NEWSLETTER: "THE NEWSLETTER THAT STILL POSTS 20+ YEARS AFTER IT STARTED SIMPLY OUT OF SPITE"
This Week:
* FIVE STAR MUSIC REVIEWS - can you spot them?
* FLICKING VS AT YOUR OWN WEBCAM - fun for all
* BUY YOUR OWN ZX SPECTRUM - in 2024, oh yes
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________ ____ __ ___
____/ _)|_ // /_/ _ | "We're shaving the
___/ _ |/_ </ __/ __ | web with our
__/____/____/\__/_/ |_| Web Shaver 2000"
B3ta email 919 - 29 Aug 2024
Read this newsletter to "our kid" and have a fight:
http://b3ta.com/newsletter/issue919
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: WHAT B3TA PEOPLE HAVE MADE THIS WEEK
Other than making "butter" out of "cream"
* MUSIC STAR RATING QUIZ Monkeon writes, "I've
eventually managed to finish a new thing. One of
those projects that morphed a lot - it started
out as a Smash Hits quiz, but I didn't think
concentration-broken internet people would want
to read long paragraphs of text just to play a
game." So instead Monkeon is asking you to match
the reviews to the stars given and that's a
surprisingly compelling thing to play and we'd
happily see it extended beyond pop music and to
mustard and toothbrushes.
https://monkeon.co.uk/reads-like-a-five
* TELLING COMPUTERS TO F OFF - Matt Gordon
writes, "I made a new AI-proof captcha You
middle finger at your webcam to prove your
human. AI isn't allowed to be rude." This is
actually enormous fun as flicking Vs at yourself
is somehow joyous. If we could extend this
project we'd like to see hundreds of clips of
people flicking Vs and grinning that the
computer recognised it.
https://rudecaptcha.xyz/
* SOME SORT OF ADVENTURE GAME THING - dngdng
writes, "I made a fighting fantasy style text
adventure based on The Citadel Of Chaos, called
A Castle Built From Random Rooms, in which you
must escape a castle that is, strangely enough,
built from random rooms." He also tells us to
"please do not harm the cats", therefore surely
he wants us to harm the cats?
https://dngdng.itch.io/a-castle-built-from-random-...
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: HEBTROCO SPONSORSHIP *YES,IT'S A SALE*
Go on, buy some clothes
Well this is the bit where we encourage you to
support our sponsors by buying their clothes and
mentioning that it's made in the UK, designed to
last and makes ideal gifts for the men in your
life, including yourself. Fine, we've said that
many times, what else can we say? They've got a
sale on and also got Issue 2 of their magazine
out. Dig deep, it's better value than renting a
hotel in Manchester at the same time as the
Oasis gigs.
https://hebtro.co/its-a-sale/
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: FESSHOLE
Yes the social media account that we all hate
Five years ago we opened a Google form and asked
you to fill in a few jokes and lies and it's
ruined our life, so here's a few that we didn't
hate this week:
* CORPORATE CHAT - "I make up cringe corporate
sayings in Teams meetings to see if they catch
on. I felt a great sense of achievement when my
boss remarked about a client wanting a
substandard product 'if the ducks want bread,
give them bread'. I had forgotten about that
one."
* LIFE GOALS - "Last night I fancied a snack,
but didn't want to go downstairs & wake up the
dogs, knowing it would lead to 5 minutes in the
garden for a wee. Instead I seduced the hubby
and as we were finishing up, I mentioned that a
snack would be lovely. Tea and toast achieved."
* RELATABLE - "Spotted a friend on a park bench.
Went up and discreetly sat next to them. I said
'be careful, there's a lot of strange people out
here.' It wasn't my friend and I ran away."
Follow the worst reason to be on BskyB since the
Squarial.
https://bsky.app/profile/fesshole.bsky.social
Buy tickets for live shows in Birmingham, Isle
of Wight, Preston and Wolverhampton.
https://sites.google.com/view/fesshole
Buy the book that's so good that strangers have
given it mostly good reviews on Amazon.
https://amzn.to/40ySjVn
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: SITES IN BRIEF
Ye Olde Websites
* FINALLY, DEFRAGGING IS A VIDEO GAME - In this
game, you must defrag a hard drive by hand. It's
a pretty easy puzzle, but quite relaxing to play
and set in every nerd's safe place of an
imaginary operating system - we don't recognise
it as based on a real one, anyway.
https://defrag-game.com
* CRYPTIC WANKERS - W****e of the week is this
one in which every day you get a single cryptic
crossword clue to solve. The nice thing is that
it talks you through the answer at the end,
should you find these things impossible and want
to learn how to think like a *Googles*
cruciverbalist.
https://minutecryptic.com
* LET'S TURN BACK THE CLOCK ON TWITTER - An
attempt to emulate the chatter that would have
been going on in 1995, had Twitter existed back
then. A nice concept, though (as always) the
AI-generated waffle is a bit boring to actually
read. Would have been far more fun if it was an
Amsphone simulator and all the chat was raging
about Alan Sugar buying Sinclair Research.
https://twitter-95.com
* BUY YOUR OWN ZX SPECTRUM - there's been many
attempts to reboot the plucky rubber beast for a
modern audience but this one has been made by
the company that made the cool C64 remakes so it
might actually be good? We've ordered one
anyway, just so we can type up a newsletter on
Tasword.
https://amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/B0DCZLFHB1/b...
* FAMILY FORTUNES GENERATOR - create your own
screen grabs so you can cause rows in the family
group chat about exactly how problematic the
1980s were.
https://t.co/kfK4VbK7QJ
* RETRO SOCIAL MEDIA - Congratulations to 'Space
Hey' getting one million followers - that's the
social network consciously designed to be a bit
myspace-y and retro. We flicked around and found
people were arguing about the same culture war
stuff that other social networks are arguing
about so, £1m prize to anyone who can work out
how to build something that avoids that.
https://blog.spacehey.com/entry
* OBITS FOR GONE DOMAINS - didn't we all
register loads of TLDs back in the day? Then
realise that paying £10 a year forever isn't the
best use of cash when people only ever look at
about 5 websites. Say farewell here.
https://goodbye.domains/
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Yeah yeah, sign up to the B3ta Patreon coz the
trickle of money that it makes means your editor
can afford to keep this newsletter project
running. Plus there's bonus stuff.
https://www.patreon.com/b3ta
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: IMAGE CHALLENGE
Alien
Here's the best images from last week:
* Captain Howdy brings us 'One Foot In The
Gralien"
https://b3ta.com/board/11410303
* Monkeon shows us exactly how the on board
operating system would be used.
https://b3ta.com/board/11410359
* Mictoboy produces something, that had it been
a Star Trek combo, could be captioned "just
beamed down for a shit, watch out for the
Klingons"
https://b3ta.com/board/11410325
* See all the other images from the 'Alien'
challenge:
http://b3ta.com/challenge/alien/popular
>> This week: Adolescent Games <<
Games were always aimed at teenagers, but with
the exception of Skool Daze, rarely reflected
their actual life of hanging around bus-stops
and stropping at their parents. Let's fix that
by designing games about adolescence.
http://b3ta.com/challenge/adolescentgames/popular
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: WHAT HAPPENED NEXT
Follow ups on previous stories
* TREES ARE GOOD, TREES ARE GOOD - Matt Gordon,
previously mentioned, also got in touch to
mention his tree planting project launched in
this very newsletter was a hit, "the tree
planting spotify song I launched on b3ta has now
planted 36,000 trees! Thanks to all the people
from the newsletter who streamed it (3.6 million
times!):
https://mptr.ee
* ONE BILLION RADIO BUTTONS - We mentioned that
'one million checkboxes' website in this very
newsletter once. What happened next is quite
glorious.
https://eieio.games/essays/the-secret-in-one-milli...
* WHAT 3D DOG POO MAN DID NEXT - Matt Round is
working on a new game, which is "what happened
next" if in the context of it being a sequel to
his Penga. He writes, "got someone working on
Styscraper graphics, it's going to look great -
it's sort of 'spiritual successor' to penga, but
building instead of pulling apart." Matt is
documenting his progress on one of the many
social media sites that is not Twitter.
https://bsky.app/profile/mattround.com/post/3kyqxd...
* TINY AWARD WINNERS - as semi-launched in this
newsletter and spoiler alert and spoiler alert,
the winner is something mentioned in this very
newsletter, but what?
https://tinyawards.net/
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: STAR IN NEXT WEEK'S ISSUE
Some ideas to kick you off
* REALISTIC GUIGSY SIMULATOR - One of those tap
the rhythm games but it's the bass notes in
early Oasis tracks. Obviously this is very easy
to do but the fun comes from having a little
Noel on the screen bullying you and docking your
pay for answering back.
* FRUIT MACHINE SIMULATOR TWO - Make the sequel
to one of the most pointless Codemasters games
ever, but this time you play as the machine. You
get to fix the odds and rip people off. The
malicious joy comes from grinding someone into
poverty through gambling addiction.
* NODDY HOLDER'S SPELLING BEE - similar to that
NYT game we're addicted to but it's all noize /
coz etc.
Email us. Great things happen when you use the
mail form.
https://b3ta.com/mailus/
And as a bonus idea, Matt Round suggests, "An
award for the site with the highest number of
'data sharing partners' in its annoying cookie
notice. I think the highest I've seen is around
1,500 but I'm sure that can be comfortably
beaten."
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: PATREON THANKS
We love all these people. Almost romantically.
*HEBTROCO* *JAMES O'BRIEN* *KATE* *MARK
MCCREADIE* *MR PHIL DONNELLY* *SHOWRAT* *SIMON
JAMES* *STOOBERT*
24-7 DEATH, ALAN CHARLTON, ALISTAIR, BRIAN
EELES, CHRIS BLAKENEY, CHRIS CARLINE, CHRIS
LOCKE, CRISS MORENO, IAN SHEEN, JAIMIE
VANDENBERGH, MARK ADAMSON, RICHARD BARCLAY,
SPAZZCAPTAIN, WENDY GOODE, NAT KING COLESLAW,
ALBERT MARSHMALLOW, DANIEL MUDFORD, CARL DENCH
Ed Zitron, Eugenie vT, Tom Dolan, Tom Wright,
lee burnett, Richard Matthias, @mattdawhit, Adam
Atack, Adam Cooney, Adam Lloyd, Adrian
Woodfield, Al Davidson, Albion Gray, Andy
Storrar, Andy Tillett, Andy Webber, Anna,
Anne-Marie Scott, Ben Watson, Bertram Wooster,
blossomshed, Carl Morgan, Catherine McAllister,
Chris Evans, Chris Shaw, Craig Tonks, Damien
Smith, Dan Stott, Daniel Brown, Dave Nattriss,
Dave Tickle, David Ault, David Catley, David
Gardiner, David King, David Mills, Derek Law,
Dominic Haigh, Emma Lay, Eric von Borstel, Faith
H. Martin, Fiona James, Fraser Lewry, Gaynor
Clarkson, Gia Milinovich, Greg Neilson, Gus
Nicol, Iain, Iain Brassington, Iain Fuller, Iain
Ruxton, Ian Beveridge, Ivan Kelly, James
Donnelly, James Kerry-Barnard, Jane Baker, Jason
Stewart, Jerry Quartley, Jim Dabell, Jim
Frayling, Jim MacArthur, Jim Woodward, Joe
McNally, Joe Simmonds, John Faragher, John
Foster, John Hammersley, John Matthews, Jude
Evans, Jm McNven, Kate Devlin, Kev Adams, Konrad
Petrusewicz, Martin Beer, Martin Holloway,
Martin Peache, matsimpsk, Matt Buchanan, Matt
Drewry, Matthew Collinge, Matthew Forman,
Matthew Morris, Matthew Wilkes, midnightrambler,
mil jamieson, Neil de Carteret, Nick Ross,
OBiW4N SHiNOBi, oliver bewes, Paul Cherry, Paul
Smith, Paul Westerman, Peter Ashtray, Peter
Coombe, peter wouda, Philip Kinchington,
pookong, Rich Pope, Richard Beckett, Rob Mahon,
Rob Vincent, Robbie Lesiuk, Ross Carter,
RossOverThere, Saleem Ahmad, Scott S. Kramer,
sean casely, Simon Cowan, Simon Holmes, Simon
McDougall, Simon waterfall, Stephen Waller,
Steve Anglesey, Steven Smith, Stuart Ashen, Tim
Jokl, Tim Mouncer, Tim Weaver, Tom Crick, Tom
Rees-Williams, Tom Ryan, TownsendsPublisher, Wil
Hadden, Will Goulden, AuntieSash Hazlewood,
Byron Geoffrey Farrow, Chef Twat, Chris Gough,
Chris Whitworth, Craig Turner, Daniel Chote,
Fergus McKay, fourstar, Geoff Tidey, Geoffrey
Balme, Graham Licence, James Macinnes, John
Higgs, Jonty Wareing, Mick Curtis, Rhys Wynne,
Rob Affleck, Chris Saunders, George Preston,
James O'Malley, Martin Davies, Mike Middleton,
Bex Cook, Hannah Chubb, Ben Ward, James Pearson,
Shane McHugh, Stevey Garland, Ciarn R, Craig
Liddell, Helen Gaskell, Christopher Orr, Will
Moody, Nick Morgan, Ben Brice, David Green,
Justin Brett, Louise Allen, Robin, Gavin Tommey,
Stuart Richards, Tobie Fysh, Pete, Carl Mesner
Lyons, Chris Johnson, Emma Sykes, Jan Spielhoff,
Mike Congreve, Sean Flanagan, Tom Freke, Sam
Anderson, Jess Baker, Adam Beardwood, David
Stark, Julie Brumlik, Alastair Dodd, Alexandre
Strube, Andrew Robinson, Andy Candler, Connor
Parslow, Craig Naples, Daniel Moeller, Duncan
STrickland, Harry, Irene Semanchuk, Joseph
Mulvaney, Michael Kitt, Nicky Hewgill, Paul
Topping, peter royal, Richard Speed, Sentient
Meatbag, Tim Beachy, Dominic Le Garsmeur, Mark
Benson, Danny Kodicek, Deny Coughlan, Nick Kent,
Russ Anderson, Adam Kaczmarek, Andrea Vail, Andy
Shirling, Ben Chapman, ben cowell-thomas, Ben
Groom, Ben Sugden, Cat Conner, Centuries of
Sound, Claire Allen, Claire Zolkwer, Darren John
Harris, Dave The Hammer Parry, David Bond, David
Ellinor, Daz Wright, Emily Payne, Emma Nicol,
FuzzyFreaks, Gary Sharp, Gwyn Fisher, Hugh
Noble, Iain M Barker, Ilya olak-Anti, Jennifer
Moquin, Jim Lucking, John M, Jon Bounds, Lee
Ball, Louis E, Lyra Jay, Marc Lindberg, mark
madgwick, Matt Carr, Michael Bryan, Mr Flibble,
Neil Ives, Nick, Nigel Ford, Oli, Paul Bayfield,
Paul Slade, Peter Wood, Phil Barns, Rachel
Tougas, Richard Abraham, Richard Midwinter,
Robert Purkis, Robert Simpson, Rohan, Sam Brown,
Seirian Hanner, Sham Courtney, Simon Lumb,
Stephen McAuley, Stewart C. Russell, Stphane,
Swedemason, Ted Bowyer, Thepfy, Tim Polglase,
Tom Clark, Tony East, wigglywigglyworm, Adam
Tickner, Al Napp, Andrew Harris, Bobod, Chris
Ward, Jace Otting, James Meers, John Griffiths,
Paul Mancini, Rob Potter, Tanya Kant, Victoria
Wood, Graham Freeman, Caroline Kahn, Matt.
EDITORIAL THANKS: Monkeon & Matt Round
additional links; Monkeon for image challenge
help; and Dr Dunno for extra support. Proofing
by Kat E. Thanks Kat. (Buttery good times - Kat)
And thank you to newish Patreons Ben Rout, Tim
Clarke, Simon Balch, Clemence Saussez, Derek
Colley. Martin Pritchard, Stephanie Wissinger,
Dion Ashton and Paul Blanchard. Thanks to EVEN
NEWER ONES: Fadgebadger, Mark (Mavis), Joshua
Rackstraw, Mike Stringer, Eliot Beer, Harri
Bionic, Chris Lindley, Stuart B, Jon Morris
Smith, Daniel Malbon, James Heaver and Phil
Lovell. And further thanks to newer ones: Ben
Oliver, James Wise, Claire Turner, Omnipiss,
Lindsay Mclaughlin, Mellyfish, Simon Edwards,
Dave Wong & Stafford Lawrence. NEWEST - special
love to NEW PATREON Phillip Spowart. NEW NEWSEST
- extra love love love to si Jobling & Daniel
Calvin. And bonus new love to Douglas Pennant,
Roy Santos & Will Thompson. We love you. OH GOD,
and more bonus love to Alex Collin-Oakley, Phil
McGuire & Paul Blanchard - you sexy people. And
Mike Powell and Damion Brown and Ross Carter and
PJ. Ooooh and John Daly. Oooh oooh ooh and Rich
Corcoran. Love you. And a special thank you to
the super generous Paul Topping. And a thank you
to the return of Carlos Fandango. Much
appreciated Carl. OOH AND NEW ONES! Alistair
Murray Swodeck, nevillebartos, Blargity Blarg
Blarg. YAY! Oh and more thanks to Ian Walker,
Attila Eros, Calanish and Mike Wolcom. WE LOVE
YOU. And new new thanks to Dale Goodall, Gillian
Parrot, Albion Gray & Gary Alan Norton. Thank
you, you kind humans. And... Leighton Stevenson,
Ben Cowell-Thomas & Phil Bennett. Thx. BONUS
THANKS: Gillian Parrott, Funny_hat & Gub~gub.
BONUS THANKS TO NEWEST: Niomi Wightman, Matt &
JonC. Super-newest thank to Benjamin Blundell
and Stuart. Super bonus news thanks to Luka
Mikec, Peter Henningsen & Mike Coats. Super
double new thanks to Katie Steckles, Prophyria,
Rob Mahon, Kier Fox-Mayr, Geoff Tidey, Simon
Howard.
Oh just subscribe, you wonderful people.
https://b3ta.com/subscribe/
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: BONUS "LIFE HACK" FESSHOLE
"My wife's sisters are always telling their own
kids to ring me for lifts to their clubs and
hobbies etc as they are never around. I've
started drinking wine or beer the minute I get
in from work so I can't drive them anywhere."
