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20-letter words containing i, n, s, t, u

  • multi-user dimension — (games)   (MUD) (Or Multi-User Domain, originally "Multi-User Dungeon") A class of multi-player interactive game, accessible via the Internet or a modem. A MUD is like a real-time chat forum with structure; it has multiple "locations" like an adventure game and may include combat, traps, puzzles, magic and a simple economic system. A MUD where characters can build more structure onto the database that represents the existing world is sometimes known as a "MUSH". Most MUDs allow you to log in as a guest to look around before you create your own character. Historically, MUDs (and their more recent progeny with names of MU- form) derive from a hack by Richard Bartle and Roy Trubshaw on the University of Essex's DEC-10 in 1979. It was a game similar to the classic Colossal Cave adventure, except that it allowed multiple people to play at the same time and interact with each other. Descendants of that game still exist today and are sometimes generically called BartleMUDs. There is a widespread myth that the name MUD was trademarked to the commercial MUD run by Bartle on British Telecom (the motto: "You haven't *lived* 'til you've *died* on MUD!"); however, this is false - Richard Bartle explicitly placed "MUD" in the PD in 1985. BT was upset at this, as they had already printed trademark claims on some maps and posters, which were released and created the myth. Students on the European academic networks quickly improved on the MUD concept, spawning several new MUDs (VAXMUD, AberMUD, LPMUD). Many of these had associated bulletin-board systems for social interaction. Because these had an image as "research" they often survived administrative hostility to BBSs in general. This, together with the fact that Usenet feeds have been spotty and difficult to get in the UK, made the MUDs major foci of hackish social interaction there. AberMUD and other variants crossed the Atlantic around 1988 and quickly gained popularity in the US; they became nuclei for large hacker communities with only loose ties to traditional hackerdom (some observers see parallels with the growth of Usenet in the early 1980s). The second wave of MUDs (TinyMUD and variants) tended to emphasise social interaction, puzzles, and cooperative world-building as opposed to combat and competition. In 1991, over 50% of MUD sites are of a third major variety, LPMUD, which synthesises the combat/puzzle aspects of AberMUD and older systems with the extensibility of TinyMud. The trend toward greater programmability and flexibility will doubtless continue. The state of the art in MUD design is still moving very rapidly, with new simulation designs appearing (seemingly) every month. There is now a move afoot to deprecate the term MUD itself, as newer designs exhibit an exploding variety of names corresponding to the different simulation styles being explored. See also bonk/oif, FOD, link-dead, mudhead, MOO, MUCK, MUG, MUSE, chat.
  • multicast addressing — Ethernet addressing scheme used to send packets to devices of a certain type or for broadcasting to all nodes. The least significant bit of the most significant byte of a multi-cast address is one.
  • multimedia extension — Matrix Math eXtensions
  • multipart stationery — continuous stationery comprising two or more sheets, either carbonless or with carbon paper between the sheets
  • multiple personality — a rare disorder in which an individual displays several functionally dissociated personalities, each of a complexity comparable to that of a normal individual.
  • multistep hydroplane — a motorship having a flat bottom built as a series of planes inclined forward, the ship planing on each from stem to stern as its speed increases.
  • mum-and-dad investor — a small-scale non-professional investor
  • naturalistic fallacy — the supposed fallacy of inferring evaluative conclusions from purely factual premises
  • net domestic product — the gross domestic product minus an allowance for the depreciation of capital goods
  • neuropsychiatrically — In terms of neuropsychiatry.
  • no two ways about it — If you say that there are no two ways about it, you are emphasizing that there is no doubt at all about a particular situation or about how it should be interpreted.
  • non-optimal solution — (Or "sub-optimal solution") An astoundingly stupid way to do something. This term is generally used in deadpan sarcasm, as its impact is greatest when the person speaking looks completely serious. See also Bad Thing.
  • noninstitutionalized — Not institutionalized.
  • nonintrusive testing — (testing)   Testing that is transparent to the software under test, i.e., does not change its timing or processing characteristics. Nonintrusive testing usually involves additional hardware that collects timing or processing information and processes that information on another platform.
  • nostalgie de la boue — a desire for or attraction to crudity, vulgarity, depravity, etc.
  • not mince your words — If you say that someone does not mince their words, you mean that they speak in a forceful and direct way, especially when saying something unpleasant to someone.
  • notre dame mountains — a mountain range in E Quebec, Canada, an extension of the Green Mountains in Vermont and a portion of the Appalachian Mountains: about 500 miles (800 km) long, rising about 2000 feet (610 meters).
  • nummulitic limestone — limestone composed predominantly of fossil nummulites.
  • occupation franchise — the right of a tenant to vote in national and local elections
  • occupation groupings — a system of classifying people according to occupation, based originally on information obtained by government census and subsequently developed by market research. The classifications are used by the advertising industry to identify potential markets. The groups are A, B, C1, C2, D, and E
  • occupational disease — Also called industrial disease. a disease caused by the conditions or hazards of a particular occupation.
  • occupational pension — a pension scheme provided for the members of a particular occupation or by a specific employer or group of employers
  • omega-minus particle — a baryon with strangeness −3, isotopic spin 0, and negative charge; predicted from the mathematics of the Eightfold Way and subsequently discovered. Symbol: Ω −.
  • on that/this account — You can use on that account or on this account when you want to say that something happens for the reason you have just mentioned.
  • on the sunny side of — younger than (a specified age)
  • one's misspent youth — the period when one is young and spend's one's time doing foolish, bad, or frivolous things
  • one's spiritual home — Your spiritual home is the place where you feel that you belong, usually because your ideas or attitudes are the same as those of the people who live there.
  • operational calculus — a method for solving a differential equation by treating differential operators as ordinary algebraic quantities, thus obtaining a simpler problem.
  • orthognathic surgery — the surgical correction of deformities or malpositions of the jaw.
  • oscillating universe — a variant model of the closed universe in which the universe undergoes cycles of expansion and contraction.
  • overenthusiastically — With excessive enthusiasm.
  • paper qualifications — qualifications gained through official examinations, etc, rather than through experience
  • parametric equations — one of two or more equations expressing the location of a point on a curve or surface by determining each coordinate separately.
  • peaceful coexistence — competition without war, or a policy of peace between nations of widely differing political systems and ideologies, especially between Communist and non-Communist nations: peaceful coexistence between the U.S. and the Soviet Union.
  • peculiar institution — black slavery in the southern U.S. before the Civil War.
  • pentobarbital sodium — a barbiturate drug used in medicine as a sedative and hypnotic. Formula: C11H17N2O3Na
  • pentose nucleic acid — a nucleic acid containing a pentose.
  • peruvian mastic tree — a pepper tree, Schinus molle.
  • phosphorus pentoxide — a white, deliquescent, crystalline powder, P 2 O 5 , that, depending upon the amount of water it absorbs, forms orthophosphoric acid, metaphosphoric acid, or pyrophosphoric acid, produced by the burning of phosphorus in dry air: used in the preparation of phosphoric acids, as a drying and dehydrating agent, and in organic synthesis.
  • pipeline burst cache — (hardware, storage)   (PB Cache) A synchronous cache built from pipelined SRAM. A cache in which reading or writing a new location takes multiple cycles but subsequent locations can be accessed in a single cycle. On Pentium systems in 1996, pipeline burst caches are frequently used as secondary caches. The first 8 bytes of data are transferred in 3 CPU cycles, and the next 3 8-byte pieces of data are transferred in one cycle each.
  • poisson distribution — a limiting form of the binomial probability distribution for small values of the probability of success and for large numbers of trials: particularly useful in industrial quality-control work and in radiation and bacteriological problems.
  • polyanthus narcissus — a Eurasian amaryllidaceous plant, Narcissus tazetta, having clusters of small yellow or white fragrant flowers
  • population explosion — the rapid increase in numbers of a particular species, especially in the world's human population since the end of World War II, attributed to an accelerating birthrate, a decrease in infant mortality, and an increase in life expectancy.
  • population inversion — a condition of matter in which more electrons are in a high energy state than in a lower energy state, as is required for the operation of a laser.
  • potassium antimonate — a white, crystalline, slightly water-soluble powder, KSbO 3 , used chiefly as a pigment in paints.
  • potassium binoxalate — a white, crystalline, hygroscopic, poisonous solid, KHC 2 O 4 , that is usually hydrated: used chiefly for removing ink stains, cleaning metal and wood, and in photography.
  • pound cost averaging — a method of accumulating capital by investing a fixed sum in a particular security at regular intervals, in order to achieve an average purchase price below the arithmetic average of the market prices on the purchase dates
  • precision instrument — finely-tuned device
  • premenstrual tension — Premenstrual tension is the same as premenstrual syndrome. The abbreviation PMT is often used.
  • prince rupert's drop — a glass bead in the shape of a teardrop, a by-product of the glass-making process, formed by molten glass falling into water. The body of the drop can withstand great force, for example a hammer blow, but the whole will explode if the tail is nipped or the surface scored
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