Phun Stuff and Everything You Dislike: [b3ta] "Fuck off, we're watching the snooker"

This Week:
* DAFT PUNK - shredded
* STAR WARS - in 60 seconds
* SPOONS - played to old rave tunes

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________ ____ __ ___
____/ _)|_ // /_/ _ | "We're saving your wanky
___/ _ |/_ </ __/ __ | tissues for entry into
__/____/____/\__/_/ |_| the Turner Prize"

B3ta email 578 - 26 Apr 2013

Read this issue with a braille enabled penis:
http://b3ta.com/newsletter/issue578

Kissy kissy : b3ta-subscribe@yahoogroups.com
Hissy pissy : b3ta-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com

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: AMAZON TAT
Sponsored, well affiliate tat

* CANVAS PRINT OF ABANDONED MICROWAVE - We need
to buy a microwave to reheat cups of tea and
this came up in an Amazon search. Nice.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/B008TA6D9A/b3ta-21

* MIDI GUITAR INTERFACE - Oh, and here's
something actually worth buying if you like
fiddling with music. It's utterly delightful to
be able to play guitar and spit midi out.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/B005PM4UK4/b3ta-21

>> Sponsor B3ta <<
Want this space? Then talk to us.
http://b3ta.com/mailus/

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: WHAT B3TA PEOPLE HAVE BEEN MAKING THIS WEEK

>> Is this real?!?!?!? <<
Google Earth and Facebook are linking up, to
show everybody your location and your datas??
"It's not real," confesses somegreybloke, but
there's some fun to be had by forwarding to the
paranoid and easily-enraged.
http://www.b3ta.com/links/Is_this_real:8

>> "I Lived With John Humphrys" <<
"I lived with John Humphrys for two years,"
claims Paint My Album, the quotation marks
immunising *us* from any legal action taken by
the snow-haired Radio 4 titan. "He was a total
nightmare."
http://www.b3ta.com/links/I_Lived_With_John_Humphrys

>> Goobly Heads <<
Some sort of weird money-spinning scheme by
claymation maestro Lee Hardcastle. We didn't
understand, but enjoyed seeing a wide variety
of ghastly characters strut their stuff.
http://www.b3ta.com/links/goobly_heads

>> 2p or not 2p? <<
"I finished this at 3.30 this morning!"
exclaims Q4nobody. A celebration of the Bard's
birthday, with a total monetary value of £7.84.
http://www.earlyshakespeare.com/2p.html

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: QUESTION OF THE WEEK
Travel

Last week we wanted your stories of trips that
didn't go quite as well as you had expected:
http://b3ta.com/questions/travel/

* KIDNAPPED - "Walking down Boulevard du 30
Juin because the taxis in central Kinshasa
have a pretty poor reputation, a car pulled up
next to me. The passenger flashed a police ID
and asked for mine. He said to get in as he
needed to check on my place of residence. I
wasn't too concerned - until, at the next
corner two other guys got in and sandwiched me
in the back, before taking off in the wrong
direction. The Boulevard has police at every
junction and traffic moves very slowly, but I
knew that if we left it I could be in trouble.
I needed to get out and I needed a plan. As
surreptitiously as possible, I put my hand in
my pocket and palmed my XDA stylus - 4 inches
of steel, sharp, and handy when you need
something to stick in somebody's neck. That
was for the guy on my right. The guy on the
left was about to have his ear bitten off.
Ears are great, they piss blood everywhere and
create enough mayhem to escape. All very Andy
McNab, but no way were we leaving the
Boulevard with me still in that car. The next
junction was manned by traffic cops and we
were turning left so it was time for action.
Part of me was aghast at what I was about to
do next. Yes, I really did it. I leant across
the bloke on my left and screamed like a girl,
pounding on the window. The cops looked in
shock at this dignity-free white man and ran
over, distracting the kidnappers. I took this
as an opportunity to scramble out, pausing
only to pluck my passport from the guy in the
front seat." (strongp)

* ACCENTS - "At the end of a month-long
business trip to Ukraine, three of us were
celebrating our successes with our translator,
Oleg. He was a dignified, elderly gentleman
who commanded respect and even deference in
every native we met. As the vodka flowed, Oleg
spoke up, 'I'd like to do my party piece.' We
expected a song or one of those interminable
Russian poems, but Oleg had different plans.
Turning to my boss, he said, 'Donald, you are
lowland Scots, you went to a public school
where they tried to change your accent, you've
lived for a long time in London.' We clapped -
he'd got it exactly right! Turning to Paul, he
said, 'You are a North London boy born and
bred, I'd say Enfield?' We were stunned. 'It
was once my business to know this,' he
explained. 'I was a colonel in the KGB, I
taught accents to our operatives in the
sixties and seventies.'" (Captain Placid)

* MUGGED - "Many moons ago the not-yet-Mrs
Airman Gabber and her group of friends got
held up at knifepoint in Amsterdam. 'Give me
20 Euros,' he demanded. They handed over the
money and the perpetrator threw down a package
and ran off. It was the biggest block of resin
they had ever seen. Way more than they could
smoke in the remainder of the trip. So they
smoked what they could and buried the rest in
the event of a return trip. That was some
aggressive drug-pushing right there." (Airman
Gabber)

>> This Week - CONTROVERSIAL BELIEFS <<
Tell us about views outside the mainstream
which make people go glassy-eyed as you bang
on about them. (Yes, your grandad's a racist -
no need to tell us, thanks)
http://b3ta.com/questions/controversialbeliefs/

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: SITES IN BRIEF
Stuff we like that wasn't made by our mates

>> Age gaps in movie relationships <<
Graphs show, while Hollywood men are allowed to
be over 40 women, basically, aren't. The
standard analysis of this would be that women
value men with power and men value women with
looks - meaning the most attractive man in the
world would be Rupert Murdoch. Are we right,
ladies?
http://bit.ly/11pJ9pb

>> Play the accordion by resizing your browser <<
Next week? Do the same with virtual pizza dough.
http://artpolikarpov.github.io/garmoshka/

>> The sound of Alexander Graham Bell. <<
Old recordings of the inventor of the telephone
have been made playable by modern technology -
and they look like CDs.
http://bit.ly/13uhh51

>> New form of music notation <<
Who would have thought there was innovation to
bring to music notation? The ideas contained
here are great - making sight reading easier.
However, we suspect it'll be a bit of Dvorak
keyboard situation - great concept but
difficult to change an established system.
Here's hoping they find some big partners
(Apple Garageband comes to mind) to make it
popular.
http://www.hummingbirdnotation.com/

>> Minimalist gifs <<
Can someone give us a couple of million quid so
we can open the Museum of Modern Gifs?
http://www.nicolasritter.com/filter/photography/One

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: VIDEO SCHMIDEO

>> Best of Norfolk <<
On the eve of departing for his gap year, this
eighteen-year-old records a homage to his home
county, with the fulsome cheesiness of a much
older man. Positively Partridgesque.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SfHAnfNahrY

>> Drummer steals the show <<
Ecstatic percussionist lives out the frustrated
musician's dream and steals the limelight from
the lead singer. It's clearly a schtick, but
a pretty funny one.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a9kPfelTEds

>> Playing the spoons to old rave music <<
This is the scene, as rave fades into the great
dustbin of memory: Old men playing the spoons
to Faithless's Insomnia, in London markets.
He's actually pretty good, too.
http://youtu.be/POvLaziUsTo

>> New Daft Punk single sounds off <<
For all the anticipation, we're not sure it's
their best work. Give it another listen:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OOlM5CDSoi8

>> If song lyrics were real <<
Charmingly daft bit of musician-mocking from
Irish comedy troupe.
http://www.b3ta.com/links/If_Songs_Were_Real

>> Star Wars Episode IV, in 60 seconds <<
Why waste your life away, watching the first
Star Wars film? You can cram every important
plot development into less than a minute, with
this nicely-drawn animation.
http://www.b3ta.com/links/Star_Wars_Episode_IV

>> New Peter Serafinowicz vid <<
Peculiar, meticulously retro-tinged sci-fi from
Robert Popper and Peter Serafinowicz.
http://bit.ly/11JJlju

>> Cats like boxes <<
But do big cats like big boxes? Enterprising
zoologists work to answer the questions keeping
us all awake at night.
http://www.b3ta.com/links/Cats_in_boxes:2

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: B3TA IMAGE CHALLENGE
Results from the Hollywood Challenge

Last week we wanted you to make Hollywood
blockbusters on the cheap

Your favourites included:

* SHORT: giantess removed, classic poster
rendered less classic (blyerkit)
http://www.b3ta.com/board/10954830

* PLASTIC: call for a bigger boat
misheard (Ya What?)
http://www.b3ta.com/board/10954365

* MEW: re-branding MGM with a tiny
kitten, a gilded goatse and a golden
cock (HEKIM)
http://www.b3ta.com/board/10956336

All these images, and the highest as voted by
you can be found here:
http://www.b3ta.com/challenge/hollywood/

>> New challenge: Funerals <<
Funerals are all the rage, it would seem.
So we're having a one-word challenge
devoted to them. Show us how you want to
go, redesign the funeral system, draw
ironic celebrity funerals, etc. Suggested
by HappyToast
http://www.b3ta.com/challenge/funerals/

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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:

* TRICKY QUESTION ANSWERED - "If the medium is
the message, what's the message of the
internet?"

* THE STAR TREK INVENTIONS THAT WOULD EXIST
CONSIDERING THE IMPLICATIONS OF TECH - Captain
Kirk doesn't wear condoms, as Scotty beams up
the semen from point of ejaculation into a huge
sperm lagoon beneath the bridge. Or, Mmmm, the
all you can eat buffet, then transport all the
calories out of your tummy.

* IDEAS FOR INNOVATIONS AT COFFEE CHAINS -
maybe they could (optionally) sell tea at a
temperature that doesn't require 15 mins to
cool down?

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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: WEIRD KETTLE PITCH THING

1. Go here:
https://twitter.com/robmanuel/status/327760839031525379

2. Turn mute off
3. Whistle approx the pitch of the kettle
4. Drop the tone of your whistle until you hear
a third tone - wobble that tone about. Odd
isn't it?

If this worked for you then you're hearing a
'Tartini tone' which is an excitingly-named
'psychoacoustic phenomena'.
http://www.patmissin.com/ffaq/q26.html

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Shove us: b3ta-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com

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THANKS:
This issue was written by Rob Manuel with
David Stevenson. Stuff sent in by sinisterduck,
simbosan, ‏@mikkeyuk, robneymcplum, @mikkeyuk,
@Rocker_44, ‏@mrlizard13, InflammableHound,
Sheep in Socks, dirtyscarab.
Image challenge by Fraser Lewry.
Mike Trinder is QOTW bloke.
Subjlols via Smash Monkey.
Top Tip via robneymcplum

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TOP TIP:
Make your iPhone battery last longer by not
getting it out all the fucking time.