NEWSLETTER: "THIS IS YOUR INTERNET NEWSLETTER. YOU ASKED FOR IT."
* SWEDEMASON - listen to his 'house' music
* PLAYING CARDS - buy some that are pure data
* IMAGE CHALLENGE - Paul Verhoeven, the results
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________ ____ __ ___
____/ _)|_ // /_/ _ |"Saving t' web by building
___/ _ |/_ </ __/ __ | our own cloud out of a
__/____/____/\__/_/ |_|Beowulf clusters of ZX81s"
B3ta newsletter 981, 10th March 2026
Speak this issue with Homer Dudley's Voder:
http://b3ta.com/newsletter/issue981
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: WHAT B3TA PEOPLE HAVE MADE THIS WEEK
Other than making bum prints
* SWEDEMASON MAKES HOUSE MUSIC - Swede writes,
"As you may know I'm unemployed. To get my arse
out of bed I give myself pretend jobs. Tragic
right but it stops me going mental. Me and my
boy think this guy is funny so that was a good
enough excuse to make this. Hopefully it brings
in some real work. All the best." This is
enjoyable and if you're in the market for
employing Swede, then tell him, although maybe
give it a couple of weeks so he keeps making
great things for B3ta.
https://b3ta.com/links/This_House
* TEXTING OLD RELATIVES - Apresources writes, "I
made this. It tries to simulate my experience of
sending a detailed message to my Dad, watching
the dots appear and disappear, then getting a
one word reply." This made us a little sad,
enjoy your old relatives whilst they are still
around.
https://old-man-chat.annoying.uk
* PLAYING CARDS BUT MADE WITH PURE DATA - db123
writes, "A deck of cards that has always felt
quite formulaic - like they'd been coded. So I
made these. Don't ask me why - I just thought
this was a cool idea." Strangely appealing, we
can see this selling well.
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/bergonomix/pu...
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: HEBTROCO SPONSORSHIP
Buy some clothes
Each week we tell you that you should buy
clothes with our sponsor Hebtro and occasionally
you do, enjoying their long lasting threads, all
designed and produced in the UK, and all superb
gifts for the tricky men in your life. Dig deep,
wear often.
https://hebtro.co/new/
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: FESSHOLE
The fesses bit you pretend to dislike
Each week you type your little fesses into a box
and we read them and choose a few to publish.
Some OK ones include:
* MEN HACKING - "On Linux forums I, a woman,
would get ignored and disrespected. These days I
ask my question, then switch to a fake account
to give a completely wrong answer, then switch
back again to thank them and praise their Linux
knowledge. The experts show up right away.
Sorted."
* LEGAL TROUBLE - "My partner's elderly mother
thinks I'm a barrister and always asks me about
the legal profession. I'm actually a barista in
a failing coffee shop, but we find it too
hilarious to correct her."
* WE ALL BECOME THEM EVENTUALLY - "Thought I saw
my mother in the distance in the shopping centre
and started waving frantically at her. Fucking
mirror."
Follow the account that's doing OK on Instagram
for some reason, not that we're cool enough to
know how to post on Instagram, it baffles us
frankly. So many weird Buttons. And that's not
our new Panto podcast.
https://www.instagram.com/fesshole/
Come to the shows. This week it's Luton and
coming up is Glasgow, Manchester, Hull,
Cambridge and Sweden. Leeds was fun last week.
https://sites.google.com/view/fesshole
And of course buy the books. Buy the fucking
books, maybe we'll write a third book, and it
not be a Fesshole book, how do like them apples,
book nonces?
https://www.amazon.co.uk/s
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: SITES IN BRIEF
Websites, remember them, children?
* WHY IS EVERYTHING SHIT NOW? gub~gub
recommends, "A day in the Life of an an
Ensittificator. A real advert from the Norwegian
Consumer Council commenting on the current
direction of digital products and services. Made
me toot out my nose a few times, plus it made me
think."
https://www.youtube.com/watch
* THIS IS NOT CRICKET - On the unlikely chance
any b3ta reader actually cares about sport, then
this site allows you to pretend that you're
checking your emails whilst actually watching
the live cricket scores. How many goals has Bill
Botham scored today?
https://cricinfo-mail.vercel.app/
* WIKIPEDIA ACROSS LANGUAGES - Another lovely
API project from Walzr. This one loads the image
from of every language version of Wikipedia,
showing you how a subject is seen around the
world. The Bulgarian picture for toilet is
certainly unexpected.
https://walzr.com/in-every-language/toilet
* BRASS RUBBINGS - Michael Cumming, who has been
touring a film of Brass Eye out-takes for the
last few years, has just started a YouTube
channel containing more Brass Eye goodies.
Hopefully the director of Balls of Steel will
start a channel of them throwing all footage
they shot into a skip and setting it on fire.
https://www.youtube.com/@oxideghosts
* PAYPHONE GO - Neat idea for a game that
indexes all the working payphones in California,
and you can 'claim' them by visiting them and
phoning a special number, like Pokemon GO, gotta
catch them all. It could only be better if
instead of California, it was in Bradford.
https://walzr.com/payphone-go/
* FINDING NUMBERS - for some reason there's been
an influx of people writing code to find
numbers, first one is a jokey thing that's
looking to crowd source all the numbers, which
to be fair, is a probably more accurate route
than asking AI to count, and the second one lets
you find numbers within the first 5 million of
PI. Our old phone number is there, is yours?
https://numberresearch.xyz/
https://pisearch.joshkeegan.co.uk/
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: IMAGE CHALLENGE
Paul Verhoeven
Last week we were celebrating a director that
made a few good films in the 90s before then
making nothing we've ever heard of. Maybe the
later stuff is great but life is too short to
find out.
* 'Ninj' brings everyone's favourite Royal to
the world of cinema
https://b3ta.com/board/11426117
* 'Dave Bagpuss' brings us the most challenging
wank since the last one
https://b3ta.com/board/11426082
* 'Monkeon' invents a game that he probably
considered making before going, nah, blow it on
a photoshop
https://b3ta.com/board/11425981
* See all the other images from the 'Paul
Verhoeven' challenge:
http://b3ta.com/challenge/paulverhoeven/popular
>> This week: 80s Tech Today <<
What if the world still ran on 1980s technology?
Show us what Grand Theft Auto would look like on
the ZX81, what would happen if Elon Musk bought
Teletext, or just stick a Sinclair C5 into some
pop culture.
http://b3ta.com/challenge/80stechtoday/popular
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: BEST ANON OPINs, FEATURING REPLIES
It's opinion time, opinion bitches
If you like opinions then Anon Opin is the place
where opinions to go die. Here's some from this
week, selected on the basis of the replies.
* DANCE WANKERS - "There is nothing more
embarrassing than seeing adults sitting down on
the dance floor whenever James, Sit Down is
played at a party." Best reply? "I went to a
wedding. They played Sit Down and I sat down.
They played the Locomotion, I did the
locomotion. They played Jump Around, I jumped
around. They played Come On Eileen and I was
thrown out." (thx Curious Iguana)
* WORK ADVICE - "Having your daily shit before
you go to bed is far superior to having it in
the morning. Your sleep improves, you feel
lighter, your morning routine is quicker, and
there is less fighting with the rest of your
family for quiet toilet time." Best reply?
"Madness. 3 a day on work time whether you need
them or not." (thx Freddy)
* TWO STAR OPINION - "Given that you can't buy 2
stroke, 2, 3 or 4 star petrol at the pump and
the fact leaded fuel has beenout right banned
since the year 2000, why are we still pointing
out that petrol is unleaded?" Best reply? "Those
old enough to remember Leaded Petrol are also
suffering from lead poisoning and can't remember
that leaded petrol no longer exists and need the
reminder." (thx Mark Owen)
Follow the account if you've got absolutely no
taste and hate yourself:
https://bsky.app/profile/anonopin.bsky.social
Come to the "show".
https://sites.google.com/view/fesshole
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: WHAT HAPPENED NEXT
Follow ups on old newsletter stuff
* TWO MILLION DEAD - Matt Round writes, "if you
need a what-happened-next, this just reached 2M
views; based on how traffic plummeted a few
weeks after launch, the UK became totally
preoccupied with covid on Monday, 9th March
2020"
https://vole.wtf/death-roulette/
* PIG MAN FEEDBACK - dan j writes, "Thanks for
something I now cannot unsee. But a thought for
a potential future re-release; it only needs
some minor tweaks so function as a perfect
'David Cameron simulator'? I still haven't
forgiven that cunt for Brexit..."
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: STAR IN NEXT WEEK'S ISSUE
Some ideas to kick you off
* NEPO BABY FINDER - write code that digs
through Wikipedia to find people whose parents
are also on Wikipedia.
* REALISTIC PODCAST SIMULATOR - you play a
marketing person working on a podcast where the
output is entirely that the world is ending
because of a "breakdown of the rules based
order" and you have to book appropriate ads
that'll work for the depressing content that
makes the listeners increasingly despondent
about the world. Oh something about mental
health, is it again?
* PREDICTION MARKET PREDICTION MARKET - develop
a system which predicts which prediction market
applications will be shut down once people with
any sense of morality are ever in charge again.
Or use it to profit from them.
Yes, it is time for you to make things and email
them to us using the sacred form of B3ta.
https://b3ta.com/mailus
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: PATREON THANKS
We love all these people. Almost romantically.
*HEBTROCO* *JAMES O'BRIEN* *MARK MCCREADIE* *MR
PHIL DONNELLY* *STOOBERT* *DION ASHTON* *MARK*
*24-7 DEATH* *DAVID GREEN* and *GUB~GUB*.
MARK ADAMSON, IAN SHEEN, RICHARD BARCLAY,
SPAZZCAPTAIN, CARL DENCH, MICHAEL TRINDER, MIKE
STRINGER, MICHAEL KITT, AUSTIN HOFEMAN, and
NATHANIEL TAPLEY.
BevS, Tom Dolan, Chris Carline, lee burnett,
Paul Cherry, Tom Wright, Matthew Wilkes, Kev
Adams, Rich, DoHa, Dave Nattriss, Dan Stott,
Konrad Petrusewicz, David Ault, '@mattdawhit,
Adam Lloyd, Anna, Chris Evans, d@m0, Dave
Tickle, David Catley, David Mills, Derek Law,
Emma Lay, Eric von Borstel, Gia Milinovich, Greg
Neilson, Iain Brassington, Iain Ruxton, Ivan
Kelly, James Donnelly, Jason Stewart, Jim
Frayling, Jim MacArthur, Jude Evans, Kate
Devlin, Martin Peache, matsimpsk, Matt Buchanan,
Matthew Collinge, Matthew Morris, Neil de
Carteret, Nick Ross, Paul Smith, peter wouda,
pookong, Ricardo Autobahn, Rich Pope, Richard
Beckett, Rob Mahon, Rob Vincent, Robbie Lesiuk,
Simon Holmes, Simon McDougall, Simon waterfall,
Stuart Ashen, the wub, Tim Jokl, Tom Ryan, Wil
Hadden, Byron Geoffrey Farrow, Chef Twat, Craig
Turner, fourstar71, Jonty Wareing, Stevey
Garland, Helen Gaskell, Ben Ward, Andy Tillett,
Stafford Lawrence, Simon Balch, omnipiss, Claire
Turner, James Heaver, Phil Lovell, Jon Morris
Smith, Stuart, Mellyfish, Phillip Spowart, Roy
Santos, Daniel Calvin, Rich Corcoran, John Daly,
nevillebartos, Geoff Tidey, Ian Walker, Leighton
Stevenson, Funny_Hat, Gillian Parrott, Phil
Bennett, Matt, Benjamin Blundell, Katie
Steckles, Luka Mikec, Stuart, Peter Henningsen,
Simon Howard, Kier Fox, tom yeoldeforge, C Bond,
lucas seven, mattcox303, Robert van Dijk, Gerry
Spencer, Ian Walker, Paul Martyn, Richie Hindle,
John Davies, Patrick Hudson, Harry Simpson, Paul
Pod, Tom Loosemore, DrumGui76, Mark Arnold, and
collin.
Also thanks to the 78 lovely people who didn't
opt to be thanked by name: NM, BB, JB, GT, SR,
JF, CW, LA, CJ, ES, MC, SF, JB, CO, AD, AS, AR,
CN, DM, DS, HA, IS, JM, NH, PR, SM, MC, MB, AC,
CK, DG, DC, NK, CA, IB, BG, BS, CC, CZ, DH, DP,
DE, EN, GS, GF, IO, JE, JL, JB, LB, LE, LJ, MM,
MB, MF, NJ, OL, PB, PW, PB, RT, RA, RM, RS, SC,
SR, SW, TB, TH, WI, AH, CW, RP, TK, VW, BC, SE,
and BB. You are all lovely people.
And also thanks to our newest benefactors:
collin, Mark Arnold, DrumGui76, Patrick Hudson,
John Davies, Paul Pod, Tom Loosemore, Gerry
Spencer, Harry Simpson, and Paul Martyn.
YOUR NAME COULD BE HERE - Remember you TOO can
contribute to the Patreon, it means your editor
can afford to write this newsletter thing as it
takes time and effort.
http://patreon.com/b3ta
EDITORIAL THANKS: Monkeon & Matt Round
additional links; Monkeon for image challenge
help; and Dr Dunno for extra support.
And remember to subscribe, and tell your friends
to subscribe.
https://b3ta.com/subscribe/
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: BONUS "REPLY" FESSHOLE
"Girlfriend and I got wasted and spent the night
engaging in anilingus with a friend. Swore to
each other we'd never mention again. Only
problem, neither of us remember who the friend
was." Best reply? "I flew with them once - never
again" (thx Brian Berry)
