Overload

overload

[′ō·vər‚lōd]

(civil engineering)

A load on a structure that is greater than that for which the structure was designed.

(electronics)

A load greater than that which a device is designed to handle; may cause overheating of power-handling components and distortion in signal circuits.

(geology)

The amount of sediment that exceeds the ability of a stream to transport it and is therefore deposited.

McGraw-Hill Dictionary of Scientific & Technical Terms, 6E, Copyright © 2003 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.

Overload

In electricity, more than a normal amount of electric current flowing through a device or machine, or a load greater than the device is designed to carry.

Illustrated Dictionary of Architecture Copyright © 2012, 2002, 1998 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved

overload

1. A load on a structure in excess of that for which it was designed.

2. Electric current, power, or voltage in excess of that for which a device or circuit was designed.

McGraw-Hill Dictionary of Architecture and Construction. Copyright © 2003 by McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.

information overload

A symptom of the high-tech age, which is too much information for one person to absorb in a world of expanding digital technology. Information overload primarily comes from the gigantic amount of content on the Internet, including search engine results, blogs and social media. Web pages bombard the senses with ads, and junk email (spam) adds chaos. Combine the digital information with the traditional sources such as TV, magazines, newsletters and junk postal mail, and information overload is a fact of modern life in the developed world. See Data Smog, disinformation and digital vacation.

The Help Manuals Make It Worse
Information overload also includes the often indecipherable documentation that must be read to operate everything from a handheld device to a software application. It boils down to this: the volume of information that crossed our brains in one week at the end of the 20th century is more than a person received in a lifetime at the beginning of it. See user interface and RTFM.

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overloading

In programming, the ability to use the same variable for different data types. For example, the variable result could be initially filled (loaded) with a pointer and then with a string of data. See variable.

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