simming n.—Gloss: From “simulating.” «It took a room full of networked computers called a “render farm” to do in about 14 months what would have taken a single machine 16 years: churn out digital scenes precisely modeled after...
quench n.— «During a power test, the very last before collisions could start in the machine (to the annoyance of engineers), a fault led to a warming of the busbar. As superconductivity was lost, the temperature soared in a “quench...
watershed n.— «Jargon watch: when people talk about “the watershed,” they mean the difference between 8 pm and earlier, when kids might be watching, and 9 pm, when if kids are still up, it’s their parents’ fault. Our...
collector of injustice n.— «Federal agents investigating the April 16 shootings at Virginia Tech think Seung Hui Cho displayed many of the same characteristics of a criminal behavioral profile called the “Collector of...
squirrel guard n.— «Spidery-looking bits of metal and inexpensive pieces of plastic are at the heart of one of the most important strategies Entergy Texas has to prevent power outages. Commonly called squirrel guards, more than 100,000 of...
shoot the fox v. phr.— «I hope bloody Brad in California is happy now. England are 11 for two from 13 overs today. “Well that’s shot the fox, as they say in Australia,” says Clare Davies, in Scotland. “Too many comments...