Hot this!

In the realm of things you think people know and then are shocked, SHOCKED, that they don't, let me add "hotlinking" to the list of things you'd think I would know about, but had no clue.

Actually, let me start here - if you know what "hotlinking" is and can't believe I don't - now you know how I feel when I wittily respond "Peek Freans are a very serious cookie," to someone's over-serious use of the word "serious" -- and receive a sad, blank stare and a little pat on the back, "it's okay. Not everyone can be funny." Not everyone can be the treasure trove of useless pop culture that breeds in the petri dish I call a brain, you mean.

Hotlinking evidently is a big no-no on the internet - whereby you place an image on your site/blog/page/web presence from the gods, linked directly to someone else's file on their site/blog/page/web presence from the gods.

I have to say - doing this never once crossed my mind. Literally, it just never even occurred to me it was possible. And I've done plenty of image fishing recently, trust me. But you know, it seemed pretty clear to me how it worked -- find, save, upload? (Not to mention, cite, source or reference --or, like I did here, just link to the place from whence the image sprang. Case closed.)

But, you know, like always, there's a nefarious method to every madness. Hotlinking is blogging piracy. It's bandwidth theft. And that's not nice, folks. So don't do it.