NEWSLETTER: "HAPPY 25TH BIRTHDAY TO B3TA DOT COM FROM BIN LADEN AND CHUMS"
* GURNING CHAMPIONSHIP - Squish face for points
* MAKE EVERYTHING AMERICA - with map plug-in
* GRAPH QUIZ - no, come back, it's quite good
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________ ____ __ ___
____/ _)|_ // /_/ _ | "We're saving the web by
___/ _ |/_ </ __/ __ | talking to Geocities on a
__/____/____/\__/_/ |_| Ouija board... together"
B3ta news-e-letter 998, 13th Sept 2026
Reboot newsletter as a Buggles entryism project:
https://b3ta.com/newsletter/issue998
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: WHAT B3TA PEOPLE HAVE MADE THIS WEEK
Other than making F.O.I. requests to your mum
* HAPPY 25TH BIRTHDAY TO B3TA - it would seem an
odd thing to have been running a website for
twenty-five years, but that's what we've done,
and we've posted a little thread about it here
where there's some lovely replies and
quote-skeets from old B3tans, including Weebl
and people mentioning all the marriages we've
accidentally caused. Fav two comments are from
the two Joels, Veitch, "How 9/11 and Osama bin
Laden kick started the UK's underground internet
creative hotbed that shaped early 2000s web
culture, in the words of its creator." and
Morris, "Make a film about this, you cowards."
https://bsky.app/profile/b3ta.com/post/3mvcz32lyrk...
* CHAMPIONSHIP GURNING - Matt Round writes, "For
years I've wanted to do a gurning game and
finally got round to fiddling around with a
fancy face pose library just in time for the
real-life championships on the 19th Had to
devise my own nose distortion analysis as
library's got nothing, and it rewards asymmetry
to force wonkier expressions." Nice, finally we
can win internet points for our beautiful face,
like we're an influencer who encourages you chew
wasps. Mmmmmm, buzzfeed.
https://vole.wtf/gurning/
* GAME FOR A GRAPH - Tim Gouds writes, "I've
created this daily chart-guessing game from
public datasets. It's like Wordle, but then a
lot harder and with charts instead of 5-letter
charts." OK fair enough, in these days of a glut
of daily quizzes, this one is actually quite
interesting, and there's enough there for you to
intuit answers, which is always the secret in
making quizzes work, they shouldn't be testing
knowledge, but testing your ability to reason.
That's quizzing 303.
https://mysterychart.net/
* CHROME PLUGIN FOR GOOGLE MAPS - THAT ASSERTS
US OWNERSHIP OF EVERYTHING ON THE PLANET -
GoldCD writes, "This should also: 1) Reduce the
risk of invading places they notice are
non-American 2) Massively increase their test
results for international geography 3) Make
navigation a little tricky, unless you want to
go to America." You have to install this to get
the joke, and it'll basically break your maps,
until you uninstall it, but it's a gag that made
us laugh.
https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/everythin...
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: HEBTROCO SPONSORSHIP
It's your time to buy some clothes
Hebtro make clothes in the UK and don't farm it
all out to China like your average internet
business, not that there is anything wrong with
China, but you know, having some industry in the
UK isn't a bad idea given *look around you*
international troubles. So get yourself some
smart togs, at the place which might still
exist, come global economic collapse.
https://hebtro.co/department/new/
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: FESSHOLE
Your fesses published in our newsletter
Fundamentally B3ta is built around a belief in
the public, that you're funny and you should
join in, it's not a dreadfully fashionable idea
these days, but it's still a good one, many
prefer to shout "don't read the comments"
whereas we're fuck it, let's make projects that
are entirely comments. Anyway, fuck it, three of
the best this week include:
* CALL THE COPS - "Single bloke, lives alone.
Just had the police come in my house to perform
a welfare check under emergency exigent
circumstances, as neighbours reported terrified
screaming from my house. It was me. A spider
dropped from the ceiling onto my head & I
screamed like a little girl."
* SMELL LIKE A DAD - "On my Dad's death
inherited his collection of half used
aftershaves. Don't like waste so slowly using
them up no matter what I think of the smell.
Managed to pull a stunner using his 30 year old
bottle of Brut. Who knew? Thanks Dad, I'd buy
you a pint if I could."
* CAUGHT OUT - "Bathroom getting redone, no
toilet for two days. Had to take a dump in the
neighbours back garden under the cover of
darkness. Perfect crime until he said to me the
next day 'if you needed the toilet just ask'"
Follow the account on Instagram as that's the
second biggest, in order if you care it's
Twitter (1m+), Instagram (175k), Threads (140k),
Bluesky (104k), Facebook (83k) and Mastodon
(20k). Our rough theory is, the internet is
fragmented, publish everywhere. Truthsocial here
we come.
https://www.instagram.com/fesshole/
Buy the books that someone recently complained
were too expensive in Canada. Sorry Canada, it's
because B3ta has put sanctions on you.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/s
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: SITES IN BEEF
Cut-out-and-keep URLs for your web scrapbook
* SEARCH THE WEB BEFORE AI TOOK OVER - This site
is trying to solve the problem of LLMs ruining
our web by allowing you to easily search for
things posted before the day Magic Sam launched
his robotic fun sponge.
https://slopevader.com/
* THE MOTHERLODE OF COOL RETRO DESIGN - a
collection of Annual Reports, which sounds
boring, but turns out were a place graphic
designers were let loose to do some beautiful
work. If Stereolab ever ask you to design a
record cover, here's your mood board.
https://annualreport.gallery
* REMEMBER USENET? - see what old nerds used to
talk about online in this fantastic archive.
Actually, it's clear some old nerds are still
using it, as you can search for contemporary
things and still get hits. Under every internet
rock, there's still people clinging on. And they
smell wonderful.
https://www.usenet-rewind.com
* FASHVSTHEM - joy that we live in such terrible
times that the US administration is vibe-coding
racist topical games. It's a bleak mirror
universe where B3ta could be if we had zero
morals and really really wanted the Trump coins.
https://www.theverge.com/policy/990520/trump-arcad...
* MATT BERRY VS SKYRIM - yes, it's big brand
marketing but Matt Berry voicing a bookcase
companion is a fun idea. Next week can we have
Chris Morris voicing the expanse of white snow
in Horace Goes Skiing?
https://www.youtube.com/watch
* BOOT UP YOUR OWN FLY BRAIN - thread of some of
the stuff people are doing with a virtual fly's
brain, will get progressively more sinister as
more complex creatures are mapped.
https://bsky.app/profile/hern.bsky.social/post/3mv...
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: BEST ANONYMOUS OPINIONS
Web Points of View w/ Barry Took, no, hot Take
Yep it's the bit of the newsletter we turn over
to the opinions, and to make it tolerable, we
run them with any replies that have made our
smile muscles twitch slightly.
* ORDERING FOOD - "When in a hotel where you
need to eat breakfast in a restaurant with other
members of your party the protocol is: shower,
dress in yesterday's clothes, eat, brush teeth,
change to fresh clothes. If you don't need to
dine with others you can shower after
breakfast." Best reply? "No, it's shower, get
dressed in yesterday's clothes, have breakfast,
shower again, change into new clothes and fake
glasses and put on a fake accent and go for
breakfast again." (thx Philip Lickley)
* TRIGGER WARNING - "We all know when Only Fools
& Horses should've ended." Best reply? "At 8pm,
just before Howard's Way." (thx VSTN PNCE)
* GENDERS SPLIT - "Schools should teach boys and
girls to do the splits in PE classes. Boys need
to learn it just as much as girls. It might be
more of a challenge for boys but they'll benefit
from it in later life." Best reply? "I'll hand
this to you, whoever you are: this is the
weirdest opinion I've read on here by quite a
distance." (thx Alistair King)
Follow the account that is ok if you like that
sort of thing.
https://bsky.app/profile/anonopin.bsky.social
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: STAR IN NEXT WEEK'S ISSUE
Some ideas to start you off making "things"
* R.N.L.I. GAME - identify the ethnicity of
every human in peril on the sea, before you
rescue them. And drown loads of people on your
own side, because, quite obviously, you should
always save people first and not do such insane
things as this.
* HONEST VPN - it can't be doing stats any good
that people are dialling into websites via
Spain, when they're not in Spain etc, and
they're just having a wank in Birmingham, maybe
we need a moratorium that VPN traffic is all
from the jizzy toilet.
* PATRIOT PLATFORM HONEY TRAP - make a copy of
the fash organising site, but hide a couple of
illegal images in the HTML at width=0, so it
copies to the local cache, and send any email
addresses from the fash that join to your local
beat-up-a-nonce group on Facebook. OK, don't do
this, but get your mind thinking on what could
be done to put sand in their pants, at least.
Send us an email and we might make you "email
famous" like your B3tan heroes.
https://b3ta.com/mailus
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: PATREON THANKS
We love all these people. Almost romantically.
*STOOBERT* *JAMES O'BRIEN* *MARK MCCREADIE*
*PHILBERT* *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.
Tom Dolan, Kate, Chris Carline, lee burnett,
Paul Cherry, Matthew Wilkes, Kev Adams, Tom
Wright, DoHa, Rich, Dave Nattriss, Dan Stott,
Konrad Petrusewicz, David Ault, mattdawhit, Adam
Lloyd, ALFsplaining, Anna, Ashens, 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, Lumphammer, Martin Peache,
matsimpsk, Matthew Collinge, Matthew Morris,
Nick Ross, Paul Smith, peter wouda, pookong,
Rich Pope, Richard Beckett, Rob Mahon, Rob
Vincent, Robbie Lesiuk, Simon Holmes, Simon
McDougall, Simon waterfall, 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, omnipiss,
Simon Balch, Claire Turner, Phil Lovell, Jon
Morris Smith, Stuart, Mellyfish, Roy Santos,
Phillip Spowart, Daniel Calvin, Rich Corcoran,
John Daly, Geoff Tidey, nevillebartos, Ian
Walker, Leighton Stevenson, Funny_Hat, Gillian,
Phil Bennett, Matt, Oni, Katie Steckles, Simon
Howard, Luka Mikec, Stuart, Kier Fox, Peter
Henningsen, tom yeoldeforge, C Bond, Harri
Bionic, mattcox303, Gerry Spencer, Patrick
Hudson, Robert van Dijk, Richie Hindle, Ian
Walker, Paul Martyn, John Davies, Mark Arnold,
Harry Simpson, Paul Pod, Tom Loosemore,
da.vidjam.es, Zoe Trinder-Widdess, and Jonathan
Ellinsfield.
Also thanks to the 76 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, BS, CC, CS, CZ, DP, DE,
EN, GS, GF, IO, JL, JB, LB, LE, LJ, MM, MB, MF,
NJ, OL, PB, PW, PB, RC, 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:
Jonathan Ellinsfield, Zoe Trinder-Widdess,
da.vidjam.es, Mark Arnold, Patrick Hudson, John
Davies, Paul Pod, Tom Loosemore, Gerry Spencer,
and Harry Simpson.
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 "CHALLENGING WANK" FESSHOLE
"In my waking, conscious life I don't find Tony
Blair attractive, but 9 out of 10 nights, in my
dreams we have the nastiest sex you can imagine,
followed by clever banter and him gently holding
me in bed. I wake feeling repulsed and
disappointed in myself. How do I make this
stop?" Best reply? "Divorce him maybe" (thx
Korma Chameleon)
