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   NEWSLETTER: "REMEMBER THE B3TA NEWSLETTER? SO DID ROB... FINALLY."
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 This Week:
 * QUIZ - Are You Smarter Than Twitter?
 * BRITISH ROAD SIGNS - Vandalised for lols
 * ENO - Let's play 'Oblique Strategies'
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 ________  ____ __  ___
 ____/  _)|_  // /_/ _ | "We're saving the webs
 ___/  _ |/_ </ __/ __ |   to make a museum
 __/____/____/\__/_/ |_|    for spiders to visit"
 B3ta email 678 - 18 May 2018
 Read the inferior web version, email forever!
 http://b3ta.com/newsletter/issue678
 Block b3ta on Facebook:
 https://www.facebook.com/b3tan
 -------------------------------------------------
 : ARE YOU SMARTER THAN TWITTER?
   Almost endless internet quiz
  
   Monkeon has made a quiz based on searching for
   instances of people saying "I can't tell the
   difference..." and turning their observations
   into a quiz. It's actually ingenious.
 http://www.monkeon.co.uk/areyousmarterthantwitter/
 -------------------------------------------------
 : BUY SOME TROUSERS
   Sponsored patreon
   Hebtro make awesome trousers. And they're made
   by some old newsletter contributors in the UK.
   If you want to know what £110 trousers look
   like then click, nobody is forcing you to buy
   them. That's not how it works.
 https://hebtro.co/
 -------------------------------------------------
 : BRITISH STREET SIGNS IMPROVED BY VANDALS
   Bateman Lane = Bat-man Lane
   Accidentally kicked off a great Twitter thread
   of people sharing their local street signs that
   keep getting vandalised with the obvious jokes.
  
   Apse Heath = Arse Heath
   Dogpool Lane = Dogpoo Lane
   Aftherstone Mews = Ratherstoned Mews
   Prentis Road = Penis Road
   Clint Lane = Cunt Lane
   Essex Drive = Sex Drive
   Wellingborough = Well Rough
   Bellenden Road = Bellend Road
   Corn Street = Porn Street
   Shilbottle = Shitbottle
  
   And the classic... Canal Street = Anal Treet.
  
   We'd like to add to this so make sure you send
   some more in.
 http://b3ta.com/blog/british-street-name-vandalism...
 -------------------------------------------------
 : REJECTED GOVERNMENT PETITION BOT
   "A mix of hot gammon and pure lunacy"
  
   Jonty writes, "Two years ago I discovered that
   all the rejected UK government petitions were
   posted publicly, including such recent classics
   as 'Princess Diana should be the hologram that
   meets you at the airport' and 'Criminalise cat
   ownership in Sawtry'. It's a mix of hot gammon
   and pure lunacy. I did the obvious thing and
   made a bot to publicise them all." This is
   flipping genius, a genuine mix of humour and
   saying something about the world we live in.
   The London Review Of Bots gives it FIVE STARS.
 https://twitter.com/rejectpetitions
 -------------------------------------------------
 : COPYWRITER WANTS JOB
   Sponsored patreon
   One of our sponsorships slot has been taken by
   Josh who writes, "A good friend of mine is
   looking for a decent job doing good copywriting
   for someone who's not a cunt. I've not told him
   I'm going to do this but how would you feel
   about plugging him in the newsletter? His name
   is Thom Wong."
 https://allknown.info/
 -------------------------------------------------
 : OBLIQUE STRATEGIES FOR WORK
   Happy 70th birthday to Brian Eno.
   In celebration of Eno reaching three score and
   ten we've opened B3ta's own version of Oblique
   Strategies, but instead of solving problems in
   the music studio, it's solutions that have
   solved problems at work.
  
   Here's some of your card ideas so far:
   * Put fake meetings in your shared Outlook
   calendar
   * Ignore the client until they solve the
   problem by themselves
   * Don't solve any problems. Otherwise people
   will start bringing problems to you
   * Hide in a cardboard box until they stop
   looking for you
   * Strategically book a holiday
   * Blame an ex-employee for the screw up and
   tell the customer that as a result, she's been
   fired
   Please suggestion some work solutions without
   giving away the problem they were solving:
 http://www.b3ta.com/questions/obliquestrategies/
 -------------------------------------------------
 : GET YOUR GRANT FUNDING APPLICATION WRITTEN
   Sponsored patreon
   Need grant funding for a tech project or idea?
   Get Cutting Edge Analysis to write a no win, no
   fee proposal for you. (Oh go on, it's free
   Government money. Possibly.)
 https://www.cuttingedgeanalysis.com/
 -------------------------------------------------
 What do you call a royal wedding sandwich?
 Anything that's in bread.
 -------------------------------------------------
 : GOING OUT B3TA STYLE
   Events for your busy social calendar
   * WATCH CASSETTE BOY LIVE - Mash-up chaps
   Cassetteboy are playing live in Sheffield
   tomorrow night (Saturday 18th May). We asked
   them for some blurb and they said "How do you
   turn a YouTube channel into a live show?  If
   you know, tell Cassetteboy, but in the meantime
   we'll be playing old favourites and previously
   unseen videos, dressing up in stupid outfits
   and generally prancing about.  It's unlike
   anything you've ever seen before, unless you've
   seen us before in which case it will be pretty
   much the same as last time."
 https://goo.gl/xrbDCk
   * SMERSH POD LIVE EVENT - Unless you've been
   living under a rock you might have noticed
   podcasts are now a big deal, it's basically a
   way of the internet filling your brain when
   you're not looking at a screen in a cunning
   ruse to make you buy mattresses and meal boxes.
   One of the best pods is Smersh Pod and they're
   doing their first live Smersh next Wednesday,
   including a screening of some terrible old film
   to laugh at. We're going and so should you.
 https://goo.gl/2hpx4r
 -------------------------------------------------
 : NEED PR? BEST CALL ED
   Sponsored patreon
   "I'm Ed Zitron and I'm running the best PR
   company in the world - and I've been reading
   B3ta for 15 years so have sponsored them."
 https://www.ezpr.com/
 -------------------------------------------------
 : THREE VIDEOS FROM B3TANS CORNER
   Thrice as nice as once the nonce
   * ASHENS STAR WARS VIDEO - Stuart Ashens is a
   big star now, with over a million followers on
   YouTube and writer of two hit books and he
   wants you to watch his fake-ad for the
   shittiest Star Wars toys you've ever seen,
   "Please feature this as it took ages to make
   and made me laugh and I wish it got more views
   thank you." We lost it at "fixy barrel."
 https://www.youtube.com/watch
  * LLOYDS BANK - SUMMERISLE BRANCH - Smaggers has
  been editing the current big Lloyds Bank ad to
  make it a bit more sinister. See if you agree.
 http://www.b3ta.com/links/Lloyds_bank_Summerisle_b...
   * HOW TO DO PHOTOGRAPHY REALLY GOOD WITH TIM
   CHEESE - "Wow B3ta newsletter is back and I
   recently (ish) made a video tutorial for people
   learning how to use DSLR cameras. Simple and
   helpful advice." Wow, we're experts now, thank
   you Mr Cheese.
 https://www.youtube.com/watch
 -------------------------------------------------
 What's old and white and lies on a bus?
 A brexitter
 -------------------------------------------------
 : B3TA IMAGE CHALLENGE
   Birds
  
   Doing a one word challenge 'birds' so do your
   worst - some great entries so far, the Twitter
   one from S4RK is particularly great.
 http://www.b3ta.com/challenge/birds/popular/ 
 -------------------------------------------------
 : SITES IN BRIEF
   Stuff we like that wasn't made by our mates
   * CONGRATS TO THE COOL-AS-FUCK SHEFFIELD MAYOR
   - he's an ex refugee called Magid Magid and the
   leather jacket with ceremonial chains is just
   style.
 https://twitter.com/SheffCouncil/status/9966627920...
   * 50-YEAR-OLD CRISP PACKET FOUND ON NORFOLK
   BEACH - local news loves doing mundane stories
   to make people go 'lol local news' and scoop up
   the viral traffic, and this one is a doozy.
   Headline of the week.
 https://goo.gl/pwFMdW
   * CILLA BLACK WAS GREAT, YES SHE WAS - Ms Cilla
   Black outing a undercover journalist on Blind
   Date is still a gripping bit of TV 20 years
   later. Love the zoom on Nicola's face on the
   reveal. She somehow delivers the death blow but
   never looks like a bully and keeps the audience
   on side. Such skill.
 https://www.youtube.com/watch
   * YOUTUBE AS STUDY PARTNER - how is this for a
   weird online trend? Korean youtube channels
   dedicated to watching someone study for 6 hrs.
   Viewers have it on while they study. Maybe we
   should try it to help us write this thing
   instead of tweeting.
 https://www.youtube.com/watch
   * HOW TO MAKE IFFY URLS - Changes legitimate
   URLs into legitimate URLs that look dodgy. We
   don't want to quote them as spam filters but
   yeah, amused us.
 https://verylegit.link/
   * INTERACTIVE COLOURING-IN POP VIDEO - do you
   ever find yourself absentmindedly clicking the
   screen as you watch videos? Well this is the
   perfect synthesis of that user experience, as
   you can colour in the video characters as they
   play their song.
 https://www.stainedglassvideo.com/
 -------------------------------------------------
 mc@hammer: ~ $ ls
 file.txt
 mc@hammer: ~ $ touch this
 touch: cannot touch 'this': Permission denied
 mc@hammer: ~ $ sudo !!
 [sudo] password for mc: **********
 mc@hammer: ~ $ ls
 file.txt
 This
 -------------------------------------------------
 : WHAT HAPPENED NEXT?
   Follow-ups on previous stories
  
   * WAR ON DAILY MAIL - @dontusemypics writes,
   "Update on Lee's complaint to MailOnline: after
   saying they can only offer £100 for 3 photos
   and ignoring his response, I knocked together
   an invoice in Word for £575 and Lee sent it to
   them with a demand for payment in 2 weeks or
   he'd take it to the small claims court. They
   wrote back the same day saying they'll give him
   £300 to avoid that and he's accepted. So
   definitely worth holding out and threatening
   them with small claims court."
 https://twitter.com/dontusemypics
   * JOEL VEITCH CO-WRITES SHORT FILM - we saw the
   premier of the short Joel co-wrote this week
   and it was great. It'll be on the festival
   circuit shortly and is called Making Friends
   and if you squint you can spot Rob Manuel in
   the party scenes.
 https://bit.ly/2IOZnbc
   * WEEBL FUNDS ALBUM - Jonti has funded his new
   LP to the tune of the £32,000 goal which
   impressed us. Crowdfunding is apparently how to
   do stuff these days (please fund B3ta patreon
   too!)
 https://goo.gl/jpZLE3
   * AND FINALLY - Murray writes, "Thank you for
   the newsletter! It's like the good old days!
   Your Drew Barrymore / Clare Balding / Amber
   Heard / Tom Cruise bit made me think of a
   favourite of mine. My wife is an art teacher,
   so on our bookshelf we have a book by Gillian
   Wearing. *Every* time I sit on the sofa I can't
   help but think 'what is Gillian Wearing?'"
 -------------------------------------------------
 My Scouse uncle does green grocery deliveries in
 Shoreditch
 He doesn't have a van.
 He does avocado.
 -------------------------------------------------
 : SEND B3TA SWAG
  
   We noticed we'd started to accumulate requests
   from people asking to send us stuff in the post
   and figured well if this is a thing then let's
   encourage it. So please send us your books /
   CDs / whatever creative projects you are
   selling and if we like it we'll bung it on our
   swag page.
   Maybe it'll grow into a lovely list of stuff
   you can use as present ideas? That's the hope
   anyway.
   Currently featuring a brilliant goth colouring
   book, a load of comedy DVDs and MJ Hibbett's
   new compilation album on the exciting medium of
   tape.
 http://b3ta.com/blog/b3ta-swag/
 -------------------------------------------------
 : TELL US ABOUT YOUR STUFF
  
   This newsletter is written by you sending stuff
   in, so send stuff in and if we like it we'll
   feature it.
 http://b3ta.com/mailus/
 -------------------------------------------------
 : CREDITS
   This issue was written by Rob Manuel.
   Stuff sent in by  Jody Smith, MikeHolden42,
   The_cold_stare,  Monkeon.
 &#8207;
   Jokes by Dr.Dunno, cumquat may, Wanksock.
   Giff by garidead.
   Tech by Cr3, Kris & Wil.
   Challenges from Happy Toast, Chris & Monkeon.
   Subjlols via The_cold_stare.
   Proofing by @muninnherself.
 -------------------------------------------------
   Have you written a joke? Go and apologise for
   it at "I'm Sorry I've Written A Joke"
 http://www.b3ta.com/questions/imsorryivewrittenajo...
 -------------------------------------------------
 : LOVELY SPONSORS:
   Josh McMillan
   Ed Zitron
   Kevin Prescott
   HebTroCo
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