NEWSLETTER: "CIVIL UNREST QUELLED BY BIG BROTHER RELAUNCH"
This Week:
* CRAP DATES - in 140 characters
* RESULTS - it's "Sexy A-Level" time again
* ROBOTS - Swarmbot is coming
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________ ____ __ ___
____/ _)|_ // /_/ _ | "Great decade to
___/ _ |/_ </ __/ __ | bury bad news
__/____/____/\__/_/ |_| ...together"
B3ta email 492 - 19 Aug 2011
Read this issue on a lamppost like a lost cat ad:
http://b3ta.com/newsletter/issue492/
Humans: [email protected]
Ghosts: [email protected]
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: WANT TO COOK & SWEAR LIKE A CELEBRITY CHEF?
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>> Sponsor B3ta <<
Want this space? Then talk to us.
http://b3ta.com/mailus/
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: 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
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: 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/
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: 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/
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: 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/
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: 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
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: 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...
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: 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
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: 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/
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: 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!
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: 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...
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: 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.
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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
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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.
