Happy Independence Day to all of b5media’s, and my readers. Given that b5media is incorporated in the United States (for the time being…until we might creep a little more north) I thought I’d extend my well wishes.

Of course, as with any event of significance, I made the mistake of going to Wikipedia, a mistake because every time I visit Wikipedia I end up spending 2 hours reading articles there when I should have been doing other things 🙂

And in my reading I found some interesting tidbits that people outside of the US might not know about it.

The First American Flag

Yep, this is the first American flag. Nice, isn’t it. The original Union Flag in the top left hand corner. This is the American flag that flew on Independence Day! Oddly enough, it’s actually an exactly copy of the British East Indies Company Flag. More at Wikipedia here.

America was colonised by Sweden

Most people would know about the Dutch and English colonisation of North America, but how many people would know that Sweden was there as well. New Sweden was a small Swedish settlement along the Delaware River on the Mid-Atlantic coast of North America. It was centered at Fort Christina, now in Wilmington, Delaware and included parts of the present day American states of Delaware, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania. The settlement was founded March 29, 1638, and was incorporated into the Dutch New Netherlands on September 15, 1655.

American exceptionalism

American exceptionalism, a term coined by Alexis de Tocqueville in 1831, has been historically referred to as the perception that the United States differs qualitatively from other developed nations, because of its unique origins, national credo, historical evolution, and distinctive political and religious institutions

The Spanish American Civil War

The Spanish American Civil War was the direct result of the sinking on the USS Maine in Cuba. Yellow Journalism came about due to reporting of Spanish atrocities in Cuba during this period.

Philippine-American War

I knew through my knowledge of history that the Philippines was an American protectorate until after WW2, but what I didn’t know that this wasn’t with the popular support of the locals. The Philippine-American War raged from 1899 to 1913, with the United States winning. Of course the US has left it’s mark there. Aside from being one of the few Asian nations to drive on the wrong side of the road (outside of China and Korea), to Australian ears Philippinos sound like Americans…indeed for a long time I always presumed b5media’s own Shai Coggins was American…because to my ears that’s the way she sounded.

Tags: July 4, Indepedence Day

Lots of gossip and news about a big shake up at Gawker Media, including the sale of Sploid and Screenhead which I won’t recount here (if any one knows how or where Denton is selling the sites, let me know) but I did notice this at the tale end of the NY Times article:

For his part, Mr. Denton spends a lot more time reading computer code than blogs. He believes that the common software behind blogs isn’t up to the task and now has 11 people, including 4 in Hungary, working on developing proprietary solutions.

Yep, looks like Nick’s trying to create his own blogging software ala Jason Calacanis’ BlogSmith and will dump SixApart’s MovableType. I’d be interested to know why though?

Tags: SixApart, MovableType, Nick Denton, Gawker Media

In case the video of the Big Brother Turkey Slap indecent is yanked from YouTube (currently available here), here’s a full transcript of the incident (as I viewed it anyway).

Length: 1:57

Start: general discussion
0:08: Video on Camilla in bed, John and Ash call from across the room “Cam come here”. Camilla responds “what”.
0:10: Camilla: “what are you doing”, starts to hop out of bed
0:11: as hoping out of bed Camilla says “you aren’t going to fart on me, are ya”, Ash reponds “nup”.
0:17 Camilla is now about to hop into bed with Ash and John, she asks “did you just fart?”
0:18-0:24: Camilla hops on top of the boys, unclear is she saying anything but Ash is head saying “we’re not doing anything..seriously”.
0:28: John says to Camilla: “lie down, shut your eyes”.
Should note, lots of giggling from all 3 at this stage
0:30-0:35: Ash says “lie down, shut your eyes”. Camilla responds (giggling): “You’re not going to turkey slap me are you?”…laughter, Ash says “no”, Camilla responds (laughing) “You are, aren’t you…you liars” as she hops under the covers of the bed (saying also “let me in”). Ash is head say “naarrr” whilst laughing.
0:42-0:44: Camilla, hoping under the covers and John puts is arm around her (note, she is by no means pinned down). Camilla says (laughing) “I hurt you if you do…I’ll bite it”
0:45-0:50: lots of laughing for all 3, John’s arm is around Camilla, but she is by no means “pinned down”.
0:50-0:54: Ash moves towards Camilla
0:55-0:57: Ash turkey slaps Camilla…Camilla is laughing hysterically, as are the boys
0:58-1:01: more laughing, Ash sits back, Camilla saying “shit” whilst laughing her head off
1:04: Camilla says something as she sits up, not clear.
1:06: Krystal (I think) yells out “what happened”. Camilla responds “I just got turkey slapped”. Lots of laughter.
1:10 Camilla goes to lie down back on the bed. John says he “needs a hand” then puts his hand below the sheets towards his groin. Camilla says “naaaaaar”.
1:13: Camilla says “you guys are so mean to me”.
1:14: Ash says “it was funny though”. Camilla says “your mean”.
1:18: Claire says something in the background that is hard to determine due to the laughing, ends in “if you don’t like it”…someone else yells “bite it off”.
1:22: Camilla says “that was soo mean”
1:25-1:28: Camilla clearly grabs Johns you know what. John yells “fuck off!”.

And that’s pretty much it. Camilla starts talking to John and Ash and remains in the bed, seemingly not upset in the least about the incident.

Tags: Big Brother, Big Brother Australia, Turkey Slap, John and Ash

Thank god there is at least one Australian politician out there with some common sense, and as much as I’ve never been a huge fan of the Australian Democrats, good on Andrew Bartlett for this (via the Behind Big Brother Forums quoting AAP)

REALITY TV show Big Brother should be left alone by meddling politicians, Australian Democrats senator Andrew Bartlett said today.
“It is politicians trying to be Big Brother that we really need to be concerned about,” Senator Bartlett said.

The program has been heavily criticised by politicians and family groups after two contestants were removed from the program after allegedly sexually assaulting a female contestant.

“If anyone in the Big Brother house broke the law, then it can be dealt with by the legal system,” he said.

“Attempting to force a television show off the air because of an incident that wasn’t even screened on television is an excessive intrusion into the lives of Australians by moralising, preaching politicians who want to control how people live their lives.”

He said people had forgotten the origins of the name Big Brother.

“The original Big Brother was a politician in a book by George Orwell who used political power to control every aspect of peoples lives, from what they said, did and watched, right down to their private thoughts,” Senator Bartlett said.

Tags: Big Brother, Big Brother Australia, Andrew Bartlett

Want to see what the controversy is about: here it is!
(note, whilst there is no clear nudity some may deem this NSFW).

Tags: Big Brother, Big Brother Australia, Turkey Slap, John and Ash

Update: looks like Channel Ten got the video yanked from YouTube, new copy above.

If you haven’t caught the news yet, Big Brother Australia is under a huge amount of fire at the moment following an incident of sexual harassment, or sexual assault depending on which report you read, where Big Brother contestant John pinned Camilla down on her bed whilst contestant Ashley whacked her on the face with his manhood.

Whilst not condoning the incident for one minute, their eviction from the house (the right thing for the producers to do) has caused meltdown amongst the so-called protectors of Australian morals, with calls for the show to be shut down completely.

It’s hard to get a full grasp as to what is happening because the Big Brother website itself is currently displaying this message:

And the biggest of the independent fan forums is also having problems with traffic as well:

What we do know is this:

According to Behind Big Brother, Senator Helen Coonan has spoken to the Australian Communication and Media Authority to determine if Endemol Southen Star have breached broadcast codes of practice for letting the incident be shown on internet streams and Opposition leader Kim Beazley has made a statement recommending Channel 10 make this season of Big Brother the last.

Police are investigating the incident, and naturally the do-gooders of the Family First Party are calling for charges.

Rumors on other sites indicate everything from the show not going to air tonight (eviction night) through to Ash returning to the house Tuesday.

It’s just a shame that the imbecile element of Australian politics is using this as an excuse to bash this style of television once more. At the end of the day it’s time for reasonable people to stand up and say that if we don’t like this style of television we wont watch…and politicians should have no role in it…now if only we had a 1st amendment.

Tags: Big Brother Australia, Big Brother

Update: The Big Brother website now has an official post stating that the show will go on, and reports also indicated that Camilla has been interviewed by police but will not be pressing charges.

There’s been some interesting debate and discussion in the comments here at duncanriley.com in relation to my trips inside the Joel Comm Made for Adsense program. I’m always suspicious when people go on the attack and don’t actually try to defend their products, which has been the case now for several days..however Eric Holmlund has responded in the comments and to be fair to Eric, he has a much different take on what they are doing. I’m not going to pass judgment on his arguments, but as he went to a reasonable effort to explain some of what they are doing, I’ve republished the comments below so Eric’s side is clear for everyone to use in making their own decisions, and thank Eric for at least coherently trying to explain what they are aiming at. Food for thought as they say….

From Eric Holmlund:

As I stated, the purpose of the templates is to help people build their own websites with their own content. My philosophy on PLR content is that it’s a viable media to use in the creation of unique content.

We’re NOT encouraging people to upload the pre-built sites as-is. I knew this would be misinterpreted by some people (who havn’t bought the product), and for that reason, we contemplated not including the PLR content.

Continue Reading…

I’ve been reading with interest over the last couple of months bloggers, particularly in the SEO community, arguing that the link=nofollow attribute, the attribute launched with much fan fare a few years back as a solution to comment spam has been a complete waste of time.

The main argument is that comment spam hasn’t decreased at all, and you know what: they’re right. It’s worse than ever.

I also saw an argument some where (forgive me, I cant remember where…it is was you, let me know) that by using nofollow you are unfairly punishing people who participate in the conversation at your site….that it’s basically anti-community if you like, and in many ways this is a fair call.

Then there’s Jeremy Zawodny from Yahoo, who wrote:

Look. Linking is part of what makes the web work. If you’re actually concerned about every link you make being counted in some global database of site endorsements, you’re probably over-thinking just a bit. Life’s too short for that, ya know? Link and be linked to. Let the search engines sort it out.

So hence today, as a bit of an experiment at least, and with comment spam under control here thanks to Akismet, I’ve installed this plugin that removes the nofollow attribute from my comments here at duncanriley.com. It’s only here at duncanriley.com at the moment, it’s not a b5media thing and I won’t be implementing it anywhere else (for the time being) until I see what the effect of this is, but please feel free to comment on the issue…because I’m sharing the link love again in the comments, and I’ll follow this up in a while once I see what happens.

I noticed an incoming link from Paul Short’s old blog network Bloglogic tonight, so I thought I’d check it out given I’d recently read the news that he’d given up Bloglogic to trade under the name of Gomaud Media…and I’ve got to say I was shocked!

Bloglogic lives! as a blog news style site (I’m tempted to say Blog Herald style site, but well…you know, it hard to compare anything to my old baby).

According to the Gomaud blog, Bloglogic has been relaunched as a blogging / tech / Web 2.0 news site.

Best of luck to Paul, although I’m annoyed he didn’t drop me a line earlier to let me know about the changes: Paul, I’m still here! I’ve just added Bloglogic back into Bloglines after a fairly big break and I look forward to reading what Paul has to offer.

Postscript: I haven’t posted this post yet as a type, but I wanted to add this: you can subscribe to the Bloglogic feed here. Paul’s a bloke I’ve got a lot of time for and who had a really bad streak of bad luck in 2005…and it’s great to see him back at the blogging game and creating new properties. Best of luck Paul.

Tags: Paul Short, Bloglogic, Gomaud Media

CSS Reboot, an excellent resource of CSS beautifulness is up for sale at Sitepoint. I can’t remember whether this was once a 9rules or Paul Scrivens site…certainly there is mention of Mike Rundle on the main page…

Also if you haven’t checked it out, the sales forums at Sitepoint have had a big makeover with a proper bidding system…very nice indeed, certainly in terms of tracking current bidding and whether a site is sold. It really takes the service from being just another forum (although a bloody good one at that) to being a proper auction site….look out eBay, the SitePoint boys from Melbourne are coming to getcha!

Tags: Sitepoint