NEWSLETTER: "ROLL UP, ROLL UP, IT'S THE MAGICAL MYSTERY URLS"
* SERVER SOUNDS - do YOU find them relaxing?
* TUBE JOURNEYS - which trip is quicker?
* GOODBYE CHILDREN'S ITV - an image challenge
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________ ____ __ ___
____/ _)|_ // /_/ _ | "We're saving the web by
___/ _ |/_ </ __/ __ | putting them in a Griffin
__/____/____/\__/_/ |_| Savers account, together"
B3ta newsletter 986, 2nd May 2026
Read newsletter in a Danny the Drug Dealer voice:
https://b3ta.com/newsletter/issue986
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: WHAT B3TA PEOPLE HAVE MADE THIS WEEK
Other than making you jealous they're not them
* DATACENTER.FM - Matt Round tells us, "Who
needs whale sounds or birdsong when you can
experience the amazing soundscape of an AI data
centre? Just watch out if you leave it chugging
at full pelt for too long, the AI may get its
own ideas about how to run things." This reminds
us of the sound our old 286 used to make when we
booted it up to play Commander Keen. Commercial
work for Matt but hey, it's entertaining, and
we've not been paid to run it, we wish.
https://datacenter.fm/
* PLAY YOUR TUBES RIGHT - Ed Jefferson has been
hard at work coding to produce a game that
offers you two tube journeys, and asks you which
one would be the quickest. We asked Ed for a
quote and he said, "Tubes? Tubes. Tubes. Tubes!"
Thanks Ed.
https://edjefferson.com/playyourtubesright
* POLITRICKS - Chris Atkins got in touch to tell
us, "I set up a fake far right news channel to
interview Reform council candidates, who all
slammed Reform's track record in local
government." We approve of Chris causing trouble
like this and it keeps him out of jail.
https://www.youtube.com/watch
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: HEBTROCO SPONSORSHIP
Buy some clothes
Have you considered that you don't have to buy
clothes and presents only at Christmas? Make
Christmas come early for yourself by buying new
threads at Hebtro, where everything is designed
to last, made in the UK, and worth every penny
of the punchy prices. You will look cooler and
it's a great place to find presents for the
difficult men in your life.
https://hebtro.co/department/new/
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: FESSHOLE
It's time for you to confess, you heathens
Yeah yeah yeah, you know the score, type your
lies into a box, we read them, and post the
"good" bits. Here's some we enjoyed this week:
* MUM JOKES - "Drove 17 y/o and friends to a
house party last night. Once they were all
buckled up I announced 'party bus, activated!'
Told this morning never to speak again in a mum
taxi situation. I will speak again."
* BAND AID - "When I tell girls I'm in a band:
sexy. When they realise it's a brass band: less
so apparently."
* IRE - "My English brother-in-law thought he
was funny getting his young kids to shout 'Top
of the morning' and 'To be sure' at me
repeatedly when we come to visit from Ireland.
Final straw was 'Hello Paddy'. His kids now
shout 'Cunty balls' in nursery which is entirely
down to me."
Follow the account that only has followers
because the internet is so shit these days,
people have to click on something.
https://www.instagram.com/fesshole/
Come to the shows: 14 May 2026 - 53Two,
Manchester; 18 June 2026 - New Adelphi Club,
Hull; 20 June 2026 - Cambridge Junction. Also
thanks to everyone who came to the two Swedish
shows - we had a great time and your country is
beautiful. If any eccentric promoters want to
invite us to Nigeria or the Falkland Islands,
get in touch.
https://sites.google.com/view/fesshole
Buy the books that give us a trickle of
splashback cash via the Amazon affiliate scheme.
We will syphon off Mark Zuckerberg's billions,
12 pence at a time, and build our own Metaverse
with solitaire.exe and Peter Hook.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/s
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: SITES IN BRIEF
Your pages from Weefax this week
* RUFFLE ON SHUFFLE - a load of old Flash files
from Newgrounds have been resurrected alongside
a shuffle button, so you can be reminded of all
those problematic old animations that their
authors probably wish Steve Jobs had managed to
properly nuke out of existence.
https://www.newgroundsroulette.com/
* 10 PRINT "BOLLOCKS" - Impress fake nerds like
Elon Musk who believe that amount of code is an
important quality metric, with this tool that
generates and commits a load of shit to your
GitHub account, but ultimately achieves nothing.
https://github.com/jshchnz/codemaxxing
* "I'VE GOT A CLICKY CLICKY PEN" - All the fun
of clicking a biro but on your screen. Reckon
adding a counter to an actual pen would make for
a rather good fidget toy, should anyone want to
build one as their geek project.
https://myjeandev.itch.io/pen-clicker-idle
* TAKE YOUR CURSOR TO 'CURSOR CAMP' - Neal.Fun
has made a neat explore-o-tron where you move
your cursor around and explore a camp where
mouse pointers play. There's no real winning in
this, there's just the delight of finding new
things to do. Like life should be.
https://neal.fun/cursor-camp/
* THE POSTAL SERVICE IS STILL A THING YOU KNOW -
Interesting account of all the letters and
objects sent to a game's publisher who requested
dialogue with their players. Made us nostalgic
for the joyously nuts stuff we got in the post
from B3tans, in about 2002, when we asked for
help paying the server bills.
https://www.gamefile.news/p/panic-mail-arco-despel...
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: IMAGE CHALLENGE
Jobs for Jesus
Last week, because of something Trump posted, we
ended up with 'jobs for Jesus' but good luck
remembering exactly what he posted, as we've
probably had six world wars since then.
* 'Ya What' - spins out a theory that the third
member of the Holy Trinity could be a gym bro
https://b3ta.com/board/11427619
* 'Ninj' manages to sandwich in a pun
https://b3ta.com/board/11427634
* 'The Legendary Pink Dot' makes us nostalgic
for the worst search engine that ever existed,
because it's better than the current state of
Google search, which just hallucinates different
sized sausages whatever you type in.
https://b3ta.com/board/11427571
* See all the other images from the 'Jobs for
Jesus' challenge:
http://b3ta.com/challenge/jobsforjesus/popular
>> This week: CITV <<
CITV has come to an end after 46 years on air.
Let's pay tribute by photoshopping your
favourite shows, whether that's Knightmare,
Wacaday, or a modern one that no one has ever
heard of.
http://b3ta.com/challenge/citv/popular
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: BEST ANON OPINs, FEATURING REPLIES
You've done the fesses now do the opinions
Fess / Anon is a complete media empire, in that
Fess is the news, Anon is the opinion column,
and B3ta is the Funday Times bit of course.
Anyway here's some opins, with some comments,
that we thought were fun this week:
* YOU'LL LIKE THIS (NOT A LOT) - "There's
something deeply unpleasant about the fact that
magicians actively seek not only ways to deceive
people, but that their tricks are usually so
basic and simple behind the scenes that they're
knowingly making fools of people. Imagine
building a career out of that." Best reply? "Can
someone please give this guy his nose back?"
(thx Nigel Moss)
* PUNS, YOU ARE CLAPPING CROWD SOURCED PUNS -
"When it's said that someone's been put into an
induced coma, the word induced, is surplus."
Best reply? "That second comma is surplus." (thx
Yerma Zaguddin)
* ANYONE GOT ANY VERAS? - "There's not been a
single song ever written that sounded great
using metric distances and weights. Imperial all
the way, the world needs to change or at least
go to a half and half hybrid system like in the
UK" Best reply? "We'll metre gain?" (thx Neal
Doran)
Follow the account that's got fuck all followers
because people are far too sensible to follow
this bollocks.
https://bsky.app/profile/anonopin.bsky.social
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: FOLLOW UPS
What happened next and bitty-bits etc
* READ A BOOK FROM THAT GUY WHO WROTE ALL THOSE
GAMES YOU PLAYED - dngdng writes, "I just
finished writing Female Kill Machine 3, the
third and final instalment of the satirical
cyberpunk Female Kill Machine sci-fi series, in
which easy-going antifascist kill machine Maria
Tajona must wreak bloody revenge on the richest
and most despicable men in the universe.
Contains action, absurdity, and at least 3 jokes
per page (plus the first two books as a bonus).
It's quite good, and pretty funny, and also took
me four years to write, somehow, so it'd be
quite nice if at least someone read it." You can
pay or you don't have to - up to you.
https://ko-fi.com/s/50f5891644
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: STAR IN NEXT WEEK'S ISSUE
Some ideas to tick you off and inspire you
* MAKE A JANE AUSTEN BASED DUB-REGGAE ALBUM -
and call it 'Sense and Sinsemilla'. (It is a
truth universally acknowledged, that a man in
possession of a dutchie, must pass it on the
left hand side.) Thanks to Bryann Thomas for the
topper on this idea.
* PENNY SCRAMBLE - Jonathan Ellinsfield writes,
"I saw 10p on the floor recently and couldn't be
arsed to pick it up. Could you run a poll asking
what monetary value you would be arsed to pick
up? I'd go down easily for a quid."
* TOOTH SOCIAL - build a fake social media
account, run by the US administration, where all
the inhabitants have terrible tooth decay,
because the worst Kennedy has removed the
fluoride from the water.
Word up cyber nonces, send us your projects and
we might feature them.
https://b3ta.com/mailus
BONUS IDEA: a bot that looks for people called
Tim who are swearing and replies "Language,
Timothy!" (Please don't build this, it's just a
joke)
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: PATREON THANKS
We love all these people. Almost romantically.
*HEBTROCO* *JAMES O'BRIEN* *MARK MCCREADIE*
*STOOBERT* *DION ASHTON* *MARK* *24-7 DEATH*
*DAVID GREEN* *MICHAEL KITT* and *GUB~GUB*.
MARK ADAMSON, IAN SHEEN, RICHARD BARCLAY,
SPAZZCAPTAIN, MICHAEL TRINDER, MIKE STRINGER,
AUSTIN HOFEMAN, and NATHANIEL TAPLEY.
BevS, Tom Dolan, Chris Carline, lee burnett,
Paul Cherry, Tom Wright, Matthew Wilkes, Kev
Adams, DoHa, Rich, 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, 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,
Phil Lovell, Jon Morris Smith, Stuart,
Mellyfish, Roy Santos, Phillip Spowart, Daniel
Calvin, Rich Corcoran, John Daly, nevillebartos,
Geoff Tidey, Ian Walker, Leighton Stevenson,
Funny_Hat, Gillian Parrott, Phil Bennett, Matt,
Oni, Katie Steckles, Luka Mikec, Stuart, Simon
Howard, Peter Henningsen, Kier Fox, tom
yeoldeforge, C Bond, Harri Bionic, lucas seven,
mattcox303, Gerry Spencer, Patrick Hudson,
Robert van Dijk, Ian Walker, Paul Martyn, Richie
Hindle, Harry Simpson, Paul Pod, Tom Loosemore,
John Davies, DrumGui76, and Mark Arnold.
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, MC, AD, AS,
AR, CN, DM, DS, HA, IS, JM, NH, PR, SM, MB, CK,
AC, 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 legends.
And also thanks to our newest benefactors: Mark
Arnold, DrumGui76, Patrick Hudson, John Davies,
Paul Pod, Tom Loosemore, Gerry Spencer, Harry
Simpson, Paul Martyn, and Ian Walker.
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.
https://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. And especially tell your enemies.
https://b3ta.com/subscribe/
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: BONUS "REPLY" FESSHOLE - (HOPE THIS ONE IS OK)
"I'm a promiscuous gay man who meets his shags
mostly online. I will never, ever have sex with
someone who messages me using bad grammar." Best
reply? "I'd have thought you'd be the last
person to judge someone for misusing a colon."
(thx plungethethumb)
