0%

21-letter words containing n, a, m, y

  • 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.
  • olympic national park — a national park in NW Washington. 1323 sq. mi. (3425 sq. km).
  • one-dimensional array — (types)   An array with only one dimension; the simplest kind of array, consisting of a sequence of items ("elements"), all of the same type. An element is selected by an integer index that normally starts at zero for the first element and increases by one. The index of the last element is thus the length of the array minus one. A one-dimensional array is also known as a vector. It should not be confused with a list. In some languages, e.g. Perl, all arrays are one-dimensional and higher dimensions are represented as arrays of pointers to arrays (which can have different sizes and can themselves contain pointers to arrays and so on). A one-dimensional array maps simply to memory: the address of an element with index i is A(i) = A0 + i * s where A0 is the base address of the array and s is the size of storage used for each element, the "stride". Elements may be padded to certain address boundaries, e.g. machine words, to increase access speed, in which case the stride will be larger than the amount of data in an element.
  • parliamentary inquiry — a question asked of the presiding officer of a parliament in relation to parliamentary law
  • pdp assembly language — (language)   (PAL) The assembly language for the PDP-8 and PDP-11.
  • pentamethylenediamine — cadaverine.
  • pneumoencephalography — encephalography.
  • potassium thiocyanate — a colorless, crystalline, hygroscopic, water-soluble solid, KSCN, used chiefly in the manufacture of chemicals, dyes, and drugs.
  • prader-willi syndrome — a congenital condition characterized by obsessive eating, obesity, learning difficulties, and small genitalia
  • premenstrual syndrome — a complex of physical and emotional changes, including depression, irritability, appetite changes, bloating and water retention, breast soreness, and changes in muscular coordination, one or more of which may be experienced in the several days before the onset of menstrual flow. Abbreviation: PMS.
  • privacy enhanced mail —
  • psychomotor agitation — agitation (def 3).
  • psychomotor-agitation — the act or process of agitating; state of being agitated: She left in great agitation.
  • pulmonary circulation — the circulation of blood from the heart to the lungs for oxygenation and back to the heart.
  • pure imaginary number — a complex number of the form iy where y is a real number and i = .
  • pyrenean mountain dog — a large heavily built dog of an ancient breed originally used to protect sheep from wild animals: it has a long thick white coat with a dense ruff
  • 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!.
  • redevelopment company — a private corporation or a public agency that stimulates the improvement of land, as through a building project subject to certain designs and controls, by financing, selling, or leasing such real estate to interested buyers or lessees.
  • reinforcement therapy — a behavior modification technique in which appropriate behavior is strengthened through systematic reinforcement.
  • 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
  • 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.
  • rocky mountain oyster — mountain oyster.
  • salam-weinberg theory — the electroweak theory.
  • sales finance company — a finance company that purchases, at a discount, installment contracts from dealers or that finances retail sales.
  • santo tome de guayana — a city in NE Venezuela, on the Orinoco River.
  • scarlet monkey flower — any of various plants belonging to the genus Mimulus, of the figwort family, as M. cardinalis (scarlet monkey flower) having spotted flowers that resemble a face.
  • secondary containment — Secondary containment is a system for dealing with hazardous spills.
  • sedimentary sequences — Sedimentary sequences are layers of rock which are derived from weathered rocks, biogenic (= of living organisms) activity, or precipitation from solution.
  • seven-segment display — (electronics)   (SSD) A kind of display element consisting of seven independently controllable lines arranged as a rectangular figure eight. A seven-segment display is the simplest device that can display any of the digits zero to nine (and some other characters) by lighting different combinations of lines. They are often seen in electronic calculators or measuring equipment.
  • stokes-adams syndrome — unconsciousness accompanying atrioventricular heart block, sometimes characterized by weakness, irregular pulse, and intermittent convulsive or nonconvulsive seizures.
  • supplementary benefit — (formerly) an extra amount of money that is paid to someone by the government, in addition to their normal income. Replaced by income support in 1988
  • sympathetic vibration — a vibration induced by resonance.
  • symphonie fantastique — a programmatic symphony (1830–31) in five movements by Hector Berlioz.
  • system management bus — (hardware, protocol)   (SMBus, SMB) A simple two-wire bus used for communication with low-bandwidth devices on a motherboard, especially power related chips such as a laptop's rechargeable battery subsystem (see Smart Battery Data). Other devices might include temperature sensors and lid switches. A device can provide manufacturer information, indicate its model/part number, save its state for a suspend event, report different types of errors, accept control parameters, and return status. The SMB is generally not user configurable or accessible. The bus carries clock, data, and instructions and is based on Philip's I2C serial bus protocol. Support for SMBus devices is provided on Windows 2000. Windows 98 does not support such devices. The PIIX4 chipset provides SMBus functionality. Vendors using SMBus would be required to pay royalties.
  • systeme international — Système International d'Unités
  • tape operating system — (operating system)   (TOS) An IBM operating system for System 360, used in the early days around 1965 to support the IBM 360 model 30 et al. TOS was a predecessor to IBM's Disk Operating System. TOS died out really early as disks such as the 2311 and 2314 became common with the IBM 360 whereas thet had been a real luxury on the IBM 7090.
  • the women's land army — a unit of women recruited to do agricultural work in the United Kingdom during World War I and World War II
  • therapeutic community — a group-based form of therapy for mental disorders, sometimes residential
  • time and motion study — the systematic investigation and analysis of the motions and the time required to perform a specific operation or task with a view to seeking more efficient methods of production as well as setting time standards.
  • to have money to burn — If you say that someone has money to burn, you mean that they have more money than they need or that they spend their money on things that you think are unnecessary.
  • to lay something bare — If you lay something bare, you uncover it completely so that it can then be seen.
  • to my way of thinking — You add to my way of thinking to a statement in order to indicate that you are giving your opinion.
  • to take your mind off — If something takes your mind off a problem or unpleasant situation, it helps you to forget about it for a while.
  • ultraviolet astronomy — the branch of astronomy that deals with celestial objects emitting electromagnetic radiation in the ultraviolet range.
  • voluntary arrangement — a procedure enabling an insolvent company to come to an arrangement with its creditors and resolve its financial problems, often in compliance with a court order
  • weinberg-salam theory — electroweak theory.
  • youth training scheme — (formerly, in Britain) a scheme, run by the Training Agency, to provide vocational training for unemployed 16–17-year-olds
Was this page helpful?
Yes No
Thank you for your feedback! Tell your friends about this page
Tell us why?