>>>>>TANSTAAFL
>>>>
>>>>But I wasn't asking for a thing which is similar or almost identical (as in "thing such as") to a free lunch. Nor were the users who got unpaid work done.
>>>>
>>>>Come to think of it, that mysterious free lunch must be an unique phenomenon in this universe. Nothing is said about its existence, only about this thing which is "such as" it. Hmmm... mystery indeed. Why the circumspect language?
>>>
>>>Means: There is nothing unpaid. Somebody always pays.
>>>
>>>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/There_ain%27t_no_such_thing_as_a_free_lunch
>>
>>That's what it's supposed to mean, but then "there's no free lunch" would mean the same. Why the circumspect language?
>
>because it is a Heinlein line...

I should have read it (the wiki article, that is) more carefully. If the phrase is indeed attributable to Heinlein, I retract whatever I said about the amount of sense per syllable. It was the sound density that mattered.