we love the web email us go to messageboard newsletter archive home NEWSLETTER: "CIVIL UNREST QUELLED BY BIG BROTHER RELAUNCH" next issue » « previous issue This Week: * CRAP DATES - in 140 characters * RESULTS - it's "Sexy A-Level" time again * ROBOTS - Swarmbot is coming ------------------------------------------------- ________ ____ __ ___ ____/ _)|_ // /_/ _ | "Great decade to ___/ _ |/_ > Sponsor B3ta << Want this space? Then talk to us. http://b3ta.com/mailus/ ------------------------------------------------- : WHAT B3TA PEOPLE HAVE BEEN MAKING THIS WEEK Stuff, nonsense and poppy-scented cocks >> Crap dates << @Rhodri writes, "The other day I passed a pub that I'd been in 10 years ago on a really excruciating date. The girl was from Wigan, conversation was extremely hard to come by, and I found myself asking her 'So, Wigan, what's it like?' Unbearable. I tweeted this recollection and it led to this cathartic outpouring, where people sent me details of their crap dates - distilled into 140 characters. And that 140 character limit just created these brilliant one liners; they conjured up incredible back stories that you had to construct using your own imagination. Like: 'Nice meal, all going fine, pushed her down a staircase.' Amazing." BTW: Dull tweets become much funnier if you imagine that they are being RT'd by @rhodri as bad dates. http://www.crapdate.com/ >> DIY Fruit Pastilles << See the sponsor at the top of the newsletter? They said they'd sponsor us if we agreed to cook one of their recipes. The things we do to keep B3ta afloat! Anyway, it turned out pretty good. Have a look, see: http://youtu.be/TVh0DX3aKN0 >> Scientology: The Truth << Scientology - it's true! It's all true!"A little spoof doc I made a little while back," confesses humanthing. "NSFW due to mild swearybollox." http://www.b3ta.com/links/Scientology_The_Truth >> T is for Toilet << "I made this for a film-making competition where you had to pick a word beginning with the letter T and do something about death with it," booms leehardcastle. "I need your votes. It's make me very happy if you vote, innit, stop looting." http://www.b3ta.com/links/T_is_for_Toilet ------------------------------------------------- : QUESTION OF THE WEEK First Rude Thing We wanted to know what the first thing that shook you out of your innocent little childhood. Slightly rude things, that is, not paedo-rape: http://b3ta.com/questions/firstrudething/ * STASH - "last year I taught year one, which is 5-6 year-olds. We spend a lot of time painting, gluing and other messy things which involve covering the tables in old newspapers. Of course some of the papers we had were red tops and therefore we carefully removed page three. One day I was tidying up the book corner when I found a small wodge of paper, carefully folded and tucked behind some of the books. What we hadn't reckoned on was nudey ladies in the more high-end papers. This was some 5-year old's carefully torn out stash of arty black and white ladies who had neglected to put any knickers on. The next day I found a boy frantically searching for something in the book corner but he wouldn't tell me what for." (Mrs Entity ) * GASH - "Naturally for a man of my pre-interwebs generation, hedge-porn was my first rude thing. Unfortunately, it was fairly specialist, and led me to believe for about six months that most pretty girls had stonking great cocks. My classmates were of course gentle and patient in their explanation when they realised my misconception. Oh yes." (SnowyTheRabbit) * SPLOSH - "When I was a wee lad I had two older friends who were girlfriend and boyfriend. I told them that I didn't believe they really had sex with each other. One day they asked me to make a cup of tea. When I bought the tea back they were fucking in the living room. I was still super naive and said I don't believe you're really having sex, he turned her around to show me quite clearly that not only was he penetrating her but she was also on her period. Remains one of the most uncomfortable moments of my life." (PhillieJo) >> This Week's Question - Performance << Have you ever - voluntarily or otherwise - appeared in front of an audience? How badly did it go? Talk to us here: http://b3ta.com/questions/performance/ ------------------------------------------------- : SITES IN BRIEF Stuff we like that wasn't made by our mates >> Sexy A-Levels << It's that time of year, where men forward around sexyalevels.tumblr ironically as a criticism of the press and don't enjoy looking at pics of girls at all. Being able to feel morally superior and perve at women? Must be how Daily Mail readers feel. http://sexyalevels.tumblr.com/ >> Chocolate bar scans << Scanning cats is SO 1996. It's all about scanning chocolate bars now. BTW our tip for a hit scanning website? Upload your palm and have someone pretending to be a gypsy read your future. http://bit.ly/kUsctn >> Why 'Ye Olde Shope' is wrong << The Y in Ye is an attempt to represent the rune 'thorn' that was pronounced "th". Nobody ever said "ye". Interesting in a wow-I-never-knew-that way. http://t.co/GRyKALy >> Most impressive print ads << Print advertising is up shit creek because, well, it's simple enough, it starts with I and rhymes with Winternet. Here's some amazing techniques to attempt to reverse this trend. Supremely creative stuff but it's obvious there's better ways for corporates to spend their cash. http://goo.gl/YdhJo >> Rent your middle-class proles << The problem with renting proles in the past was that they spoke with such dreadfully common accents you couldn't let them in front of the wife in case she startled. Now thanks to the erosion of jobs through globalisation there's loads of jolly nice people out of work who don't look too actually frightening. Rent them here for pennies - they're cheaper than slaves, as you don't have to feed them or worry about health care. http://taskrabbit.com >> Best CV ever << Here's someone who understands his market. A recent graduate who knows his potential employers will be 40-something and remember Ceefax with nostalgic affection. We suspect he'll get his job. http://zef.so/employable/ ------------------------------------------------- : GOODBYE ISTYOSTY The Dailymail proxy is no more The Daily Mail is a force for evil. It uses its power to spread bile and make the people of our nation hate each other. It prints crap from the Tax Payers Alliance that paves the way of awful government policy that will fuck the lot of us. One small glimmer in the darkness was Istyosty, a proxy that allowed us to link to the DM without raising their ad revenue or hits. It also had the side benefit of reducing our hate mail when we occasionally felt the need to link them up. A soldier has fallen. Pay your respects here. http://istyosty.com/ ------------------------------------------------- : VIDEO SCHMIDEO TV without the comfy sofa >> Creepy taxidermy << 1965 reel of a crazy taxidermy museum where all the stuffed animals are dressed up like people. We can imagine the Look Around You team doing the most mind-bending voice-over to this. http://youtu.be/WmWwe4a7EWk >> Swarmbot << Swarmbot is "a heterogeneous robot swarm in which different groups of robots have different capabilities". Fascinating footage of the bots in action, turning simple household tasks into a frightening, insectile, science-fiction future. Like Oceans 11 made out of hoovers. http://www.youtube.com/watch >> Incredible bionic hand << We've been waiting ages for the point when prosthetic limbs become better than the bit of you they are replacing. This looks amazing and we can only imagine the hijinks this 14-year old boy will get up to with his robotic left hand. http://t.co/t0nWbE6 >> Cookie Monster sings Tom Waits << Who would have thought you'd ever hear the Cookie Monster sing such socially relevant lyrics as "The poor, the lame, the blind - who are the ones that we kept in charge? Killers, thieves and lawyers." Alas it's a mashup, but what a mashup. http://youtu.be/U5X4N2exOsU >> Remote control Air-Shark << Those who bought crap from the Innovations catalogue in the late 90s will remember the remote control "UFOs" - basically helium balloons with small propellors for direction control. It takes a special genius to change the design to sharks. Can't wait to borrow one to freak out / amaze the kids. http://t.co/WAeBU61 ------------------------------------------------- : FUNNY NAME CORNER Funny = shit like Slipknot said * THANK GOD YOU CAN'T HAVE SPACES IN URLS - else we'd miss treats like this: http://www.whoretweetedme.com * BEST PUNCTUATION FAIL EVER - and so true. Or is it satire? http://goo.gl/gG0bo * SAINSBURYS IN HAPPY CAT FAIL - the picture editor is obviously depressed. http://www.b3tards.com/u/6c0eb61421f758d43735/p104... ------------------------------------------------- : FOLLOW FRIDAY @Youvebinframed Deadpan descriptions of the type of shit you get on TV's top clip show. Funnier than it should be: * "Montage of skateboarding teens/men landing groin first on banisters/bars/immovable hard objects. Set to Avril Lavigne's sk8ter Boi" * "Lady stands above steam drain. You think her skirt will rise at any moment. It doesn't. Her blouse rises." * "Woman parading a large cake from kitchen to table. She slips. She falls into cake. Everyone laughs except her." http://twitter.com/#!/Youvebinframed ------------------------------------------------- : B3TA IMAGE CHALLENGE Results from the Future Law Challenge Last week we wanted you to picture the cops of the future Your favourites included: * ENHANCE! - the truth about forensic science as it pertains to pixel size (daveyclayton) http://b3ta.com/board/10507003 * OUCH - brutal police action displayed in delightful animation form (Butters) http://b3ta.com/board/10505900 * HELMET - we've have seen the future of law enforcement, and it's ROBO-DOMO-KUN (E Dubya) http://b3ta.com/board/10506025 All these images, and the highest as voted by you can be found here: http://b3ta.com/challenge/futurelaw/ >> New challenge: Children's TV << Crack out the finger paints and Fairy Liquid bottles to invent some new characters for the next generation to adore, in the tradition of Wombles, Teletubbies, Muppets etc. Challenge suggested by fridgefreezer. http://b3ta.com/challenge/newkidstv/ ------------------------------------------------- : WHAT HAPPENED NEXT? Follow-ups on previous stories. * STORY ON B3TA / MASH-UPS IN INDEPENDENT - written by @rhodri who was mentioned earlier in this very newsletter for his crapdates project and including comments from your Ginger Fuhrer, Cassetteboy and Swedemason. Worth a nosey: http://goo.gl/vQUyg * KUNT AND THE GANG PENIS TROUBLE - Kunt has been getting his fans to stick penises all over other people's posters. He apologises for this here: http://t.co/feKYEvp * THANK-YOU NOTES - Jahled writes, "Last year you put our Nina/Snow Leopard video in the newsletter. It's just cleared a hundred thousand hits; a thousand since yesterday, which was all kick-started because of what you did. Looking at the embedded statistics it's been linked all over the place, including buzzfeed. Ultimately, it has given a tremendous amount of free exposure to the CST, which Terry and I are very grateful for." http://www.vimeo.com/12716198 * ERRORS - beetlejuice writes, "In the last week's newsletter you featured an interview I did with Swede Mason for my website Hercules Moments. Really appreciate that, thanks very much. Unfortunately, though, you attributed it to a completely different board user and not me. Shame on you B3ta. Go sit on the naughty step." Sorry - our errors are mostly down to sticking 100s of emails and notes into one doc and then subbing it down for the newsletter rather than malice. We're sorry! ------------------------------------------------- : FRIDAY GAME Wonder Putt Crazy golf on cat LSD. Might kill your afternoon, should your life be so empty you wish to fill it with mindless distraction. http://www.kongregate.com/games/dampgnat/wonderput... ------------------------------------------------- : STAR IN NEXT WEEK'S ISSUE Make something cool and tell us about it. If you are in it then people will see your stuff. Things we'd really like to see include * CRAP KINDLE FILTER - Monkey Bones asks for a, "Firefox / chrome extension removing all spam and self-published books from Kindle store." Harsh but true my friend, harsh but true. * FUCK BONO CAMPAIGN - Bono's worth $1bn in Facebook shares. Let's all close our accounts simultaneously to wipe the grin off his cash eating face. * DOG SHITTER PHOTOS - Che Grimsdale asks, "I noticed some time ago that when dog owners are waiting for their dogs to have a poo, they have a singular expression/stance. What I'd like to see is a collection of photos of people waiting for their dogs to shit, but with all evidence of the dog/lead shopped out." Send contributions via the mail form. http://www.b3ta.com/mailus/ BTW: If you've sent something in that hasn't been featured then don't be put off - we look at everything you send us. ------------------------------------------------- Subscribe: [email protected] Unsubscribe: [email protected] ------------------------------------------------- THANKS: This issue was written by Rob Manuel with David Stevenson. Bands who've lost singers should team up with singers who've lost bands. Ian Brown & The Glitter Band. Morrissey & The Wailers. Stuff sent in by @rriddle, @rich_81, @jackschofield, thecrapgatsby, @Matt_Muir, @mattround, claptonista, oceans11, @carrozo, @NobbiNobody & @brianftang. Top Tippery by apeloverage. Additional linkage and image challenge by Fraser Lewry. Mike Trinder is QOTW bloke. Not sure about these garlic bulbs. They're really stinking up my light fittings. Subjlols via benito vaselini. Other choices here: http://b3ta.com/board/10513343 ------------------------------------------------- TOP TIP: Young men. Tired of being condemned for destroying cities? Simply join the army and destroy cities in the Middle East instead. This will somehow change you from a mindless thug into a hero. next issue » « previous issue Newsletter We run a free weekly B3TA email reporting on the coolest stuff on the net. _____________________ [ go ] -------------------- THIS WEEKS HEADLINES -------------------- * TYPE-IN MAGAZINE - LAUNCHED FOR YOUR FINGERS * AI SLOP - GET READY TO OINK FOR IT, PIGGIES * GET WELL SOON - WISHING WELL TO DAVE BAGPUSS READ LATEST ISSUE archive