What is hotlinking? Its when you place an image or file of any sort on your website and directly link to where you found it, instead of placing it on your own webhost’s servers.

Why is it wrong to hotlink? Because, basically, its theft. All webhosts charge for bandwidth usage (in one way or another) and so if you hotlink to another website’s images or files you are stealing their bandwidth instead of paying for it yourself.

Also, they might pull a switcheroo on you if they find out about your stealing activities. And what is a switcheroo? Its when the actual owners of the file change the file to be not what you thought it was: Here’s an example:

An Italian politician found a nice image of the pantheon online and used it on his website, it looked like this:

The owner of the image got a little miffed as his hits sent her bandwidth through the roof. So, after no replies to her ‘cease and desist’ request, she pulled the old switcheroo which resulted in his website looking like this:

Pfffff! Today’s lesson is: Don’t Hotlink

Thanks to the B3ta newsletter for this story.

<<Clickio Pickio

If you believe that the world would be a better place without organised religions, this is a great website to visit.

Its founders have set up an entirely new (or rediscovered) religion based on their belief in the deity called the Flying Spaghetti Monster who invented the Universe one night after he had a bit too much to drink (That’s why life is a bit weird)

Its a really good religion to be a part of - Instead of 10 commandments they have ‘Eight I’d Really Rather you Didn’ts’, and their Heaven has a beer volcano and a stripper factory - Brilliant!

Oh, they’re also really quite into Pirates.

Arrgh!

Another great site courtesy of the brilliant B3ta.com; This is a website which lists real emails people have received from their mothers.

My favourite so far is this IM exchange:

Go Here:

http://postcardsfromyomomma.com

hee.

Back in November last year (2007), Greenpeace decided to hold an online poll to decide on a name for a Humpback whale as promotion for their campaign to save a bunch of whales from being killed.

Some of the top names included Aiko, Libertad, Mira, Kaimana, Aurora, Shanti, Amal and Manami, but they only got one percent of the vote each. 2nd place went to Humphrey with 3%. But the winner, with over 78% of the votes, and proof of the incredible power of the internet to do very silly things, was Mr Spashy Pants.

You can find the full story on wikipedia here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mr_Splashy_Pants

And you can also find a fantastic list of other internet phenomena here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Internet_phenomena

This is Cassie, SassyCassie86, and she wants to be Paris Hilton’s new best friend.

Luckily for her, it seems that MTV is running a competition where the person with the most votes from their website will see that special dream come true. And they’ll make some telly about it, which would be very good telly if our Cassie won, I’m sure you agree.

B3ta have got a sort of campaign going, and they got some clout on the interwebs, so join in:

Click Cassie’s picture above to go vote, Go Cassie!

Look at these soldiers who love my website! They don’t really of course - I made this wacky picture at

www.funonit.com

You choose your text and then choose which photo you want it on, its very quick and easy.

I found the site through clazh.com, where they list another 15 crazy and cool photo and video websites - Have a look here: http://www.clazh.com/15-crazy-and-cool-photo-and-video-websites/. That should keep you entertained for a while!

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I reckon young Hero, singing in this video, is the reincarnation of John Lennon. What do you think?

Rock on, Hero, we love you!

I’m nearly 40, so this has a particular resonance with me. You may be not nearly 40 but if you’re in any way a fan of the original Star Wars movie you should find this funny. If you don’t find it funny then god help you, and god help us all.

Sweding is where you take something that you like, such as a movie, and remake it yourself using whatever comes to hand.

Above is a brilliant example (I especially like the x-wing fighter attack on the death star sequence)

The phrase “sweding” was invented by the writers of the upcoming film ‘Be Kind Rewind’ starring Jack Black & Mos Def, where a video store owner decides to remake classic films, after all of his tapes are wiped by magnetism, for the benefit of the store’s one regular customer. The length of time it takes for the movies to arrive is explained to the customer, a little old lady played by Mia Farrow, by the tapes having come from Sweden. Hence: When the 2 guys are making the films, they are ’sweding’ them.

Search on youtube for swede, you’ll find loads of great clips like the one above; and for more info on the film some google ads should have popped up over there on the left, heh heh.

update: Except they haven’t, heh heh

It’s a great website to go and have a giggle at. The title is an acronym for    "Fundamentalists Say The Funniest Darn Things"

On their top 100 page there are some brilliant examples of what nonsense small-minded extremists can come up with; and here are a couple I’ve c&p’d to whet your appetite:

"I am a bit troubled. I believe my son has a girlfriend, because she left a dirty magazine with men in it under his bed. My son is only 16 and I really don’t think he’s ready to date yet. What’s worse is that he’s sneaking some girl to his room behind my back."

And:

"Everyone knows scientists insist on using complex terminology to make it harder for True Christians to refute their claims.

Deoxyribonucleic Acid, for example… sounds impressive, right? But have you ever seen what happens if you put something in acid? It dissolves! If we had all this acid in our cells, we’d all dissolve! So much for the Theory of Evolution, Check MATE!"

Brilliant. There are scary people around, be careful out there.