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22-letter words containing s, t, b, r

  • d'alembert's principle — the principle that for a moving body the external forces are in equilibrium with the inertial forces; a generalization of Newton's third law of motion
  • database administrator — (job)   A person responsible for the design and management of one or more databases and for the evaluation, selection and implementation of database management systems. In smaller organisations, the data administrator and database administrator are often one in the same; however, when they are different, the database administrator's function is more technical. The database administrator would implement the database software that meets the requirements outlined by the organisation's data administrator and systems analysts. Tasks might include controling an organisation's data resources, using data dictionary software to ensure data integrity and security, recovering corrupted data and eliminating data redundancy and uses tuning tools to improve database performance.
  • database normalisation — (database)   A series of steps followed to obtain a database design that allows for efficient access and storage of data in a relational database. These steps reduce data redundancy and the chances of data becoming inconsistent. A table in a relational database is said to be in normal form if it satisfies certain constraints. Codd's original work defined three such forms but there are now five generally accepted steps of normalisation. The output of the first step is called First Normal Form (1NF), the output of the second step is Second Normal Form (2NF), etc. First Normal Form eliminates repeating groups by putting each value of a multi-valued attribute into a new row. Second Normal Form eliminates functional dependencies on a partial key by putting the fields in a separate table from those that are dependent on the whole key. Third Normal Form eliminates functional dependencies on non-key fields by putting them in a separate table. At this stage, all non-key fields are dependent on the key, the whole key and nothing but the key. Fourth Normal Form separates independent multi-valued facts stored in one table into separate tables. Fifth Normal Form breaks out data redundancy that is not covered by any of the previous normal forms.
  • disposable soma theory — the theory that ageing is caused by the body having increasingly fewer resources to allocate towards repairing wear and damage to tissues
  • distributed generation — A distributed generation system involves a person or company generating some of their power requirements in different ways, such as locally, or using renewable energy, in order to avoid taking it all from the grid.
  • distributed processing — a system consisting of a network of microcomputers performing certain functions and linked with a main computer used for more complex tasks
  • distributive education — a special program of vocational education at the high-school level in which a student is employed part-time, receiving on-the-job training, and also attends classes, most of which pertain directly to the student's vocational field.
  • dog's dinner/breakfast — You describe something as a dog's breakfast or dog's dinner in order to express your disapproval of it, for example because it is very untidy, badly organized, or badly done.
  • dread high bit disease — (character)   A condition endemic to PRIME (also known as "PR1ME") minicomputers that results in all the characters having their high bit (0x80, see meta bit) ON rather than OFF. This complicates transporting files to other systems and talking to true 8-bit devices. Folklore had it that PRIME adopted the convention in order to save 25 cents per serial line per machine; PRIME old-timers, on the other hand, claim they inherited the disease from Honeywell via customer NASA's compatibility requirements and struggled heroically to cure it. Whoever was responsible, this probably qualifies as one of the most cretinous design tradeoffs ever made. A few other machines have exhibited similar brain damage.
  • end transmission block — (character)   (ETB) The mnemonic for ASCII character 23.
  • fifth earl of rosebery — Archibald Philip Primrose [prim-rohz] /ˈprɪmˌroʊz/ (Show IPA), 5th Earl of, 1847–1929, British statesman and author: prime minister 1894–95.
  • first cab off the rank — the first person, etc, to do or take advantage of something
  • fort benjamin harrison — a military reservation and U.S. Army training center in central Indiana, NE of Indianapolis.
  • frequency distribution — the correspondence of a set of frequencies with the set of categories, intervals, or values into which a population is classified.
  • full english breakfast — morning meal of eggs, bacon, etc.
  • geometric distribution — the distribution of the number, x, of independent trials required to obtain a first success: where the probability in each is p, the probability that x = r is p(1-p)r–1, where r = 1, 2, 3, …, with mean 1/p
  • go for all the marbles — to take a great risk in the hope of a great gain
  • great australian bight — a wide bay in S Australia.
  • gum bichromate process — a contact printing method in which the image is formed on a coating of sensitized gum containing a suitable colored pigment and potassium or ammonium dichromate.
  • hamishah asar bishevat — Tu Bishevat.
  • hybrid multiprocessing — (parallel)   (HMP) The kind of multitasking which OS/2 supports. HMP provides some elements of symmetric multiprocessing, using add-on IBM software called MP/2. OS/2 SMP was planned for release in late 1993.
  • in one's birthday suit — naked; nude
  • in/within sb's hearing — If someone says something in your hearing or within your hearing, you can hear what they say because they are with you or near you.
  • inertia-reel seat belt — a type of car seat belt in which the belt is free to unwind from a metal drum except when the drum locks as a result of rapid deceleration
  • interoperable database — A database front-end which communicates with multiple heterogenous databases and makes them appear as a single homogenous entity with semantic calls. See ODBC.
  • it's london to a brick — it is certain
  • justification by works — the belief that a person becomes just before God by the performance of good works: the doctrine against which Luther protested in inaugurating the Protestant Reformation.
  • label switching router — (networking)   (LSR) A device that typically resides somewhere in the middle of a network and is capable of forwarding datagrams by label switching. In many cases, especially early versions of MPLS networks, a LSR will typically be a modified ATM switch that forwards datagrams based upon a label in the VPI/VCI field.
  • lady's not for burning — a verse play (1948) by Christopher Fry.
  • lesser cornstalk borer — the larva of a widely distributed pyralid moth, Elasmopalpus lignosellus, that damages corn and some other crops by boring into the part of the stalk close to the soil.
  • little st bernard pass — a pass over the Savoy Alps, between Bourg-Saint-Maurice, France, and La Thuile, Italy: 11th-century hospice. Height: 2187 m (7177 ft)
  • lund software house ab — (company)   The company who produced Lund Simula. Address: Box 7056, S-22007 Lund, Sweden.
  • make a beeline for sth — If you make a beeline for a place, you go to it as quickly and directly as possible.
  • make a clean breast of — Anatomy, Zoology. (in bipeds) the outer, front part of the thorax, or the front part of the body from the neck to the abdomen; chest.
  • manuel estrada cabrera — Manuel [mah-nwel] /mɑˈnwɛl/ (Show IPA), 1857–1924, Guatemalan politician: president 1898–1920.
  • metasyntactic variable — (grammar)   Strictly, a variable used in metasyntax, but often used for any name used in examples and understood to stand for whatever thing is under discussion, or any random member of a class of things under discussion. The word foo is the canonical example. To avoid confusion, hackers never (well, hardly ever) use "foo" or other words like it as permanent names for anything. In filenames, a common convention is that any filename beginning with a metasyntactic-variable name is a scratch file that may be deleted at any time. To some extent, the list of one's preferred metasyntactic variables is a cultural signature. They occur both in series (used for related groups of variables or objects) and as singletons. Here are a few common signatures: bazola, ztesch: Stanford (from mid-'70s on). zxc, spqr, wombat: Cambridge University (England). shme: Berkeley, GeoWorks, Ingres. Pronounced /shme/ with a short /e/. blarg, wibble: New Zealand Of all these, only "foo" and "bar" are universal (and baz nearly so). The compounds foobar and "foobaz" also enjoy very wide currency. Some jargon terms are also used as metasyntactic names; barf and mumble, for example. See also Commonwealth Hackish for discussion of numerous metasyntactic variables found in Great Britain and the Commonwealth.
  • mutton dressed as lamb — If you describe a woman as mutton dressed as lamb, you are criticizing her for trying to look younger than she really is, in a way that you consider unattractive.
  • nassella tussock board — one of many local statutory organizations set up in different regions of New Zealand to eradicate the invasive nassella tussock weed
  • non-maskable interrupt — (NMI) An IRQ 7 on the PDP-11 or 680x0 or the NMI line on an 80x86. In contrast with a priority interrupt (which might be ignored, although that is unlikely), an NMI is *never* ignored.
  • not be sb's department — If you say that a task or area of knowledge is not your department, you mean that you are not responsible for it or do not know much about it.
  • object-oriented design — (programming)   (OOD) A design method in which a system is modelled as a collection of cooperating objects and individual objects are treated as instances of a class within a class hierarchy. Four stages can be identified: identify the classes and objects, identify their semantics, identify their relationships and specify class and object interfaces and implementation. Object-oriented design is one of the stages of object-oriented programming.
  • object-oriented pascal — Object Pascal
  • obstruction of justice — a criminal offence that involves attempting to obstruct the process of law
  • on a shoestring budget — with very little money to spend
  • peanut-butter sandwich — a sandwich with a filling of peanut-butter
  • portable standard lisp — (language)   (PSL) A dialect of Lisp from Utah University. PSL is available as a kit for 68000 and also runs on VAX. It compiles Lisp to C-code virtual machine language.
  • preestablished harmony — (in the philosophy of Leibnitz) synchronous operation of all monads, since their simultaneous creation, in accordance with the preexisting plan of God.
  • probationary assistant — a teacher in the first probationary years
  • public domain software — public domain
  • public housing project — a group of homes for poorer families which is funded and controlled by the local government
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