for 17 October 1997. Updated every WEEKDAY.

Nonsense?

Subject: nanotech?

Dilletante!!!

Pirates! Doryphores!
Gobbledygooks! Filibusters!
Slubberdegullions!
Patagonians! Jelly-fish!
Bashi-bazouks!
Carpet-sellers! Sycophant!
Kleptomaniacs! Swine!
Bloodsuckers! Nincompoop!
Blackguards! Vegetarian!
Egoists! Tramps! Zapotecs!
Gang of thieves!
Monopolizers! Pockmarks!
Belemnite! Crooks! Miserable
earthworms! Coconuts!
Vagabonds! Road-hogs!
Harlequin! Heretic!
Slave-trader! Blackamoor!
Anthracite! Gibbering ghost!
Bootlegger! Gogglers!
Villain! Mountebanks! Rats!
Logarithm! Cro-Magnon!
Freshwater swabs! Phylloxera!
Bandit! Nitwits! Polygraphs!
Beasts! Bully!

Pithecanthropuses! Savages!
Gangsters! Wreckers! Corsair!
Moujiks! Rhizopods!
Picaroons! Visigoths!
Toffee-noses! Anacoluthons!
Vampires! Troglodytes!
Hydrocarbon! Technocrat!
Buccaneer! Dizzards!
Fancy-dress freebooters!
Centipede! Aborigine!
Bougainvillea! Politician!
Black marketeers!
Ophicleides! Dynamiter!
Sea-gherkins! Pickled
herrings! Baboon!
Fuzzy-wuzzy! Blackbird!
Sea-lice! Black-beetles!
Artichokes! Mameluke!
Dipsomaniac! Megalomaniac!
Highwayman! Autocrats!
Profiteers! Abecedarians!
Pachyrhizus!

Cannibal! Duck-billed
platypus! Jellied-eel!
Brigand! Anthropophagus!
Cercopithecus!
Psychopath!Invertebrate!
Liquorice! Diplodocus!
Cowards! Coelacanth! Cyclone!
Gallows-fodder! Traitors!
Woodlice! Turncoats!
Polynesian! Ruffian!
Vermicellis! Dogs! Bagpipers!
Pyrographers! Crab-apples!
Goosecaps! Aztecs! Toads!
Gyroscope! Vulture!
Body-snatcher! Ostrogoth!
Vandal! Iconoclast!
Orangoutang! Numbskulls!
Hooligans! Parasites!
Caterpillars! Odd-toed
ungulate! Shipwreckers!
Macrocephalic baboon!
Ectoplasm! Fat faces! Brutes!
Guano gatherer! Squawking
popinjay! * Prattling
porpoise! * Scoffing
braggart! *

Sorry, it had to be said.

Yours faithfully,
Captain Haddock.

It's amazing how our readers
are becoming more and more
attuned to what it takes to
see their letter in print.

As I sit here surfing through
two years' worth of back
columns in Suck (I've gotten
through one year in the last
month) to keep my brain
active I find another
quotable quote:

"less than 15 percent of the
population - united mostly by
their interest in
pornography, bad science
fiction, and wasting their
employers' time at work"

A startlingly accurate
definition of the majority of
the world's netizens.

I have come to the conclusion
that the Sucksters are in
some sort of hall of mirrors.
Your self-reflective ideas
just create more ideas that
in turn create more ideas. I
personally have latched onto
several viable business ideas
from your columns and am all
set to make my fortune. Your
pointing out of what sucks is
so self-evident that
sometimes you don't seem to
realize that although it
sucks, it is actually a
saleable idea.

All you need to make
something that sucks turn a
buck is an appropriate
sucker, and we all know how
often they're born.

And by the way, no, I won't
be paying you royalties from
any of my millions.

Andrew Kirkness

How to Get Your Letter On the
Fish Page:

1. Be famous. 2. Seek
employment at Suck. 3. Write
huge volumes of strangely
gratifying nonsense. 4.
Insult a writer ruthlessly.
5. Insult a writer ruthlessly
employing strangely
gratifying nonsense. 6.
Confess something deeply
personal. 7. Write an
extremely pretentious epic
poem about a Suck piece. 8.
Use the word "slut." 9.
Declare the formation of a
fan club for a particular
writer. 10. Compliment one
Suck writer while insulting
the rest. 11. Claim to be
cashing in on all of Suck's
good ideas.

Small Is Beautiful
Interesting quotation at the
close of your article ...
Oppenheimer would relate the
event to a line from the
Bhagavad-Gita: "I am become
Death, destroyer of worlds."
Now you and Tom Clancy share
something in common, though I
must admit that I find
Clancy's "the end of
civilization as we know it"
scenario in The Hunt for Red
October somewhat more
convincing than yours.

Al Thomas
<thomasab@acq.osd.mil>

I'm not clear on what it is I
share with Tom Clancy, and I
probably won't take the time
to find out since that would
apparently require acquiring
and reading a Tom Clancy
book. But I wonder if this
entitles me to a percentage
of his royalties?

I think though that nanotech
is a much better way to
destroy life as we know it
than nuclear weapons (I saw
the movie, so sue me). Even
with all the mega-tonnage
that we've created it would
be very difficult to
completely destroy the
earth's biota through sheer
force. But nanotech could
simply supplant indigenous
creatures. Human beings have
been doing it for centuries
now, and we're rather pitiful
reproducers.

Dilettante

Most enjoyable Suck I ever
read.

Tim Jennings
<folktale@together.net>

Thanks very much. Since I
have to assume that this is
the first time you've read
Suck, I'd also recommend
Monday's piece. I think it
was much better.

Dilettante

It is an interesting subject.
But if it takes a room full
of hardware to do this, I
doubt we can replicate the
genetic code level of self-
reproduction without a huge
input of energy (that room
full of hardware.)

I do look forward to the day
that my Nike shoes are
fractal assemblies of the
Nike logo.

David A. Dorney

Nanotechnologists (who have a
unique ability to see around
engineering practicalities)
would argue that the energy
source is a no-brainer: the
sun. Or, hey, we've got all
those unused nuclear weapons
just going to waste.

I long for the day when the
entire universe is Nike
self-similar. Actually, if
nanotech could figure out a
way to get my 3-year-old's
shoes to stay tied, I'd be
all for it.

Cheers,

Dilettante