we love the web email us go to messageboard newsletter archive home NEWSLETTER: "FUCK OFF, WE'RE WATCHING THE SNOOKER" next issue » « previous issue This Week: * DAFT PUNK - shredded * STAR WARS - in 60 seconds * SPOONS - played to old rave tunes ------------------------------------------------- ________ ____ __ ___ ____/ _)|_ // /_/ _ | "We're saving your wanky ___/ _ |/_ > Sponsor B3ta << Want this space? Then talk to us. http://b3ta.com/mailus/ ------------------------------------------------- : WHAT B3TA PEOPLE HAVE BEEN MAKING THIS WEEK >> Is this real?!?!?!? << Google Earth and Facebook are linking up, to show everybody your location and your datas?? "It's not real," confesses somegreybloke, but there's some fun to be had by forwarding to the paranoid and easily-enraged. http://www.b3ta.com/links/Is_this_real:8 >> "I Lived With John Humphrys" << "I lived with John Humphrys for two years," claims Paint My Album, the quotation marks immunising *us* from any legal action taken by the snow-haired Radio 4 titan. "He was a total nightmare." http://www.b3ta.com/links/I_Lived_With_John_Humphr... >> Goobly Heads << Some sort of weird money-spinning scheme by claymation maestro Lee Hardcastle. We didn't understand, but enjoyed seeing a wide variety of ghastly characters strut their stuff. http://www.b3ta.com/links/goobly_heads >> 2p or not 2p? << "I finished this at 3.30 this morning!" exclaims Q4nobody. A celebration of the Bard's birthday, with a total monetary value of £7.84. http://www.earlyshakespeare.com/2p.html ------------------------------------------------- : QUESTION OF THE WEEK Travel Last week we wanted your stories of trips that didn't go quite as well as you had expected: http://b3ta.com/questions/travel/ * KIDNAPPED - "Walking down Boulevard du 30 Juin because the taxis in central Kinshasa have a pretty poor reputation, a car pulled up next to me. The passenger flashed a police ID and asked for mine. He said to get in as he needed to check on my place of residence. I wasn't too concerned - until, at the next corner two other guys got in and sandwiched me in the back, before taking off in the wrong direction. The Boulevard has police at every junction and traffic moves very slowly, but I knew that if we left it I could be in trouble. I needed to get out and I needed a plan. As surreptitiously as possible, I put my hand in my pocket and palmed my XDA stylus - 4 inches of steel, sharp, and handy when you need something to stick in somebody's neck. That was for the guy on my right. The guy on the left was about to have his ear bitten off. Ears are great, they piss blood everywhere and create enough mayhem to escape. All very Andy McNab, but no way were we leaving the Boulevard with me still in that car. The next junction was manned by traffic cops and we were turning left so it was time for action. Part of me was aghast at what I was about to do next. Yes, I really did it. I leant across the bloke on my left and screamed like a girl, pounding on the window. The cops looked in shock at this dignity-free white man and ran over, distracting the kidnappers. I took this as an opportunity to scramble out, pausing only to pluck my passport from the guy in the front seat." (strongp) * ACCENTS - "At the end of a month-long business trip to Ukraine, three of us were celebrating our successes with our translator, Oleg. He was a dignified, elderly gentleman who commanded respect and even deference in every native we met. As the vodka flowed, Oleg spoke up, 'I'd like to do my party piece.' We expected a song or one of those interminable Russian poems, but Oleg had different plans. Turning to my boss, he said, 'Donald, you are lowland Scots, you went to a public school where they tried to change your accent, you've lived for a long time in London.' We clapped - he'd got it exactly right! Turning to Paul, he said, 'You are a North London boy born and bred, I'd say Enfield?' We were stunned. 'It was once my business to know this,' he explained. 'I was a colonel in the KGB, I taught accents to our operatives in the sixties and seventies.'" (Captain Placid) * MUGGED - "Many moons ago the not-yet-Mrs Airman Gabber and her group of friends got held up at knifepoint in Amsterdam. 'Give me 20 Euros,' he demanded. They handed over the money and the perpetrator threw down a package and ran off. It was the biggest block of resin they had ever seen. Way more than they could smoke in the remainder of the trip. So they smoked what they could and buried the rest in the event of a return trip. That was some aggressive drug-pushing right there." (Airman Gabber) >> This Week - CONTROVERSIAL BELIEFS << Tell us about views outside the mainstream which make people go glassy-eyed as you bang on about them. (Yes, your grandad's a racist - no need to tell us, thanks) http://b3ta.com/questions/controversialbeliefs/ ------------------------------------------------- : SITES IN BRIEF Stuff we like that wasn't made by our mates >> Age gaps in movie relationships << Graphs show, while Hollywood men are allowed to be over 40 women, basically, aren't. The standard analysis of this would be that women value men with power and men value women with looks - meaning the most attractive man in the world would be Rupert Murdoch. Are we right, ladies? http://bit.ly/11pJ9pb >> Play the accordion by resizing your browser << Next week? Do the same with virtual pizza dough. http://artpolikarpov.github.io/garmoshka/ >> The sound of Alexander Graham Bell. << Old recordings of the inventor of the telephone have been made playable by modern technology - and they look like CDs. http://bit.ly/13uhh51 >> New form of music notation << Who would have thought there was innovation to bring to music notation? The ideas contained here are great - making sight reading easier. However, we suspect it'll be a bit of Dvorak keyboard situation - great concept but difficult to change an established system. Here's hoping they find some big partners (Apple Garageband comes to mind) to make it popular. http://www.hummingbirdnotation.com/ >> Minimalist gifs << Can someone give us a couple of million quid so we can open the Museum of Modern Gifs? http://www.nicolasritter.com/filter/photography/On... ------------------------------------------------- : VIDEO SCHMIDEO >> Best of Norfolk << On the eve of departing for his gap year, this eighteen-year-old records a homage to his home county, with the fulsome cheesiness of a much older man. Positively Partridgesque. https://www.youtube.com/watch >> Drummer steals the show << Ecstatic percussionist lives out the frustrated musician's dream and steals the limelight from the lead singer. It's clearly a schtick, but a pretty funny one. http://www.youtube.com/watch >> Playing the spoons to old rave music << This is the scene, as rave fades into the great dustbin of memory: Old men playing the spoons to Faithless's Insomnia, in London markets. He's actually pretty good, too. http://youtu.be/POvLaziUsTo >> New Daft Punk single sounds off << For all the anticipation, we're not sure it's their best work. Give it another listen: http://www.youtube.com/watch >> If song lyrics were real << Charmingly daft bit of musician-mocking from Irish comedy troupe. http://www.b3ta.com/links/If_Songs_Were_Real >> Star Wars Episode IV, in 60 seconds << Why waste your life away, watching the first Star Wars film? You can cram every important plot development into less than a minute, with this nicely-drawn animation. http://www.b3ta.com/links/Star_Wars_Episode_IV >> New Peter Serafinowicz vid << Peculiar, meticulously retro-tinged sci-fi from Robert Popper and Peter Serafinowicz. http://bit.ly/11JJlju >> Cats like boxes << But do big cats like big boxes? Enterprising zoologists work to answer the questions keeping us all awake at night. http://www.b3ta.com/links/Cats_in_boxes:2 ------------------------------------------------- : B3TA IMAGE CHALLENGE Results from the Hollywood Challenge Last week we wanted you to make Hollywood blockbusters on the cheap Your favourites included: * SHORT: giantess removed, classic poster rendered less classic (blyerkit) http://www.b3ta.com/board/10954830 * PLASTIC: call for a bigger boat misheard (Ya What?) http://www.b3ta.com/board/10954365 * MEW: re-branding MGM with a tiny kitten, a gilded goatse and a golden cock (HEKIM) http://www.b3ta.com/board/10956336 All these images, and the highest as voted by you can be found here: http://www.b3ta.com/challenge/hollywood/ >> New challenge: Funerals << Funerals are all the rage, it would seem. So we're having a one-word challenge devoted to them. Show us how you want to go, redesign the funeral system, draw ironic celebrity funerals, etc. Suggested by HappyToast http://www.b3ta.com/challenge/funerals/ ------------------------------------------------- : 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: * TRICKY QUESTION ANSWERED - "If the medium is the message, what's the message of the internet?" * THE STAR TREK INVENTIONS THAT WOULD EXIST CONSIDERING THE IMPLICATIONS OF TECH - Captain Kirk doesn't wear condoms, as Scotty beams up the semen from point of ejaculation into a huge sperm lagoon beneath the bridge. Or, Mmmm, the all you can eat buffet, then transport all the calories out of your tummy. * IDEAS FOR INNOVATIONS AT COFFEE CHAINS - maybe they could (optionally) sell tea at a temperature that doesn't require 15 mins to cool down? 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. ------------------------------------------------- : WEIRD KETTLE PITCH THING 1. Go here: https://twitter.com/robmanuel/status/3277608390315... 2. Turn mute off 3. Whistle approx the pitch of the kettle 4. Drop the tone of your whistle until you hear a third tone - wobble that tone about. Odd isn't it? If this worked for you then you're hearing a 'Tartini tone' which is an excitingly-named 'psychoacoustic phenomena'. http://www.patmissin.com/ffaq/q26.html ------------------------------------------------- Love us: [email protected] Shove us: [email protected] ------------------------------------------------- THANKS: This issue was written by Rob Manuel with David Stevenson. Stuff sent in by sinisterduck, simbosan, ‏@mikkeyuk, robneymcplum, @mikkeyuk, @Rocker_44, ‏@mrlizard13, InflammableHound, Sheep in Socks, dirtyscarab. Image challenge by Fraser Lewry. Mike Trinder is QOTW bloke. Subjlols via Smash Monkey. Top Tip via robneymcplum ------------------------------------------------- TOP TIP: Make your iPhone battery last longer by not getting it out all the fucking time. 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