A common shorthand for the colloquialism "There ain't no such things as a free lunch" implying that anything, as free as it may appear, has a real hidden cost.
/TAN-staf-ful/ intj,n,v: "There's no such thing as a free lunch." Coined from Robert Heinlein's "Stranger in a Strange Land." Ended up on the Martian flag.
Also appears in several other Heinlein novels, including "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress," where all restaurants served the meal free, but charged heftily for beverages, etc.
More widely used around the time the book was first published, but can still be found circulating in dark basement apartments and gaming stores everywhere.
"I told you she'd be wanting payback for those smokes, man. TNSTAAFL."
"I answered that ad for a free RAZR and now all I get in my inbox is spam. TNSTAAFL strikes again."
A phenomenon in film/television series, most notably streaming series, where the main premise is drawn out to such a point that it takes an entire season or more to get the parts of the series the audience is actually interested in seeing.
For example, if a series is titled "Surf Dracula," a majority of viewers would tune in expecting to see Dracula surfing by the first or second episode. However, the entire first season would instead be tedious padding and backstory before finally ending with Dracula surfing in the last five minutes of the season finale.
I watched "Smallville" on Netflix the other day. Dude, it was ten seasons of filler before he finally flew! Major Surf Dracula Syndrome!
Finding your way back to the truth by fixing on one verified fact and working out from there, the way you navigate by the North Star when everything around you is spinning.
Rumours were flyingeverywhere, so she went northstarring — one checked fact at a time.
A plate of brown consists of foods that have little to no nutritional value, and are typically deep fried. A true plate of brownwill also be accompanied by a dark soda.
When finance content creators rent out fancy cars and flexcash to seem richer than they really are in order to promote and sell their “get rich quick” courses.