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

  • 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".
  • magnetocrystalline — (physics) Describing the interaction between the magnetization and the crystal structure of a material.
  • magnetogasdynamics — magnetohydrodynamics.
  • marketing strategy — a general plan or set of plans dealing with marketing, especially over a long period
  • maternity hospital — birthing facility
  • 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.
  • methacrylate resin — an acrylic resin formed by polymerizing the esters or amides of methacrylic acid.
  • methylated spirits — ethyl alcohol denatured with methyl alcohol for the purpose of preventing its use as an alcoholic beverage.
  • microcrystallinity — The condition of being microcrystalline.
  • minimally invasive — (of medical treatments or procedures) requiring only a small incision or the insertion of an instrument into a body cavity; involving minimal damage of body tissue: minimally invasive endoscopy.
  • mobile data system — a system consisting of a client computer requesting information and a server supplying this information
  • mucopolysaccharide — (formerly) glycosaminoglycan.
  • 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.
  • mutually exclusive — of or relating to a situation involving two or more events, possibilities, etc., in which the occurrence of one precludes the occurrence of the other: mutually exclusive plans of action.
  • mutually recursive — recursion
  • my lips are sealed — If you tell someone that your lips are sealed, you are promising them that you will keep a secret that they have told you.
  • neo-pythagoreanism — a philosophical system, established in Alexandria and Rome in the second century b.c., consisting mainly of revived Pythagorean doctrines with elements of Platonism and Stoicism.
  • neuropsychodynamic — Of or pertaining to neuropsychodynamics.
  • neutrino astronomy — the branch of astronomy dealing with the detection and measurement of neutrinos emitted by the sun and other celestial objects.
  • normally aspirated — A normally aspirated or naturally aspirated engine breathes air at atmospheric pressure.
  • numerical analysis — the branch of mathematics dealing with methods for obtaining approximate numerical solutions of mathematical problems.
  • ovariohysterectomy — Surgical removal of the ovaries and uterus.
  • phantasmagorically — having a fantastic or deceptive appearance, as something in a dream or created by the imagination.
  • physical chemistry — the branch of chemistry dealing with the relations between the physical properties of substances and their chemical composition and transformations.
  • pigmy hippopotamus — a related but smaller animal, Choeropsis liberiensis
  • postviral syndrome — debilitating condition occurring as a sequel to viral illness
  • potassium myronate — sinigrin.
  • processionary moth — a moth of the family Thaumetopoeidae, esp the oak processionary moth (Thaumetopoea processionea), the larvae of which leave the communal shelter nightly for food in a V-shaped procession
  • pseudo-symptomatic — pertaining to a symptom or symptoms.
  • publishing company — a firm which publishes books
  • pulmonary embolism — the blockage of a pulmonary artery, often by a blood clot, that stops the flow of blood to the lungs and which can result in death if untreated
  • pygmy hippopotamus — a small hippopotamus, Choeropsis liberiensis, of forests and swamps in western Africa.
  • pyramus and thisbe — (in Greek legend) two lovers of Babylon: Pyramus, wrongly supposing Thisbe to be dead, killed himself and she, encountering him in his death throes, did the same
  • quasi-metaphysical — pertaining to or of the nature of metaphysics.
  • registered company — a company which has officially registered its business
  • respiratory system — the system by which oxygen is taken into the body and an exchange of oxygen and carbon dioxide takes place; in mammals the system includes the nasal passages, pharynx, trachea, bronchi, and lungs.
  • restoration comedy — English comedy of the period of the Restoration, stressing manners and social satire.
  • rheims-douay bible — Douay Bible.
  • run in sb's family — If a characteristic runs in someone's family, it often occurs in members of that family, in different generations.
  • sampling frequency — sample rate
  • secondary emission — the emission of electrons (secondary electrons) from a material that is bombarded with electrons or ions.
  • security agreement — business: contract
  • semi-microanalysis — any analytical method in which the weight of the sample is between 10 and 100 milligrams.
  • september holidays — a period of time in September when people do not have to go to school, college or work
  • significant symbol — a verbal or nonverbal gesture, as a word or smile, that has acquired a conventionalized meaning.
  • slow-motion replay — a showing again in slow motion of a sequence of action, esp of part of a sporting contest immediately after it happens
  • sodium thiocyanate — a white powder or colorless, deliquescent crystals, NaSCN, used chiefly in organic synthesis and in medicine in the treatment of hypertension.
  • spherical geometry — the branch of geometry that deals with figures on spherical surfaces.
  • stoichiometrically — of or relating to stoichiometry.
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