we love the web
email us
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     
___/  _ |/_ </ __/ __ |  tissues for entry into
__/____/____/\__/_/ |_|    the Turner Prize"

B3ta email 578  - 26 Apr 2013

Read this issue with a braille enabled penis:
http://b3ta.com/newsletter/issue578 

  Kissy kissy :  [email protected]
  Hissy pissy : [email protected]
  
-------------------------------------------------

: AMAZON TAT 
  Sponsored, well affiliate tat
 
  * CANVAS PRINT OF ABANDONED MICROWAVE - We need
  to buy a microwave to reheat cups of tea and
  this came up in an Amazon search. Nice.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/B008TA6D9...

  * MIDI GUITAR INTERFACE - Oh, and here's
  something actually worth buying if you like
  fiddling with music. It's utterly delightful to
  be able to play guitar and spit midi out.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/B005PM4UK... 


  >> 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, &#8207;@mikkeyuk, robneymcplum, @mikkeyuk,
  @Rocker_44, &#8207;@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