I stumbled upon b3ta sometime back in 2002
I ran a Danish language satirical website with some friends around 2000. Not the biggest thing in the world but occasionally we got linked to from the great yonder. The web server would list these and I would follow the referral URLs back for fun. Actually I think this led me to a some site that linked to b3ta. This site immediately struck my sense of humour and I came back once in a while for some time.

Our own site soon died due to inactivity. Technically, it's still up in the air but it has not been updated since 2003-ish.

Around 2005, I guess, I found myself in an office, screen facing the wall and a drawing tablet that I had brought from home for ergonomical reasons. I hadn't used the tablet a lot at home but now I suddenly found myself in a position where I could draw inane stuff without my boss minding (as a software developer this was not a part of my job description). I took up the challenge and entered one of the image competitions and was well received. I've since posted on and off as time permitted, winning the occasional competition and the occasional front page display. I've also submitted my share of incomprehensible and not-so-funny-anyway images that are best forgotten. Either way, I use b3ta as a way to sharpen my sense of what other people think is funny. And I always appreciated the candidness of the comments.

The b3ta newsletter has also been influential in my life in the sense that it has always made me the one at the office that is able to pull YouTube links for all occasions. This is a bit like having a very geeky superpower.

Apart from that, I've rarely used the board for conversations. But I enjoy the images and how anything is game for a cheap laugh.

Happy birthday, b3ta!
(spinoza, Mon 12 Sep 2011, 14:40, Reply)