18-letter words containing o, h, r, i
- 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".
- magnetorheological — (physics) describing a substance whose rheological properties are modified by a magnetic field.
- marine archaeology — the branch of archaeology that deals with the recovery of ancient objects found beneath the sea, as shipwrecks or remains from submerged islands, and with the techniques of underwater exploration, excavation, and retrieval.
- maternity hospital — birthing facility
- mathematical error — a mistake in a mathematical calculation, etc
- melt in your mouth — to require little or no chewing
- menthol cigarettes — cigarettes that are flavoured with menthol
- merchant of venice — a comedy (1596?) by Shakespeare.
- mercurous chloride — calomel.
- mergui archipelago — a group of over 200 islands in the Andaman Sea, off the Tenasserim coast of S Myanmar: mountainous and forested
- metamorphic facies — Geology. a group of metamorphic rock units characterized by particular mineralogic associations.
- methylene chloride — a colorless, volatile liquid, CH 2 Cl 2 , used chiefly as a solvent, as a refrigerant, and as a local anesthetic in dentistry.
- methylprednisolone — A synthetic glucocorticoid drug, with chemical formula C22H30O5.
- microsloth windows — (abuse, operating system) /mi:'kroh-sloth" win"dohz/ (Or "Windoze", /win'dohz/) A derogatory term for Microsoft Windows which is so limited by bug-for-bug compatibility with mess-dos that it is agonisingly slow on anything less than a fast 486. Also called just "Windoze", with the implication that you can fall asleep waiting for it to do anything; the latter term is extremely common on Usenet. Compare X, sun-stools.
- 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.
- middle-of-the-road — favoring, following, or characterized by an intermediate position between two extremes, especially in politics; moderate.
- minister of health — a person appointed to head the government department of health
- moccasin telegraph — the transmission of rumour or secret information; the grapevine
- modular arithmetic — arithmetic in which numbers that are congruent modulo a given number are treated as the same. Compare congruence (def 2), modulo, modulus (def 2b).
- monochlorobiphenyl — (organic compound) Either of three isomers of a chlorinated derivative of biphenyl containing one chlorine atom.
- monographic series — a series of monographs issued in uniform style or format and related by subject or by issuing agency.
- moog (synthesizer) — an early musical synthesizer
- mop the floor with — that part of a room, hallway, or the like, that forms its lower enclosing surface and upon which one walks.
- morphine addiction — the fact or condition of being addicted to morphine
- mucopolysaccharide — (formerly) glycosaminoglycan.
- multiple ownership — ownership by several people or organizations
- natural philosophy — natural science.
- nebular hypothesis — the theory that the solar system evolved from a mass of nebular matter: prominent in the 19th century following its precise formulation by Laplace.
- neighborhood watch — a neighborhood surveillance program or group in which residents keep watch over one another's houses, patrol the streets, etc., in an attempt to prevent crime.
- 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.
- nervous exhaustion — extreme mental and physical fatigue caused by excessive emotional stress; neurasthenia.
- neurophysiological — the branch of physiology dealing with the functions of the nervous system.
- neuropsychodynamic — Of or pertaining to neuropsychodynamics.
- neuropsychological — Of or pertaining to neuropsychology, the relation or combination of brain and mind.
- neutrosophic logic — (logic) (Or "Smarandache logic") A generalisation of fuzzy logic based on Neutrosophy. A proposition is t true, i indeterminate, and f false, where t, i, and f are real values from the ranges T, I, F, with no restriction on T, I, F, or the sum n=t+i+f. Neutrosophic logic thus generalises: - intuitionistic logic, which supports incomplete theories (for 0
- nightmare scenario — If you describe a situation or event as a nightmare scenario, you mean that it is the worst possible thing that could happen.
- nike of samothrace — a Greek marble statue (c200 b.c.) of Nike found at Samothrace and now in the Louvre, Paris.
- no laughing matter — sth serious
- non-characteristic — Also, characteristical. pertaining to, constituting, or indicating the character or peculiar quality of a person or thing; typical; distinctive: Red and gold are the characteristic colors of autumn.
- nonachlorobiphenyl — (organic compound) Either of three isomers of the polychlorinated biphenyl containing nine chlorine atoms.
- noninterchangeable — That cannot be interchanged with another.
- nonpharmacological — Not pharmacological.
- north bedfordshire — a city in Bedfordshire, in central England.
- north college hill — a city in SW Ohio.
- north lincolnshire — a unitary authority of NE England, in Lincolnshire: formerly (1975–96) part of the county of Humberside. Pop: 155 000 (2003 est). Area: 1497 sq km (578 sq miles)
- north polar region — the region of land and water surrounding the North Pole.
- northeast corridor — the long, narrow strip of land between Boston, New York City, and Washington, D.C., containing many adjacent urban areas.
- northern territory — an administrative division of N central Australia, on the Timor and Arafura Seas: the Arunta Desert lies in the east, the Macdonnell Ranges in the south, and Arnhem Land in the north (containing Australia's largest Aboriginal reservation); the Ashmore and Cartier Islands constitute a separate Australian External Territory. Capital: Darwin. Pop: 233 300 (2012 est). Area: 1 347 525 sq km (520 280 sq miles)
- norwegian elkhound — one of a breed of dogs having a short, compact body, short, pointed ears, and a thick, gray coat, raised originally in Norway for hunting elk and other game.
- not a pretty sight — If you say that someone or something is not a pretty sight, you mean that it is not pleasant to look at.