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"In WWII, they had a saying that there are no atheists in foxholes. I think the modern equivalent of that is that there are no jaded, bored people in the high-tech industry, in the land of really good hardcore geeks."
- Neal Stephenson
 |
| Dirtside | ||
| The surface of a planet. |
Very early use of this phrase.
| Sam stopped a passing engineer's mate. "Hey, shipmate - we're fresh caught. Where's the crew's mess?
"Clockwise about eighty and inboard, this deck." He looked them over. "Fresh caught, eh? Well, you'll find out." "Like that, huh?" "Worse. A madhouse squared. If I wasn't married, I'd 'a' stayed dirtside." |
| Technovelgy from Starman Jones,
by Robert Heinlein. Published by Scribners in 1953 Additional resources -
|
This is a common phrase in science fiction. Here's another example, from Niven and Pournelle's Oath of Fealty:
Compare to Farside from A Fall of Mooniest (1961) by Arthur C. Clarke.
"Sinclair wants to do some outside work while we're dirtside." He took out his pocket computer and wrote quickly with the attached stylus.
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'Hocus-pocus religions and archaic weapons are no substitute for a good blaster at your side.'
'Oscar picked up a trowel. 'I'm the tool for the mortar,' the little trowel squeaked cheerfully.'
'... he waited for the robotrix attendant to finish fueling up his ship.'
The Roujin Z system provides care to fully bedridden patients - and then some!
'Aerostat meant anything that hung in the air. This was an easy trick to pull off nowadays.'
'The Ringworld had no horizon. There was no line where the land curved away from the sky.'
'An adjustment panel outside the door would cause it to extrude various appurtenances in memory plastic...'
'Annealed in any shape for a time, and codified, the structure of that shape is retained down to the molecules.'
It's not really polite to tear the limbs off robots.
'...the imaginary companions discovered by needful children.'
