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TANSTAAFL


TANSTAAFL: /tan'stah-fl/ [acronym, from Robert Heinlein's
   classic "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress".]  "There Ain't No
   Such Thing As A Free Lunch", often invoked when someone is balking
   at the prospect of using an unpleasantly heavyweight
   technique, or at the poor quality of some piece of free software,
   or at the signal-to-noise ratio of unmoderated USENET
   newsgroups.  "What? Don't tell me I have to implement a database
   back end to get my address book program to work!"  "Well,
   TANSTAAFL you know."  This phrase owes some of its popularity to
   the high concentration of science-fiction fans and political
   libertarians in hackerdom (see Appendix B).