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29-letter words containing n, i, e, t

  • in tune with/out of tune with — If you are in tune with a group of people, you are in agreement or sympathy with them. If you are out of tune with them, you are not in agreement or sympathy with them.
  • incremental constraint solver — A system in which a constraint solver is given constraints one at a time by an inference engine (as is found in Prolog). The solver adds the new constraint to an initially empty set of solved constraints. If the new constraint is consistent with the solved constraints it will be added to the set. If it was inconsistent, the inference engine backtracks. This is the basis of Constraint Logic Programming.
  • individual retirement account — a savings plan that offers tax advantages to an individual depositor to set aside money for retirement. Abbreviation: IRA.
  • information management system — (database)   (IMS, IMS/VS, IMS/ESA) A database system from IBM consisting of IMS/Data Base and IMS/Data Communications.
  • integrated accounting package — all-in-one software that enables businesses to carry out accounting procedures
  • integrated systems laboratory — (company)   A joint project of Control Data Corporation and NCR Corporation, established in 1973 and dissolved in 1976. Integrated Systems Laboratory developed Software Writer's Language. Address: Escondidio, California, USA.
  • interface definition language — (IDL) 1. An OSF standard for defining RPC stubs. 2. Part of an effort by Project DOE at SunSoft, Inc. to integrate distributed object technology into the Solaris operating system. IDL provides the standard interface between objects, and is the base mechanism for object interaction. The Object Management Group's CORBA 1.1 (Common Object Request Broker Architecture) specifies the interface between objects. IDL (Interface Definition Language) is the base mechanism for object interaction. The SunSoft OMG IDL CFE (Compiler Front End) version 1.2 provides a complete framework for building CORBA 1.1-compliant preprocessors for OMG IDL. To use it you write a back-end. A complete compiler of IDL would translate IDL into client side and server side routines for remote communication in the same manner as Sun's current RPCL compiler. The IDL compiler front end allows integration of new back ends which can translate IDL to various programming languages. Several companies including Sunsoft are building back ends to the CFE which translate IDL into target languages, e.g. Pascal or C++, in the context of planned CORBA-compliant products. IDL requires C++ 2.1. Not to be confused with any of the other IDLs. E-mail: <[email protected]>. Telephone: Mache Creeger, SunSoft, Inc. +1 (415) 336 5884.
  • intermedia interchange format — A Standard Hypertext Interchange format from IRIS.
  • international code of signals — a system of maritime signals adopted by many of the maritime nations of the world, using flag, semaphore, and Morse codes in which letters or letter combinations are given arbitrary designations readily understood without requiring translation.
  • international system of units — an internationally accepted coherent system of physical units, derived from the MKSA (meter-kilogram-second-ampere) system, using the meter, kilogram, second, ampere, kelvin, mole, and candela as the basic units (SI units) respectively of the fundamental quantities of length, mass, time, electric current, temperature, amount of substance, and luminous intensity. Abbreviation: SI.
  • just the thing/the very thing — If you say that something is just the thing or is the very thing, you are emphasizing that it is exactly what is wanted or needed.
  • juvenile rheumatoid arthritis — rheumatoid arthritis that begins before puberty, often preceded by such symptoms as fever, patchy rash, and weight loss.
  • keep several balls in the air — If you keep several balls in the air, you try to do several different things at once.
  • keep something/someone at bay — If you keep something or someone at bay, or hold them at bay, you prevent them from reaching, attacking, or affecting you.
  • kernel user interface package — (tool)   (KUIP) The human interface to Physics Analysis Workbench (PAW).
  • kill two birds with one stone — any warm-blooded vertebrate of the class Aves, having a body covered with feathers, forelimbs modified into wings, scaly legs, a beak, and no teeth, and bearing young in a hard-shelled egg.
  • lassen volcanic national park — a national park in N California, in the S Cascade Range, including Lassen Peak. 163 sq. mi. (422 sq. km).
  • law of independent assortment — the principle, originated by Gregor Mendel, stating that when two or more characteristics are inherited, individual hereditary factors assort independently during gamete production, giving different traits an equal opportunity of occurring together.
  • length between perpendiculars — the length of a hull between the forward and after perpendicular. Compare perpendicular (def 11).
  • like bees to/round a honeypot — If something attracts people like bees to a honeypot or like bees round a honeypot, it attracts people in large numbers.
  • like taking candy from a baby — very easy to accomplish
  • link access protocol balanced — (protocol)   (LAPB) X.25 layer 2 (data link layer) protocol.
  • liskov substitution principle — (programming, theory)   (LSP) The principle that object-oriented functions that use pointers or references to a base class must be able to use objects of a derived class without knowing it. A function that violates the LSP uses a reference to a base class and must know about all the derivatives of that base class. Such a function violates the open/closed principle because it must be modified whenever a new derivative of the base class is created.
  • long day's journey into night — a play (1956) by Eugene O'Neill.
  • longitudinal redundancy check — (storage, communications)   (LRC, Block Redundancy Check) An error checking method that generates a longitudinal parity byte from a specified string or block of bytes on a longitudinal track. The longitudinal parity byte is created by placing individual bytes of a string in a two-dimensional array and performing a Vertical Redundancy Check vertically and horizontally on the array, creating an extra byte. This is an improvement over the VRC because it will catch two errors in the individual characters of the string, beyond the odd errors.
  • lord president of the council — (in Britain) the cabinet minister who presides at meetings of the Privy Council
  • lotus development corporation — (company)   A software company who produced Lotus 1-2-3, the Symphony spreadsheet and Lotus Notes for the IBM PC. Disliked by the League for Programming Freedom on account of their lawsuits. Quarterly sales $224M, profits $10M (Aug 1994). Telephone: +1 (617) 225 1284.
  • make a pitch/make one's pitch — If someone makes a pitch for something, they try to persuade people to do or buy it.
  • make an exhibition of oneself — to behave so foolishly in public that one excites notice or ridicule
  • make hay while the sun shines — grass, clover, alfalfa, etc., cut and dried for use as forage.
  • management information system — a computerized information-processing system designed to support the activities and functions of company management. Abbreviation: MIS.
  • mark-sweep garbage collection — Each cell has a bit reserved for marking which is clear initially. During garbage collection all active cells are traced from the root and marked. Then all cells are examined. Unmarked cells are freed.
  • maximum likelihood estimation — a method of estimating population characteristics from a sample by choosing the values of the parameters that will maximize the probability of getting the particular sample actually obtained from the population.
  • mechanical equivalent of heat — (in any system of physical units) the number of units of work or energy equal to one unit of heat, as 4.1858 joules, which equals one small calorie.
  • mecklenburg-western pomerania — a state in NE Germany. 8842 sq. mi. (22,900 sq. km). Capital: Schwerin.
  • metadata information partners — The Metadata Company
  • methylenedioxymethamphetamine — The psychoactive drug MDMA or Ecstasy, an amphetamine that produces entactogenic, psychedelic, and stimulant effects.
  • microelectromechanical system — (hardware)   (MEMS) The integration of mechanical structures (moving parts) with microelectronics. MEMS devices are "custom" designed for a purpose which requires a mechanical action to be controlled by a computer. Applications include sensors, medical devices, process controls. See also nanotechnology.
  • modified frequency modulation — (storage)   (MFM, Modified FM, or sometimes "Multiple Frequency Modulation") A modification to the original frequency modulation scheme for encoding data on magnetic disks. MFM allows more than 1 symbol per flux transition (up to 3), giving greater density of data. It is used with a data rate of between 250-500 kbit/s on industry standard 3.5" and 5.25" low and high density diskettes, and up to 5 Mbit/s on ST-506 hard disks. Except for 1.44 MB floppy disks, this encoding is obsolete. Other data encoding schemes include GCR, FM, RLL. See also: PRML.
  • monday-morning quarterbacking — wisdom after the event, esp by spectators
  • monobasic potassium phosphate — potassium diphosphate. See under potassium phosphate.
  • mordovian autonomous republic — an autonomous republic in the Russian Federation in Europe. 9843 sq. mi. (25,493 sq. km). Capital: Saransk.
  • more trouble than it is worth — If you say that someone or something is more trouble than they are worth, you mean that they cause you a lot of problems or take a lot of time and effort and you do not achieve or gain very much in return.
  • moving pictures experts group — (spelling)   Incorrect expansion of MPEG, which stands for Moving Picture Experts Group.
  • multics relational data store — (database)   (MRDS) The first commercial relational database, implemented as part of Multics by Jim Weeldreyer and Oris Friesen of Honeywell Phoenix in about 1977. MRDS included a report writer called LINUS written by Jim Falksen.
  • multimedia messaging services — (messaging)   (MMS) A feature of some mobile telephones that allows them to send messages including text, sound, images and video.
  • multiple personality disorder — psychiatric illness: split personality
  • multiprotocol label switching — (networking)   (MPLS) A packet switching protocol developed by the IETF. Initially developed to improve switching speed, other benefits are now seen as being more important. MPLS adds a 32-bit label to each packet to improve network efficiency and to enable routers to direct packets along predefined routes in accordance with the required quality of service. The label is added when the packet enters the MPLS network, and is based on an analysis of the packet header. The label contains information on the route along which the packet may travel, and the forwarding equivalence class (FEC) of the packet. Packets with the same FEC are routed through the network in the same way. Routers make forwarding decisions based purely on the contents of the label. This simplifies the work done by the router, leading to an increase in speed. At each router, the label is replaced with a new label, which tells the next router how to forward the packet. The label is removed when the packet leaves the MPLS network. Modern ASIC-based routers can look up routes fast enough to make the speed increase less important. However, MPLS still has some benefits. The use of FECs allows QoS levels to be guaranteed, and MPLS allows IP tunnels to be created through a network, so that VPNs can be implemented without encryption.
  • neither fish, flesh, nor fowl — neither this nor that
  • ningxia hui autonomous region — an administrative division in N China. 25,640 sq. mi. (66,400 sq. km). Capital: Yinchuan.
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