21-letter words containing i, l, s, t, r, a
- nightmare file system — Pejorative hackerism for Sun's Network File System (NFS). In any nontrivial network of Suns where there is a lot of NFS cross-mounting, when one Sun goes down, the others often freeze up. Some machine tries to access the down one, and (getting no response) repeats indefinitely. This causes it to appear dead to some messages (what is actually happening is that it is locked up in what should have been a brief excursion to a higher spl level). Then another machine tries to reach either the down machine or the pseudo-down machine, and itself becomes pseudo-down. The first machine to discover the down one is now trying both to access the down one and to respond to the pseudo-down one, so it is even harder to reach. This situation snowballs very quickly, and soon the entire network of machines is frozen - worst of all, the user can't even abort the file access that started the problem! Many of NFS's problems are excused by partisans as being an inevitable result of its statelessness, which is held to be a great feature (critics, of course, call it a great misfeature). ITS partisans are apt to cite this as proof of Unix's alleged bogosity; ITS had a working NFS-like shared file system with none of these problems in the early 1970s. See also broadcast storm.
- nitrosylsulfuric acid — a clear, straw-colored, oily, corrosive liquid, HNO 5 S, used chiefly in the manufacture of dyes.
- nonrestrictive clause — a relative clause that describes or supplements but is not essential in establishing the identity of the antecedent and is usually set off by commas in English. In This year, which has been dry, is bad for crops the clause which has been dry is a nonrestrictive clause.
- nonviolent resistance — passive resistance, peaceful protest
- northumberland strait — the part of the Gulf of St. Lawrence that separates Prince Edward Island from New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, in SE Canada. About 200 miles (320 km) long; 9–30 miles (15–48 km) wide.
- nuclear cross section — cross section (def 7).
- nuclear power station — a station or plant where nuclear energy is converted into heat, electricity, etc
- observation satellite — an unmanned satellite that observes the earth and gathers data
- oil-in-water emulsion — An oil-in-water emulsion is a mixture in which an oily medicine is dispersed in water or other liquid.
- old spanish practices — irregular practices among a group of workers to gain increased financial allowances, reduced working hours, etc
- operational semantics — (theory) A set of rules specifying how the state of an actual or hypothetical computer changes while executing a program. The overall state is typically divided into a number of components, e.g. stack, heap, registers etc. Each rule specifies certain preconditions on the contents of some components and their new contents after the application of the rule. It is similar in spirit to the notion of a Turing machine, in which actions are precisely described in a mathematical way. Compuare axiomatic semantics, denotational semantics.
- optical double (star) — double star (sense 2)
- otorhinolaryngologist — (medicine) Doctor specializing in otorhinolaryngology, the study of ear, nose, and throat.
- parasitic oscillation — (in an electronic circuit) oscillation at any undesired frequency
- partially ordered set — a set in which a relation as “less than or equal to” holds for some pairs of elements of the set, but not for all.
- personality inventory — a questionnaire designed to measure personality types or characteristics.
- physical anthropology — the branch of anthropology dealing with the evolutionary changes in human anatomy and physiology, using mensurational and descriptive techniques.
- picture quality scale — (graphics) (PQS) A system for rating image quality based upon features of images that affect their perception by the human eye, rather than the traditional signal-to-noise ratio which examines differences for every single pixel.
- piezoelectric crystal — a crystal, such as quartz, that produces a potential difference across its opposite faces when under mechanical stress
- pipelined burst cache — Pipeline Burst Cache
- plate glass insurance — Plate glass insurance is insurance coverage against damage to or breakage of large panes of glass such as shop windows.
- play russian roulette — take a foolish risk
- political correctness — Political correctness is the attitude or policy of being extremely careful not to offend or upset any group of people in society who have a disadvantage, or who have been treated differently because of their sex, race, or disability.
- poor robin's plantain — the rattlesnake weed, Hieracium venosum.
- populist shop steward — a shop steward who operates in a delegate role, putting the immediate interests of his members before union principles and policies
- posterior probability — the probability assigned to some parameter or to an event on the basis of its observed frequency in a sample, and calculated from a prior probability by Bayes' theorem
- prince rupert's metal — a brass composed of from about 60 to 85 percent copper and about 15 to 40 percent zinc, used to imitate gold.
- private member's bill — In Britain, a Private Member's Bill is a law that is proposed by a Member of Parliament acting as an individual rather than as a member of his or her political party.
- pro-industrialization — the large-scale introduction of manufacturing, advanced technical enterprises, and other productive economic activity into an area, society, country, etc.
- public address system — loudspeaker
- public administration — the implementation of public policy, largely by the executive branch.
- public health service — the agency that is responsible for the health of the general public
- public transportation — means of fare-paying travel
- public-address system — a combination of electronic devices that makes sound audible via loudspeakers to many people, as in an auditorium or out of doors.
- pulse height analyser — a multichannel analyser that sorts pulses into selected amplitude ranges
- pulse height analyzer — an instrument that records or counts an electrical pulse if its amplitude falls within specified limits: used in nuclear physics research for the determination of energy spectra of nuclear radiations
- put sb in their place — If you put someone in their place, you show them that they are less important or clever than they think they are.
- racial discrimination — prejudice based on race
- ralph roister doister — a play (1553?) by Nicholas Udall: the earliest known English comedy.
- rayleigh distribution — (mathematics) A curve that yields a good approximation to the actual labour curves on software projects.
- real estate insurance — Real estate insurance is insurance of property, land, and buildings.
- real estate liability — Real estate liability is liability for risks that come from owning real estate.
- real operating system — (operating system, abuse) The sort the speaker is used to. People from the BSDophilic academic community are likely to issue comments like "System V? Why don't you use a *real* operating system?", people from the commercial/industrial Unix sector are known to complain "BSD? Why don't you use a *real* operating system?", and people from IBM object "Unix? Why don't you use a *real* operating system?" See holy wars, religious issues, proprietary, Get a real computer!.
- reconnaissance flight — a flight made by an aircraft in order to obtain military information about a particular place
- reconnaissance patrol — a patrol made by soldiers in order to obtain military information about a particular place
- relaxation oscillator — a nonsinusoidal oscillator, the timing of which is controlled by the charge and discharge time constants of resistance and capacitance components
- requirements analysis — (project) The process of reviewing a business's processes to determine the business needs and functional requirements that a system must meet.
- residual unemployment — the unemployment that remains in periods of full employment, as a result of those mentally, physically, or emotionally unfit to work
- reverse polish syntax — postfix notation
- rocky mountain locust — a migratory locust, Melanoplus spretus, that occurs in North America, especially the Great Plains, where swarms cause great damage to crops and other vegetation.