NEWSLETTER: "NO WANKING IN THE SHOWERS"
This Week:
* TOY - Swap your drawings with others
* COKE - How much does your MP love it?
* PASTA SHAPES QUIZ - Can you tell what they are?
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________ ____ __ ___
____/ _)|_ // /_/ _ |
___/ _ |/_ </ __/ __ | "We're saving the
__/____/____/\__/_/ |_| web... together"
B3ta email 216 - 17 Feb 2006
Read this issue in your browser:
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: SPONSORED LINK
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To participate just submit images you have taken
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>> Sponsor B3ta <<
Want this space? Then talk to us.
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: WHAT B3TA PEOPLE HAVE BEEN MAKING THIS WEEK #1
Drawings, Coke v Pepsi, Dukes of Hazard & Blair
>> Sketch swap <<
Simple, sweet idea - draw a little picture, press
the button and you get to see someone else's
drawing, while yours gets shown to another
contributor later. Maybe you get a crudely-drawn
cock, maybe a little masterpiece. Simple, as we
said, but rather addictive. Kudos to Philipp
Lenssen and partner-in-crime Dominik Schmid.
http://www.sketchswap.com
>> MPs' Coke habits revealed! <<
If you've ever wondered whether your Member of
Parliament prefers Coca Cola or Pepsi, then
perhaps Psythor's informal survey will prove
enlightening. Interestingly, eight out of ten
MPs who expressed a preference said they liked
Coke the best - making the House of Commons
a staunch stronghold of the best-selling brown
beverage.
http://jamesomalley.co.uk/blog/
>> Mosaicing the General Lee <<
James Ford needs your help. "I'm trying to
replicate the General Lee, using thousands of
toy cars and an old Ford Capri - so I'm taking
donations of toy cars from the generous public."
It's an interesting effect he's got going on:
from a distance reminiscent of the Pointillist
masters, such as Georges Seurat; get close up
and it looks like a big fuck-off traffic jam.
http://www.generalcarbuncle.com
>> Tony Blair the Euro Snail <<
"Here you go :¬)" says Andy Foulds. And well
he might - he's made a strange, snail-like Tony
Blair as one of those freaky-looking Flash things
that follow your mouse. In this case he's following
a little letter E - see how far you can make his
eyes bulge out.
http://www.andyfoulds.co.uk/experiments/snail_blai...
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: SPONSORED LINK
England are ready, are you?
Get 6 nations fan training here
http://snipurl.com/englandvideo
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: QUESTION OF THE WEEK 1
Google Ruined My Life
We asked if your computer's web cache had ever
revealed more than you wished.
Standing out proudly from all the people who'd
discovered their parents' porn collections
was Naive Amoeba's list of search terms his
12 year old nephew had used. Why he needed to
Google "Maggie Simpson with bum out" and
"coming out poo" is keeping us awake at night:
http://b3ta.com/questions/googleruinedmylife/
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: SITES IN BRIEF
Stuff we like that wasn't made by our mates.
>> No wanking in the showers <<
"This is a message from the Estates Department
at Durham University", informs Quin Parker,
"regarding showers in one of the colleges."
Heh. Reminds us of being students and finding
one of our flatmates was crapping in the shower.
All because the toilet was blocked - the dirty
bastard.
http://www.b3ta.com/links/59
>> Tom Baker says <<
Flurble writes - "As you perhaps know, one-time
Doctor Who Tom Baker now reads the SMS messages
if you're daft enough to txt to a BT landline.
This site was made by a friend of mine, and
in my not-so-humble opinion, is a work of pure
genius." Heh. We particularly enjoyed Tom reading
the movie quotes.
http://www.tombakersays.co.uk/
>> Flying pig experiment <<
Odd little photo story here. No idea if it's
true of not. It's certainly mental and worth
a look.
http://snipurl.com/flyingpigs
>> Sonic the Hedgehog: on the piano <<
Remember that link that did the rounds of
a blind-folded Asian bloke playing Mario
on the piano. This guy has taken the same idea
but used the music to Sonic instead. Loving it
because we'd forgotten how much we liked the
tune. And musical Asians give us the horn.
http://b3ta.com/links/400
>> Google maps fun <<
We've all seen Google Earth by now, their
fantastic site where you can zoom in on most
bits of the planet via satellite photos. The
recent has been people finding oddities,
we've seen buildings shaped like swastikas,
strange black squares in Russia which some
believe to be evidence of evil conspiracy and
even shots of Area 51, where NASA keeps all
their secret alien technology. Our favourite
this week is a photo that TheCastrator calls,
"Genius! A big 'FUCK' in a field. And what
looks like "EDDIE", but that's not nearly
as naughty." Actually. There's an idea for
marketing people here. Make a huge landmass
mural to your product and wait for the
satellites to photograph it. Your message
will be seen by millions.
http://snipurl.com/mfbb
>> "Fuck the shit" <<
Catchy song; satisfying lyric; way, way Not
Safe For Work. We don't know who these repulsive
eighties-style rockers are, but they exude a strange
fascination on our fragile minds.
http://www.break.com/index/fucktheshit.html
>> Evil dad <<
Some bloke videoed his son falling for the
'Scary maze flash game' screamer. You do have
to wonder what kind of father would traumatise
his children that way - couldn't help but laugh
though. And then felt very very guilty.
http://b3ta.com/links/272
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: FILTHY MARKETING OF THE WEEK
Weinerwhistle
Blow through the hole in the end of your little
sausage, moving your fingers to modulate the
sound. Look at the diagrams. It's so screamingly
phallic they had to have known. Surely. Whatever,
it's not selling us hot dog sausages.
http://www.kraftfoods.com/om/bn/c_Games/games_Whis...
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: WHAT B3TA PEOPLE HAVE BEEN MAKING THIS WEEK #2
Cuteness, Pasta quiz, Toilet eBay, joke machine
>> The tale of Plob <<
"I made this!" cries Strawberry Dragon. It's the
story of a nice man named Plob who lived a long
time ago and wrote a special book. And if that
sounds familiar, well, it's all in your head we're
sure. Cute, childlike drawings and a charmingly
simple story make this a winner.
http://www.strawberrydragon.com/junk/story.html
>> 'Name that pasta' quiz <<
We've all been tempted by the lure of novelty
pasta. But you always know you're going to be
disappointed by the contents' lack of even
vague resemblance to anything pictured on
the tin. Fuelled by such disappointments,
Monkeon has made this surprisingly challenging
quiz. Can you tell what the pasta is supposed
to be?
http://www.monkeon.co.uk/pasta
>> "Buy my supersonic toilet" <<
We've featured quite a lot of peculiar eBay auctions,
so why not one more? Billfredo is selling a "totally
awesome Concorde crapper", which is to say, one of
toilets that used to equip the bathrooms of the
famed faster-than-sound jet cruiser. Enjoy the man's
write-up - he's an unashamed punster.
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll
>> Random offensive joke generator <<
'What's the difference between acne and a
pedophile?' and the leper says 'An erection'
It's not so much that the random 'jokes' made
by Gilgamesh's generator are hilariously funny.
More that they are quite likely to offend all
kinds of people. Grand.
http://kineticnorth.com/RandomJoke/
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: THINGS THAT MAKE YOU GO AAHH
Double pup special
>> Puppy monorail <<
We've got an architect friend and if there's one
word we can say to wind him up, it's 'monorail'.
Apparently they're 'follies, a waste of money,
and a really shit form of transport that
inexplicably everyone thinks are cool." Wonder
what he'll make of this puppy monorail? Suspect
a stiff letter of complaint to the Design Council.
http://www.monorails.org/tMspages/PuppyMover.html
>> Yorkshire terrier pups <<
Check out these four-day-old doggy babies.
They're like furry little beanbags with
tiny paws and tails.
http://www.rnicrosoft.co.uk/pups/
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: QUESTION OF THE WEEK 2
Accidentally Erotic
Ever found yourself aroused in the wrong
situation? It seems that it's mostly a bloke
problem, if only because they find it much
harder to cover up.
http://b3ta.com/questions/accidentallyerotic/
Here's three blokes coming to terms with
themselves:
* Accidental erection
"I am an invalid and damn proud of it. I can't
move or feel anything beneath my head. A month
after I broke my neck, I had just woken up
from coma and the sexiest nurse in the whole
hospital was going to give me a sponge bath.
Needless to say my body reacts without my
permission and accomplishes a nice erection.
The nurse is really happy and shouts out
"Hooray, at least you can move something,
aren't you happy!?!" I was not happy...(gremme)
* White Goods
"I had a roommate I was absolutely in love with,
a beautiful petite blonde girl. Sadly, my other
roommate was her boyfriend. Anyway, I was reading
one night when I heard a thumping. I started
listening closer, turned on. I'm not sure
exactly when I realized it was the washing
machine imbalanced. It's so very sad to have
been aroused by an inanimate object." (mikebaja)
* Reassuring Hugs of Embarrassment
"For some reason, whenever I give a female person
in distress a comforting hug, I always get the
horn. I don't know whether it's the touching or
their vulnerability, but I've mastered the art
of hugging with only the top half of my body so
as not to accidentally prod them..." (Plyck)
>> This Week's Question <<
Were you exploited as a child, paid peanuts to
deliver papers, clean chimneys, sell your body?
Talk to us here:
http://b3ta.com/questions/childlabour/
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: B3TA IMAGE CHALLENGE
Results from the 'Switching Movie Directors'
Challenge
Last week we wanted to see what would happen
if you put movie directors in charge of films
entirely unsuited to their style.
Our favourites included:
* KILL BEAKER - Jim Henson doing Tarantino
is something that cries out to be made.
Especially in the real world. (stefd)
* LION - Brilliantly imagined, nicely subtle
advert for a Luc Besson classic remade in
the style of Disney. (The Figurative
Pineapple)
* E.T. - More French cinema stylee as
Jean-Luc Goddard deconstructs one of
Spielberg's finer moments.
(jim_eureka)
All these images, and the highest as
voted by you can be found here:
http://www.b3ta.com/challenge/moviedirectors/
>> New challenge: Offensive in 5K <<
Geeks used to compete against each other to
produce websites using less than 5k of data.
Now we want images produced to the same
guidelines - less than 5k - but they must
be as offensive as possible. Extra points for
NOT using text, i.e. writing 'cunt' in
flashing letters isn't going to impress us
much.
http://www.b3ta.com/challenge/offensivein5k/
>> Your challenge ideas <<
We'd like you to suggest a challenge, and
vote on the ideas suggested by others.
http://www.b3ta.com/questions/imagechallenge/
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: WHAT HAPPENED NEXT?
Follow-ups on previous stories.
* JOEL'S CAT HAS GOT KNEES - "Regarding the
latest newsletter," begins heartshapedbox.
"I'm a second year vet student and I would
like to let you know that cats do have
knees! Well, it's called a stifle, but it's
the exact same structure as our knees, and
on their hind-leg, kneecaps and all!" Huzzah
for Science!
* WINNER OR SINNER NOT IN SYDNEY - the photo
we linked to last week of the Oxford Street
Winner or Sinner guy's Antipodean jaunt was
actually taken outside Flinders Street
Station - nowhere near Sydney at all. Thanks
Rosalita for setting us right. We are
duly chastened.
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: FRIDAY GAME
Obsessive-Compulsive game
Straightening cutlery and cleaning up messes
are very much the order of the day in this
multi-level game based on mentally-ill TV
detective Monk. And surprisingly satisfying
it all is too. Perhaps enough that we might
give the housework a quick spin after this.
Perhaps not though.
http://snipurl.com/monkgame
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: SPOTTED!
B3ta in 'News of the World'
As you all know, the b3ta website has a band
of photoshoppers who enjoy making pictures,
some of them even get emailed round the world
and end-up in the papers. Maybe we should start
cataloging when this happens? Here goes.
http://www.b3ta.com/board/5649571
Seen a B3ta image in the papers? Tell us,
using internet magic.
http://b3ta.com/mailus/
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: STAR IN NEXT WEEK'S ISSUE
Make something cool and tell us about it. If
you are in it then people will see your stuff.
Things we'd really like to see include
* PEOPLE TO STOP EMAILING IN - when they type
a few words from 'start in next week's issue'
into Google and find something vaguely
similar from years ago. Gah, you cheeky
monkeys.
* INTERNET FAIRIES TO MAKE BANDWIDTH FREE -
YouTube, Google Video and Flickr are great
for sharing your videos and photos, and
crucially being able to hotlink them from
inside your own sides, but what about MP3s
and flash stuff etc? Yeah there's some
smallish hosting sites, but we want a big
player with oodles of bandwidth.
* BETTER VEGETARIAN FOOD IN POSH RESTUARANTS
- why is it only cheapo places that server
a reasonable selection of vegetarian food?
Go somewhere posh and you're stuck with
some crap like a pepper stuffed with rice.
Oh we are so bourgeois.
Send contributions via the mail form.
http://www.b3ta.com/mailus/
BTW: If you've sent something in that hasn't
been featured then don't be put off - we look
at everything you send us.
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THANKS:
This issue was written by Rob Manuel with
David Stevenson.
Links sent in by Steef, stevemck, sorinbanu,
j.churosh & Dobsky.
Top Tippery by sosumi.
Additional linkage and image challenge by
Fraser Lewry.
Mike Trinder is QOTW bloke.
Respect to the lovely b4ta peeps.
(107710 - 33354)
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TOP TIP:
If you like to watch DVDs in a darkened room
and it's hard to find the right buttons on the
remote, put a drop from a hot glue gun on the
ones you use most.
