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   NEWSLETTER: ISSUE 23: OUR FAVOURITE STORIES THIS YEAR
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 This Week:
 - Our favourite stories this year
 - Photoshop the Queen
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 B3ta email 23 - 21 DEC 2001 - "We remember the web"
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 : 2001 IN REVIEW
   It's has been a funny old year on the Internet,
   half our friends lost their jobs and agencies
   have been dropping like flies.
   However, there was some fun stuff too.
   Here are our the best stories that ended up in
   our inbox this year.
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 : Britney is Dead - Hoax
   Nerd bloke makes page saying that Britney has
   died in a road accident. World panics. BBC gets
   angry. Page taken down. Oh well.
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 : Hank the Dwarf dies
   Poor little Hank - he was Howard Sterns little
   side kick. Like many dwarfs before him - the
   booze got him.
   (BTW: Hank was once voted the "Internets'
   Most Beautiful Person" - after Stern organised
   a grass roots email campaign.)
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 : Scary Muscle Boy Pictures
   Yuck! What's that in our inbox? It's a
   SCHWARZENEGGER HANSON - a nine year old boy with
   enormous muscles. Stop it! You're making us feel
   queasy.
 http://www.richardsandrak.com/
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 : Friends Reunited
   Do you really want to know how well your old
   school mates are doing? Friends Reunited
   thought so.
   Then users filled the site with nasty comments
   about their old teachers being child molesters,
   and got the site owners into legal hot water.
   Oops.
 -------------------------------------------------
 : My Cat Hates You
   Is your cat angry? Did you share the joke with
   a million bored cat lovers? Many did.
 http://www.mycathatesyou.com
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 : All Your Base Are Belong To Us
   This phrase - a poorly translated bit of Japanese
   from an old console game - went from nerd joke
   to a  global phenomenon. It was cool until the
   twatty bloke on the next desk started saying it.
 -------------------------------------------------
 : Peter Pan found his Tinker-Bell.
   Huh? I don't know - some weird bloke dressed in
   tights - managed to pull a woman with similar
   interests. Isn't that nice?
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 : Bert/Bin Laden is EVIL.
   Cool - some bloke made a weird Bert from Sesame
   Street image. Then a poster-maker used the web
   to source images for his Bin Laden poster.
   This is used in pro-Taliban demonstration. A
   photo is taken - ends up on the news wires
   - and back on the net. We have a closed media
   loop. Prepare for the universe to collapse.
 -------------------------------------------------
 : Geri the Dog
   Popbitch - the music industry gossip newsletter
   - was looking for images of popstars with
   dogs - and used Google to find a mutt called
   Geri.
   They mentioned it - with the detail that the
   dog was housed at an animal sanctuary & needed
   a new owner.
   This story had legs and reached the tabloids
   and TV. Yay for animal interest stories & the
   power of the Google search engine.
 -------------------------------------------------
 : Kung-fu Chimp Video
   What is it with you people? Do you think
   monkeys are still funny? It didn't stop you
   mailing this video to each other.
 -------------------------------------------------
 : Tourist Guy
   This photo turned up in everyone's email. A man
   standing on the WTC with a plane behind him.
   This was supposedly taken 10 seconds before the
   disaster - but turned out to be a photoshopped
   fake.
   Thousands more images appeared - with him
   in front of different world disasters - all
   photoshopped nonsense. Then a Brazilian man
   came forward - saying that it was him.
   Volkswagen gave him a huge wad of cash - and
   he turned out to be a liar.
   Are you following this? Do you care? Tourist
   guy, FUCK OFF!
 -------------------------------------------------
 : J-Lo Email Bollocks.
   Oh god. We so wanted this to be true. An email
   transcript between Jenifer Lopez's publicist
   and some drone at Warner Brothers arguing
   about holding up a film unless Lopez was
   credited   as "J-Lo". We were excited for
   a moment... a glimpse into the mundane
   mechanics of supporting   an insane diva's
   celebrity... But no - it was a joke. Arse.
   Didn't stop it going half way round the
   world and back again.
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 : WTC disaster closes the BBC site
   This was terrifying.
  
   We were sitting in the office with no TV or
   radio. A text message comes in saying "plane
   crash in New York."
   We go straight to the BCC site, and it's down.
   We go to the BBC site, and it's down.
   We had to use message boards such as Slashdot,
   Metafilter & Popbitch to work out what on earth
   was going on. Scary - but their news coverage
   turned out to be better than the mainstream.
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 : Napster Closing Down
   Arse. Fuck. Piss. No more free music. No more
   downloading EVERY PULP B-SIDE EVER MADE.
   (So it wasn't all bad then.)
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 : Boo Closing
   Did you want to buy your clothes over the
   Internet with a cartoon avatar guiding your
   decisions? Apparently not. They spent 10
   million quid & closed. You can now read the
   inside   story of their fall in their book
   "BooHoo" - and if the PR is to be believed,
   they've already sold the film rights.
   Jammy little shits.
 -------------------------------------------------
 : "I saw an arab... and he told me ..."
   Did you fall for this shit? Did you phone
   your mates and tell them to get the hell out
   of Central London. Did you say, "It's true! My
   mate told me! And her mate told her"? Then
   sorry - you should read snopes2.com and learn
   a little about urban legends.
 -------------------------------------------------
 : That girl WITHOUT leukaemia - she didn't die!
   Simple story: Girl writes web page. Girl
   pretends to be dying. People get upset and send
   flowers. Girl dies. People try and attend
   funeral. Oops. The girl made it all up. Not
   everything on the Internet is true. Shock.
 -------------------------------------------------
 : Couple Court on Webcam - Shagging
   Yay. This was great. Boy buys webcam. Boy
   invites girl round. Boy shags girl. 3rd party
   takes stills from the video feed - and posts
   them all over the web.
   From obscurity to celebrity in two days.
   And then back again.
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 : "I send you this for your advice"..
   Oh God. The fucking Sircam virus. This was
   annoying. And the once with the 7 dwarfs? And
   the one that just crashes your email package
   when you preview an email?
   Argh!
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 : Queen mum fake death rumours
   "Look it's true. My friend at C4 said so.
   They're holding off breaking the news until the
   weekend."
   This story got a bit of press - but the old dear
   turned out not to be dead.
   However - we can confirm that David Icke is
   right: she IS a lizard. (She can't
   transmogrify her body any more - and the
   bandages on her legs are hiding scales.)
 -------------------------------------------------
 : Robbie Williams isn't a nazi
   Did you see this one? A fantastic animation of
   Robbie Williams marching over swastikas to a
   bomtempi organ version of Rock DJ. It was great
   - until RW's lawyers closed the site down.
   Bugger.
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 : Jamie Oliver is a Cunt
   If you missed this, then you are blind. 1000s
   of images of the fat-tongued-one all doctored
   to rip the piss. This was a combined Internet
   community effort. The web - we salute you -
   for this was your finest hour. Woo.
 http://www.hairytongue.com/gallery/fattongue/
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 : B3TA IMAGE CHALLENGE
   Results - winner - new challenge.
   Each week we run a competition to test your
   creative skills. We find an image, and you
   Photoshop it to death.
   Last week was Jesus website.
 http://b3ta.com/challenge/jesus/
   The winner? Andy206's Titanic Jesus.
 http://www.andyspad.net/images/jesus4.jpg
   This weeks challenge? Next year is the Queens
   Golden Jubilee. Celebrate in style.
 http://b3ta.com/challenge/queen/
   BTW: We can't take submissions via email.
   For details on hosting images elsewhere, please
   read ...
 http://b3ta.com/feautures/faq/
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 : END BIT
  
   We're not going to publish a newsletter next
   week. We want a holiday. However, we're leaving
   the message board open, so have fun.
   (BTW: If you are a coder, and bored this Xmas
   we would really love you to think about making
   a game. Go on. Hide from your family this
   Christmas and make something good.)
 http://b3ta.com/board/
   Subscribe:  [email protected]
   Unsubscribe:  [email protected]
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 : Thanks this year to:
   Cal, Joel, Neil, Pep, Tom, Lucy, AndyK, Nicey,
   TheWife, Hal9000 and everyone who contributed
   so much to the message board, weblog, and image
   challenges. You all rock.

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   * TYPE-IN MAGAZINE - LAUNCHED FOR YOUR FINGERS
   * AI SLOP - GET READY TO OINK FOR IT, PIGGIES
   * GET WELL SOON - WISHING WELL TO DAVE BAGPUSS

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