Hotlinking the Vegetable

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The Middle-Fork post: Houdini's Big Yawn

Okay, I've got a live one.
This morning shortly after 0600 PDT someone found Houdini's Big Yawn using Google Images.

Here's the URL which started it off (I've cut the monster up and numbered the lines.)

1) http://images.google.com/imgres?
2) imgurl=http://www.middle-fork.org/archives/HoudinisBigYawn.gif&
3) imgrefurl=http://www.middle-fork.org/archives/2004/11/&h=351&
4) w=600&sz=191&tbnid=viKoXFLogOEJ:&tbnh=77&tbnw=133&hl=en&start=39&
5) prev=/images%3Fq%3Dcat%2Byawn%26start%3D20%26svnum%3D10%26hl%3Den%26lr%
6) 3D%26client%3Dfirefox-a%26rls%3Dorg.mozilla:en-US:official%26sa%3DN


The search strings are on line 5: cat yawn
This is the search results page.
This is what you see after clicking on the thumbnail.

Here is where the picture is hotlinked.
It's part of Eastern US Weather Portal, which, hmm, looks pretty cool. Anything like that for the West?

Anyway, I wll now register an account, noting that their registration page contains some rules, one of which is:

You agree not to post any copyrighted material unless the copyright is owned by you or by this bulletin board.

which is pretty draconian. I consider this fair use, but by these rules, they can't even use my image with my perrmission - clearly excessive and downright UnAmerican! OMIGAWD!
I better get in there quick and let them know, that for the pittance of a hotlink, I have sold to them the limited right to use this image in this specific context!

Roveg to the Rescue!


Ok, I have resgistered. I try to register as "the Robot Vegetable" everywhere. Some places, like the borg, require 2 names, in which case I am theRobot.



So who is this person who is so kind as to like and use my photograph? What can I discover?

The Pilgrim's IP is 69.165.108.230. Digging into it results in:

therobotvegetable@hosting ~ $ host -a 69.165.108.230
Trying "230.108.165.69.in-addr.arpa"
;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NOERROR, id: 8250
;; flags: qr rd ra; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 1, AUTHORITY: 3, ADDITIONAL: 2

;; QUESTION SECTION:
;230.108.165.69.in-addr.arpa. IN PTR

;; ANSWER SECTION:
230.108.165.69.in-addr.arpa. 86389 IN PTR 69-165-108-230.agstme.adelphia.net.

;; AUTHORITY SECTION:
108.165.69.in-addr.arpa. 86389 IN NS ns1.adelphia.net.
108.165.69.in-addr.arpa. 86389 IN NS ns2.adelphia.net.
108.165.69.in-addr.arpa. 86389 IN NS ns3.adelphia.net.

;; ADDITIONAL SECTION:
ns1.adelphia.net. 5034 IN A 24.50.78.2
ns2.adelphia.net. 5034 IN A 68.168.224.177

Received 179 bytes from 65.197.143.152#53 in 1 ms


Adelphia.net provides High-Speed Internet connections "in 31 states and Puerto Rico."

This pretty much means that, without going to extremes which would be invasive I cannot find out anything more about this person.

Prior to the Dark Ages, I would have stopped here, but now I can go say hi.

Well, maybe I can't. although I was able to go to the page w/ Houdini before, now I can't. I will post this and then update it later.

UPDATE: IT's starting to look like a black hole. Even though I've registered and logged in, I can't actually do anything. I keep getting error messages that tell me to login (although the screen displays my status as logged in.) The Adminstrator link is dead. When I email to the address from which my registration letter came, it bounces. When I delete all cookies etc on my browser and try again, the same thing happens. alas.

This is the frustrating part. It's a $%&^$&*@ forum! Supposedly it's for people to post and reply. hmm, maybe if I shower and put on some clean clothes?

UPDATE 18Dec2005: I eventually got an email confirming my registration. This is a new thing, usually the first email with a confirmation link which, when clicked on, finishes the registration process. This time, I got the first letter, clciked the URL, and it acted like I was registered, but not this time. Well, live and learn.

Anyway, I've now posted my thank you, and people are starting to see the reply.