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18-letter words containing m, a, s, o, i

  • luminous emittance — luminous flux emitted per unit area.
  • macroinvertebrates — Plural form of macroinvertebrate.
  • magic switch story — Some years ago, I was snooping around in the cabinets that housed the MIT AI Lab's PDP-10, and noticed a little switch glued to the frame of one cabinet. It was obviously a homebrew job, added by one of the lab's hardware hackers (no-one knows who). You don't touch an unknown switch on a computer without knowing what it does, because you might crash the computer. The switch was labelled in a most unhelpful way. It had two positions, and scrawled in pencil on the metal switch body were the words "magic" and "more magic". The switch was in the "more magic" position. I called another hacker over to look at it. He had never seen the switch before either. Closer examination revealed that the switch had only one wire running to it! The other end of the wire did disappear into the maze of wires inside the computer, but it's a basic fact of electricity that a switch can't do anything unless there are two wires connected to it. This switch had a wire connected on one side and no wire on its other side. It was clear that this switch was someone's idea of a silly joke. Convinced by our reasoning that the switch was inoperative, we flipped it. The computer instantly crashed. Imagine our utter astonishment. We wrote it off as coincidence, but nevertheless restored the switch to the "more magic" position before reviving the computer. A year later, I told this story to yet another hacker, David Moon as I recall. He clearly doubted my sanity, or suspected me of a supernatural belief in the power of this switch, or perhaps thought I was fooling him with a bogus saga. To prove it to him, I showed him the very switch, still glued to the cabinet frame with only one wire connected to it, still in the "more magic" position. We scrutinized the switch and its lone connection, and found that the other end of the wire, though connected to the computer wiring, was connected to a ground pin. That clearly made the switch doubly useless: not only was it electrically nonoperative, but it was connected to a place that couldn't affect anything anyway. So we flipped the switch. The computer promptly crashed. This time we ran for Richard Greenblatt, a long-time MIT hacker, who was close at hand. He had never noticed the switch before, either. He inspected it, concluded it was useless, got some diagonal cutters and diked it out. We then revived the computer and it has run fine ever since. We still don't know how the switch crashed the machine. There is a theory that some circuit near the ground pin was marginal, and flipping the switch changed the electrical capacitance enough to upset the circuit as millionth-of-a-second pulses went through it. But we'll never know for sure; all we can really say is that the switch was magic. I still have that switch in my basement. Maybe I'm silly, but I usually keep it set on "more magic".
  • magistrate's court — a court having limited jurisdiction over minor civil and criminal matters, as matters of contract not exceeding a particular amount of money.
  • magistrates' court — law: handles minor crimes
  • magnesium peroxide — a white, tasteless, water-insoluble powder, MgO 2 , used as an antiseptic and as an oxidizing and bleaching agent.
  • magnetic resonance — the response by atoms, molecules, or nuclei subjected to a magnetic field to radio waves or other forms of energy: used in medicine for scanning
  • magnetocrystalline — (physics) Describing the interaction between the magnetization and the crystal structure of a material.
  • magnetogasdynamics — magnetohydrodynamics.
  • maison-de-molieres — Comédie Française.
  • make an impression — have impact
  • make someone tired — to annoy or vex someone
  • make up one's mind — (in a human or other conscious being) the element, part, substance, or process that reasons, thinks, feels, wills, perceives, judges, etc.: the processes of the human mind.
  • malicious mischief — willful destruction of personal property motivated by ill will or resentment toward its owner or possessor.
  • malicious wounding — the intentional violent wounding or injuring of someone
  • margaret of valois — ("Queen Margot") 1533–1615, 1st wife of Henry IV of France: queen of Navarre; patron of science and literature (daughter of Henry II of France and Catherine de' Medici).
  • maritime provinces — region in Canada
  • marsilius of padua — c1280–1343? Italian scholar and political theorist.
  • maternity hospital — birthing facility
  • median lethal dose — the quantity of a lethal substance, as a poison or pathogen, or of ionizing radiation that will kill 50 percent of the organisms subjected to it in a specified time period. Symbol: LD 5 0.
  • medical profession — the body of people who work as doctors of medicine
  • mental reservation — an unexpressed doubt or qualification about a situation, person, etc.
  • menthol cigarettes — cigarettes that are flavoured with menthol
  • metabolic syndrome — Pathology. a group of medical conditions present simultaneously in a patient, as high blood pressure, low HDL cholesterol levels, and an excess of abdominal fat, that increases a person's risk of heart disease, stroke, and diabetes. Also called insulin resistance syndrome.
  • metamorphic facies — Geology. a group of metamorphic rock units characterized by particular mineralogic associations.
  • microcrystallinity — The condition of being microcrystalline.
  • microencapsulation — the process of enclosing chemical substances in microcapsules.
  • microinvertebrates — Plural form of microinvertebrate.
  • microsoft exchange — (messaging)   Microsoft's messaging and enterprise collaboration server. Exchange's primary role is as an electronic mail message store but it can also store calendars, task lists, contact details, and other data.
  • microwave spectrum — a spectrum of electromagnetic radiations whose wavelengths fall in the microwave range.
  • midstream operator — A midstream operator is a company that gathers, transports, and processes natural gas or oil.
  • mineralocorticoids — Plural form of mineralocorticoid.
  • minister of health — a person appointed to head the government department of health
  • misinterpretations — Plural form of misinterpretation.
  • misplaced modifier — Grammar. a word, phrase, or clause that seems to refer to or modify an unintended word because of its placement in a sentence, as when young in When young, circuses appeal to all of us.
  • misrepresentations — Plural form of misrepresentation.
  • mission specialist — the crew member of a space shuttle who is assigned primary responsibility for carrying out operations related to the payload of the shuttle.
  • misunderestimation — (nonstandard) An inaccurate underestimation, or an act of misunderestimating.
  • mix communications — (MIX) Providers of Internet access and presentation services for businesses and individuals in the Milwaukee, WI, USA metropolitan area. MIX started providing Internet access services to the Milwaukee area in 1990. It was the first business in Milwaukee to provide Internet access services to the public. MIX Communications is owned and operated by Dean Roth. E-mail: <[email protected]>. Telephone: +1 (414) 351 1868 (Office), +1 (414) 351 1139 (BBS). Address: MIX Communications, P.O. Box 17166, Milwaukee, WI 53217, USA.
  • mobile data system — a system consisting of a client computer requesting information and a server supplying this information
  • moccasin telegraph — the transmission of rumour or secret information; the grapevine
  • mohammed ibn-kasim — flourished early 8th century a.d, Muslim conqueror of the Sind region in India.
  • molecular genetics — a subdivision of genetics concerned with the structure and function of genes at the molecular level.
  • monographic series — a series of monographs issued in uniform style or format and related by subject or by issuing agency.
  • mortgage insurance — policy to compensate for property loan payments
  • mount saint helens — a city in Merseyside, in NW England, near Liverpool.
  • mucopolysaccharide — (formerly) glycosaminoglycan.
  • multicast backbone — (MBONE) A virtual network on top of the Internet which supports routing of IP multicast packets, intended for multimedia transmission. MBONE gives public access desktop video communications. The quality is poor with only 3-5 frames per second instead of the 30 frames per second of commercial television. Its advantage is that it avoids all telecommunications costs normally associated with teleconferencing. An interesting innovation is the use of MBONE for audio communications and an electronic "whiteboard" where the computer screen becomes a shared workspace where two physically remote parties can draw on and edit shared documents in real-time.
  • music to your ears — If something that you hear is music to your ears, it makes you feel very happy.
  • mutual aid society — A mutual aid society is an organization that provides benefits or other help to its members when they are affected by things such as death, sickness, disability, old age, or unemployment.
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