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28-letter words containing i, b

  • national bureau of standards — National Institute of Standards and Technology
  • national labor relations act — an act of Congress (1935) that forbade any interference by employers with the formation and operation of labor unions.
  • national physical laboratory — a UK establishment founded in 1900 at Teddington to carry out research in physics and monitor standards of measurement
  • object linking and embedding — (operating system)   (OLE) A distributed object system and protocol from Microsoft, also used on the Acorn Archimedes. OLE allows an editor to "farm out" part of a document to another editor and then reimport it. For example, a desk-top publishing system might send some text to a word processor or a picture to a bitmap editor using OLE.
  • object persistence framework — (programming)   (OPF) Any system for storing objects so they can be reloaded into a future session. Typically this will use a relational database along with some kind of object relational mapping. Another typical solution would store objects in XML files (a form of serialisation). One of the trickier problems to solve is how to maintain references between objects, e.g. replacing memory pointers with unique names or identifiers. Virtually identical considerations apply to transferring objects, or indeed any kind of data structure, from one process to another via some communications channel, e.g. a TCP/IP connection.
  • object-oriented polymorphism — (programming)   The kind of polymorphism found in object-oriented programming languages where a variable can refer to an object whose class is not known exactly until run time. A method can use a variable of a given class - call other methods on it, pass it as an argument, etc. - without needing to know to which subclass it refers, as long as its actual class is compatible with those uses.
  • online public access catalog — (library)   (OPAC) A computerised system to catalogue and organise materials in a library (the kind that contains books). OPACs have replaced card-based catalogues in many libraries. An OPAC is available to library users (public access).
  • osborne computer corporation — (company)   The unsucessful computer manufacturer founded by Adam Osborne that produced one of the first laptop computers, the Osborne 1.
  • personal liability insurance — Personal liability insurance protects the insured if they are sued for claims that are covered by the insurance policy.
  • phenylmethylcarbinyl acetate — methylphenylcarbinyl acetate.
  • plug compatible manufacturer — (company)   (PCM) A manufacturer of equipment that some other manufacturer's system can identify and work with. The PCM's device replaces the original manufacturer's. Most PCMs competed with IBM. PCM devices normally offer a cost-performance benefit over the original device. For example, several PCM versions of the Direct-Access Storage Device IBM 3350 offered twice the storage and improved data access (dual port). Plug compatible devices include replacement CPUs, such as the Hitachi 7/90 series (which could be substituted for IBM 3090 series processors), I/O subsystems, and dumb terminals like the IBM 3270.
  • probability density function — a function of a continuous variable whose integral over a region gives the probability that a random variable falls within the region.
  • quite a few (or bit, etc. ) — more than a few (or bit, etc.)
  • revised version of the bible — a recension of the Authorized Version, prepared by British and American scholars, the Old Testament being published in 1885, and the New Testament in 1881.
  • rise/come back from the dead — If you say that someone or something rises or comes back from the dead, you mean that they become active or successful again after being inactive for a while.
  • robert william andrew fellerRobert William Andrew ("Bob"; "Bullet Bob") 1918–2010, U.S. baseball player.
  • sb will/can not go far wrong — If you say that someone won't go far wrong or can't go far wrong with a particular thing or course of action, you mean that it is likely to be successful or satisfactory.
  • second axiom of countability — the property satisfied by a topological space in which the neighborhood system of each point has a base consisting of a countable number of neighborhoods (first axiom of countability) or the property satisfied by a topological space that has a base for its topology consisting of a countable number of subsets of the space (second axiom of countability)
  • sell someone a bill of goods — to persuade someone by deception or misrepresentation to accept, believe, or do something
  • single sideband transmission — a method of transmitting radio waves in which either the upper or the lower sideband is transmitted, the carrier being either wholly or partially suppressed. This reduces the required bandwidth and improves the signal-to-noise ratio
  • spill blood/spill sb's blood — If you spill someone's blood, you kill them or wound them.
  • standard normal distribution — a normal distribution with mean zero and variance 1, with probability density function [exp(–1⁄2x2)]/√2π
  • tannu tuva people's republic — former name of Tuva Autonomous Republic.
  • the obscene publications act — a group of obscenity laws that determines what can be published in Britain
  • to be in someone's bad books — If you are in someone's bad books, they are annoyed with you. If you are in their good books, they are pleased with you.
  • to be in the interests of sb — to be to the advantage of somebody
  • to be no let-up in something — if there is no let-up in something, usually something unpleasant, there is no reduction in the intensity of it
  • to be on your home territory — to be in a situation in which one is at ease
  • to beat someone's brains out — To beat someone's brains out or bash their brains in means to hit their head very hard, so that they are badly injured or killed.
  • to cut something to the bone — If something such as costs are cut to the bone, they are reduced to the minimum possible.
  • to give somebody a thick ear — to hit sb on the ear or head
  • to handle sb with kid gloves — to treat someone with great tact or caution
  • to have a bee in your bonnet — If you have a bee in your bonnet about something, you are so enthusiastic or worried about it that you keep mentioning it or thinking about it.
  • to leave a lot to be desired — If you say that something leaves a lot to be desired, you mean that it is not as good as it should be.
  • to make a clean breast of it — If you make a clean breast of something, you tell someone the truth about yourself or about something wrong that you have done.
  • to make someone's blood boil — If you say that something makes your blood boil, you are emphasizing that it makes you very angry.
  • to set/put sb's mind at rest — To put someone's mind at rest or set their mind at rest means to stop them worrying about something.
  • uninterruptible power supply — (hardware)   (UPS) A battery powered power supply unit that is guaranteed to provide power to a computer in the event of interruptions in the incoming mains electrical power. Different rating UPSs will provide power for different lengths of time. Modern UPSs connect to the computer's serial port and provide information such as battery time remaining, allowing the computer to shut down gracefully before complete loss of power.
  • until sb is blue in the face — If you say that someone can do something until they are blue in the face, you are emphasizing that however much they do it, it will not make any difference.
  • variable-density wind tunnel — a closed-circuit wind tunnel entirely contained in a casing in which the pressure and therefore the density of the working fluid can be maintained at a preselected value
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