the branch of civil engineering that deals with the mechanical behavior of soil and similar materials when they are compressed or sheared or when liquids flow through them.
- south american — a continent in the S part of the Western Hemisphere. About 6,900,000 sq. mi. (17,871,000 sq. km).
- sowing machine — a machine that scatters seeds on land so that they may grow
- stomachfulness — the quality of being stomachful
- symphonic poem — a form of tone poem, scored for a symphony orchestra, in which a literary or pictorial “plot” is treated with considerable program detail: originated by Franz Liszt in the mid-19th century and developed especially by Richard Strauss.
- the long march — a journey of about 10 000 km (6000 miles) undertaken (1934–35) by some 100 000 Chinese Communists when they were forced out of their base in Kiangsi in SE China. They made their way to Shensi in NW China; only about 8000 survived the rigours of the journey
- the omniscient — God
- thermodynamics — the science concerned with the relations between heat and mechanical energy or work, and the conversion of one into the other: modern thermodynamics deals with the properties of systems for the description of which temperature is a necessary coordinate.
- thermoelectron — an electron emitted by an incandescent material.
- thermojunction — a point of electrical contact between two dissimilar metals across which a voltage appears, the magnitude of which depends on the temperature of the contact and the nature of the metals
- thermomagnetic — of or relating to the effect of heat on the magnetic properties of a substance.
- thomson effect — the tendency of unevenly heated segments of a strip of a conductor to increase or decrease in temperature differences when an electric current is passed through the strip.
- trichomonacide — an agent that destroys trichomonads
- turbomachinery — machinery consisting of, incorporating, or constituting a turbine
- unaccomplished — not accomplished; incomplete or not carried out: Many tasks remain unaccomplished.
- uncomprehended — not comprehended or understood
- unmetaphorical — not used, viewed, or intended as a metaphor
- voting machine — a mechanical apparatus used in a polling place to register and count the votes.