18-letter words containing w

lyophilized powder — Lyophilized powder is a freeze-dried powder.
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".
make allowance for — the act of allowing.
make heavy weather — to bring into existence by shaping or changing material, combining parts, etc.: to make a dress; to make a channel; to make a work of art.
make matters worse — If you say that something makes matters worse, you mean that it makes a difficult situation even more difficult.
make short work of — exertion or effort directed to produce or accomplish something; labor; toil.
make sth one's own — If you make something your own, you become involved in it in such a way that people think of it as being related only to you or belonging only to you, rather than to anyone else.
malicious wounding — the intentional violent wounding or injuring of someone
marine underwriter — an underwriter who specializes in marine insurance
may flower compact — an agreement to establish a government, entered into by the Pilgrims in the cabin of the Mayflower on November 11, 1620.
mechanical drawing — drawing, as of machinery, done with the aid of rulers, scales, compasses, etc.
medicine bow range — a range of the Rocky Mountains, in Wyoming and Colorado. Highest peak, Medicine Bow Peak, 12,014 feet (3662 meters).
mendel's first law — the principle, originated by Gregor Mendel, stating that during the production of gametes the two copies of each hereditary factor segregate so that offspring acquire one factor from each parent.
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.
microwave detector — a device for recording the speed of a motorist
microwave spectrum — a spectrum of electromagnetic radiations whose wavelengths fall in the microwave range.
milkweed butterfly — monarch butterfly.
mixed-flow turbine — a water turbine in which water flows radially and axially through the rotating vanes
mobility allowance — an allowance paid by the government to help people who have limited mobility
mop the floor with — that part of a room, hallway, or the like, that forms its lower enclosing surface and upon which one walks.
moscow art theater — a Russian theatrical company founded in 1898 principally by Konstantin Stanislavski and famous for its naturalistic acting.
multiflow computer — (company) A now-defunct computer company, best known for its work in Very Long Instruction Word processors. Address: New Haven, Conn. USA.
multiple ownership — ownership by several people or organizations
nailed to the wall — [like a trophy] Said of a bug finally eliminated after protracted, and even heroic, effort.
negative cash flow — the situation when income is less than payments
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.
network byte order — (networking) The order in which the bytes of a multi-byte number are transmitted on a network - most significant byte first (as in "big-endian" storage). This may or may not match the order in which numbers are normally stored in memory for a particular processor.
network management — (networking) The process of controlling a network so as to maximise its efficiency and productivity. ISO's model divides network management into five categories: fault management, accounting management, configuration management, security management and performance management. Fault management is the process of identifying and locating faults in the network. This could include discovering the existence of the problem, identifying the source, and possibly repairing (or at least isolating the rest of the network from) the problem. Configuration management is the process of identifying, tracking and modifying the setup of devices on the network. This category is extremely important for devices that come with numerous custom settings (e.g. routers and file servers). Security management is the process of controlling (granting, limiting, restricting or denying) access to the network and resources thereon. This could include setting up and managing access lists in routers (creating "firewalls" to keep intruders out), creating and maintaining password access to critical network resources, identifying the points of entry used by intruders and closing them. Performance Management is the process of measuring the performance of various network components. This also includes taking measures to optimise the network for maximum system performance (periodically measuring of the use of network resources).
network redirector — (networking) An operating system driver that sends data to and receives data from a remote device. A network redirector often provides mechanisms to locate, open, read, write, and delete files and submit print jobs. It also makes available application services such as named pipes and mailslots. When an application needs to send or receive data from a remote device, it sends a call to the redirector. The redirector provides the functionality of the Application layer and Presentation layer of the OSI model. In Microsoft Networking, the network redirectors are implemented as installable file systems (IFS).
new american bible — an English translation of the Bible based on the original languages, prepared by Catholic Biblical scholars, and first published in 1970.
new forest disease — an infectious eye disease causing acute eye pain in cattle
new orleans lugger — a half-decked fishing boat, formerly used on the Gulf of Mexico near New Orleans, having a rather broad hull with centerboard and a single mast with a large dipping lugsail.
new storage system — (storage) (NSS) A major Multics implementation project during the 1970s. The initial Multics file system design had evolved from the one-huge-disk world of CTSS. When multiple disk units were used they were just assigned increasing ranges of disk addresses, so a segment could have pages scattered over all disks on the system. This provided good I/O parallelism but made crash recovery expensive. NSS redesigned the lower levels of the file system, introducing the concepts of logical volume and physical volume and a mapping from a Multics directory branch to a VTOC entry for each file. The new system had much better recovery performance in exchange for a small space and performance cost.
new zealand on air — the operational name for the New Zealand Broadcasting Commission
new zealand pigeon — a large fruit-eating native pigeon, Hemiphagia novaeseelandiae, of forest areas
none the worse for — not harmed by (adverse events or circumstances)
north saskatchewan — a river in S central Canada, flowing E from the Rocky Mountains and joining the South Saskatchewan River to form the Saskatchewan River. 760 miles (1223 km) long.
northwest by north — a point on the compass, 11°15′ north of northwest. Abbreviation: NWbN.
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 breathe a word — to take air, oxygen, etc., into the lungs and expel it; inhale and exhale; respire.
not that i know of — You say 'Not that I know of' when someone has asked you whether or not something is true and you think the answer is 'no' but you cannot be sure because you do not know all the facts.
now you're talking — at last you're saying something agreeable
of your own making — If you say that something such as a problem you have is of your own making, you mean you have caused or created it yourself.
oil of wintergreen — methyl salicylate.
old low franconian — a Low German dialect of the Franks of the lower Rhine valley before c1100.
on a sticky wicket — in an awkward situation
one way or another — somehow, by some means
open-collar worker — (job) Someone who works at home or telecommutes.
operating software — software used in the operation of a computer system, typically by performing such tasks as memory allocation, job scheduling, and input/output control
oriental scops owl — any of a group of small owls having ear tufts and a whistling call, especially Otus scops (Old World scops owl) and O. sunia (Oriental scops owl)

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