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"Prototaph" by Keith Laumer is a short story with this premise. All the computers refuse to insure a man, so he goes on a quest to figure out why. It's a fun re

• FeepingCreature 10y ago
  Isn't that the wrong way around? An arbitrary life insurance on this man should be available for a price of 0, since there is zero risk of ever having to pay out.
  • josephagoss 10y ago
    I suppose it's almost like a null return, something that can't be computed when the only expected outputs are positive non-zero numbers.
• CamelCaseName 10y ago
  What a great read! The language is a bit bumpy at times, but it was published over 50 years ago. What does 'BB' mean?
  • Terr_ 10y ago
    There's an English idiom "sweating bullets" [0] which refers to a state of panic or dread, possibly with the image that droplets of sweat are being forced out at speed. I believe the author is replacing "bullets" with "BBs" [1] to fit the youthful 21-year-old protagonist. BBs are a much tamer kind of spherical projectile popularized by a variety of teen-toys. The actual origin of "BB" goes back to serious guns again, as a defined size of metal buckshot pellets. [0] https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/sweat_bullets https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/sweat_bullets [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BB_gun https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BB_gun
    • CamelCaseName 10y ago
      Ahh, excellent explanation, thank you!
  • ep103 10y ago
    I assumed it meant he was sweating bullets. Like little shots from a bb gun
• deleted 10y ago
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