NEWSLETTER: "WHAT DOES A ZX81 HAVE IN COMMON WITH ASPERGER SYNDROME? BOTH WERE MADE OBSOLETE BY THE SPECTRUM."
* DADDY, IT'S A BOT - Welcome 'Grok of shit'
* BALL DROPPING - test your testes
* IMAGE CHALLENGE - smelly movies
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________ ____ __ ___
____/ _)|_ // /_/ _ | "We're saving the wap by
___/ _ |/_ </ __/ __ | porting all our bots to
__/____/____/\__/_/ |_| late 90s nokia phones"
B3ta newsletter 974 - 2nd Jan 2026
Read this issue with the Mac OS 'Zarvox' voice:
http://b3ta.com/newsletter/issue974
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: WHAT B3TA PEOPLE HAVE MADE THIS WEEK
Other than making pledges to "wet January"
* INTRODUCING 'GROK OF SHIT' - your editor has
been amusing himself over the Christmas break by
putting together a bot that takes the piss out
of Elon Musk and Grok, in rather gentle way, as
ripping the shit out of what he's actually doing
would far too murky and dark for a bit of
throwaway fun.
https://bsky.app/profile/grokofshit.bsky.social
* IT'S TIME FOR THE INTERNET'S BALLS TO DROP -
Brian Moore writes, "I think you might
appreciate (and/or hate) this project I made."
Wow, Monkeon also rates this as he mentioned
this to us before you even sent it in Brian,
saying "The Times Square Ball has just dropped
after its 60 second countdown to the new year.
Fans of balls dropping and counting will enjoy
this expanded experience of the ball falling for
a whole year, starting from space."
https://infiniteballdrop.com/
* THE ONE WHERE THEY DO A JOKE - Drivel Sieve
tells us he's made a version of Friends with a
"skip intro" button. Nice, we've often fantasied
about a similar joke where the cast in random
shows have to hold hands and skip.
https://b3ta.com/links/Skip_Intro
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: HEBTROCO SPONSORSHIP
Buy some clothes, just buy clothes all the time
Right Christmas is over therefore we can't
suggest you buy Christmas presents, however it's
still bloody cold, so the angle this week is
that Hebtro clothes are warm and strong (they
are) and will keep your tootsies from freezing
off. All made in the UK to the highest standards
so buy buy buy coz buying clothes prevents
hypothermia.
https://hebtro.co/new/
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: FESSHOLE
Readers's confessions, served up as fess soup
Each week you type your bollocks into a form and
we read it and post a few out for the useless
currency of internet likes, a pretend form of
money that provides dopamine but you can't use
it for the gas bill. Some favs include:
* THE X FLUS - "Was once in an elevator with
Gillian Anderson. She looked like she had the
flu at the time. I'm a massive X-Files fan, but
I managed to keep my cool. I just politely told
her that I love her work, then she shook my
hand. A day later I got the flu. Thanks Gillian,
best flu ever."
* BIBLE LIBEL - "I'm a tall man, had long hair &
a beard - think grunge rock style. I decided to
shave my beard off & shorten my hair when I got
a job as a porter in our local hospital, after
three people mistook me for Jesus & thought I
was there to take them to heaven instead of the
next ward."
* SALTY BOLLOCKS - "Whenever I'm in a bookshop I
always move copies of The Salt Path from
non-fiction to fiction. Lying bastards."
Promo link to the account this week goes to the
Facebook page where we've posted the best ones
from December 2025, well according to favs on
Threads anyway.
https://www.facebook.com/fesshole/posts/pfbid02vUp...
TICKETS FOR LIVE SHOWS - Leicester, Luton, Leeds
and Sweden. Anon Opin shows too. Do come.
https://sites.google.com/view/fesshole
Buy the red book and then buy the yellow book
and have strong opinions on which one is better,
and also feel slightly annoyed we were talked
into giving them the same bloody title.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/s
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: SITES IN BRIEF
Your websites to type in this week
* PAPER BASED DRUM MACHINE - neat idea where
someone has looked up some image recognition
technology with a drum machine so you can move
bits of paper around to create beats, like the
papier-shop boys.
https://matthew.rayfield.world/projects/mr-808/
* CRAP GAMES, THE MOTHERLODE - New Year means
time to look at last year's Crap Sinclair Games
Competition crop. Whilst they still don't have
an emulator to play them online, it does have a
decent amount of screenshots in the reviews.
Officer Crabtree's Hongmon FTW. BTW: It's
slightly annoying that AI images have crept into
the write-up for this. We nearly didn't link the
page because of it. Writing old crap games for a
Spectrum should be the opposite of slop.
https://csscgc2025.blogspot.com
* AN ALTERNATIVE TO TWITTER - it's a radio
station that plays just bird songs. They should
get Chris Packham to DJ between the tunes and
let us know a bit about what we're going to
hear. Better than that punk rocker "racket" he
usually insists on, anyway.
https://bird-radio.pages.dev
* MORSE CODE WEB BROWSER - finally you can type
in URLs by tapping morse code. This is what the
government should have introduced to stop
everyone wanking, instead of uploading your cum
face to the pigs.
https://www.tiktok.com/@avibagla/video/75867427920...
* INFINITE WORD SEARCH - this is probably a good
and clever idea but it just made us feel tired
as we like puzzles to have an end, to get the
hit of going "solved".
https://words.zip/
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: IMAGE CHALLENGE
Rob Reiner
Last week we asked you to celebrate the work of
Rob Reiner because we want to remember him for
his work and not the last few horrible minutes
of his well-lived life.
* Monkeon refers the jury to the most memorable
scene in Spinal Tap
https://b3ta.com/board/11423950
* 'Razzle' puts together a game idea that we
actually want to play
https://b3ta.com/board/11423919
* And we'll include this one from 'Octo' as
Reiner looks so cheerful, like the man that he
was
https://b3ta.com/board/11424071
* See all the other images from the 'Rob Reiner'
challenge:
http://b3ta.com/challenge/robreiner/popular
>> This week: Smelly Films <<
Films engage our eyes and ears, but what about
our noses? Make films about your favourite
smelly things, or just make infantile fart puns
out of the titles. Suggested by Sheddyian.
http://b3ta.com/challenge/smellyfilms/popular
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: WHAT HAPPENED NEXT
Follow ups on previous stories AKA API call
backs
* THANK YOU FOR THE PODCAST LINK - Nick writes -
"Just wanted to say thanks for putting Cairo
Time in the newsletter, the simple act of b3tans
having a look at it quintupled our previous
efforts with the first album. My friend passed
away a few days after the newsletter went out;
we all thought he had a bit more time, but was
really pleased to see the number of listens. So,
thanks very much for your help - it meant a lot
to him. Keep up the good work. And fuck cancer."
And if you want to listen again, here's the
link, link fans:
https://b3ta.com/links/Cairo_Time
* WHAT'S YOUR SWEAR OF THE YEAR? Dave Bagpuss's
'Swearsky' project celebrates the new year by
collating the most popular swears on the social
media platform, and turning it into one of those
things where you press stop, and it's your swear
for the year or something.
https://bsky.app/profile/swearsky.bagpuss.org/post...
* MONKEON FIXES MORE OLD PROJECTS - Rico Monkeon
writes, "Fixed any broken videos on my 90s
Festival Generator. All 972 bands now work (Must
have had quite a bit of spare time to populate
it in summer 2020 for some reason)." People
really don't appreciate the technical debt us
low rent internet entertainers build up trying
to run these projects, so everyone clap for
Monkeon at 8pm tonight.
https://www.monkeon.co.uk/90sfestivalgenerator/
* SGT BARKER'S LONELY DEATH CLUB - And to
finally put SGT PEPPER Necropolis Of Death to
bed, Chris Barker has made an interactive key
thing which you can click like a big clicky
baby.
https://sgtpepper2025.lovable.app/
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: BEST ANON OPIN, REPLIES
We're sticking with this format for the mo
* SHUT UP - "The mouse in the Gruffalo stories
comes across as a bit of a twat." Best reply?
"That's why he's voiced by James Corden in the
animation." (thx Stuart Laidler)
* FUCK OFF - "Carry on luggage people are the
very worst passengers on a plane." Best reply?
"Carry On Luggage was also a very poor film"
(thx Eddie Cooper)
* AND YOU CAN SHUT UP TOO - "There really is no
need to see Phil Daniels & Ray Winstone's cocks
in Quadrophenia, is there? They could've still
filmed them in the bath, just cropped the shots
higher. But no. And now I've seen Phil Daniels &
Ray Winstone's cocks." Best reply? "PARKLIFE"
(thx bee 'hyphen' moh)
Yeah yeah, follow the account that's less
popular than Fesshole but at the same time we
love it a little bit more as it's easier to run,
coz reading 1000s of opinions a week doesn't
break our brain at the same level as reading
anecdotes.
https://bsky.app/profile/anonopin.bsky.social
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: STAR IN NEXT WEEK'S ISSUE
Some ideas to kick you in the idea penis
* MAVIS BEACON'S DECATHLON - THE TEXT ADVENTURE
– just keep typing "run forwards" and "jump" for
three hours.
* 90S DARK WEB - gub~gub suggests, "Create an
underground world accessible only by a Tor
browser modified to look like Netscape to surf
through a wonderland of pre-Web 2.0. Where
people made websites for fun to share their
ideas and interests, and the worst commercialism
to cope with was playing whack-a-mole with
popups."
* REVIEW EVERY CRAP SPECTRUM GAME FOR THE CRAP
SPECTRUM GAMES COMPETITION - starting at the
beginning of the crap games thing, back in 1995
or whatever and review one game a day, building
up a working archive where everything was nicely
formatted and playable in the browser. The
internet needs this.
Right, what are you waiting for? Make things and
tell us about them.
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, and AUSTIN HOFEMAN.
Eugenie vT, Tom Dolan, Chris Carline, lee
burnett, Paul Cherry, Tom Wright, Matthew
Wilkes, Kev Adams, Rich, Dominic Haigh, 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, Mike Wilcox,
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, Ian Walker, Paul
Martyn, Richie Hindle, Patrick Hudson, Gerry
Spencer, John Davies, DrumGui76, Harry Simpson,
Paul Pod, Tom Loosemore, and Mark Arnold.
Also thanks to the 79 lovely people who also
support us: 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, MB, MC, 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, DW, BC, SE, and BB. You
are all sexy beautiful people who we think about
when we pleasure ourselves.
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. Getting in some rubles
makes such a difference.
http://patreon.com/b3ta
EDITORIAL THANKS: Monkeon & Matt Round
additional links; Monkeon for image challenge
help; and Dr Dunno for extra support. Proofing
by Kat E. Thanks Kat. (NP Rob - Kat)
And remember to subscribe, and tell your friends
to subscribe. Even tell your enemies, especially
tell them wankers.
https://b3ta.com/subscribe/
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: BONUS "REPLY OF THE WEEK" FESSHOLE
"I'm a food critic who's eaten at some of the
top places in the world. Most days I'd much
prefer a fishfinger, mayonnaise and Dairylea
cheese slice sandwich instead." Best reply is
from Jay Rayner, yes THAT Jay Rayner, who writes
after someone atted him in, "Like I'd be
anonymous about something like this. It would be
a waste of good copy."
