Apparently I’m a ‘weather expert’
October 13th, 2007
Every so often I check through my website’s stats looking for hotlinking. Mostly it isn’t a big problem but sometimes websites or forums can really put a strain on my server, particularly if it’s a site with a lot of traffic such as Fark forums or another busy website. At other times it just annoys the crap out of me that a website would rather hotlink an image on my server instead of uploading it to their own.
If you know how, you can implement techniques that either prevent hotlinking entirely, or serve up a different image to the offending site, as many who have inadvertantly displayed the infamous goatse picture can testify
.
It was while checking for hotlinking I discovered I’m a ‘weather expert’. Imagine my surprise upon learning of this hitherto unknown talent!
During May of this year I wrote a blog post about how to predict summer weather using the leaves of garden shrubs. As it turned out, this year was the wettest summer on record but I digress…
A guy called Pat Timm, who, according to his website, weathersystems.com (Notice the link, Pat, should you happen to be reading this), is a free-lance writer, columnist, and a recognized expert on Pacific Northwest Weather, decided not only to rip-off my images and bandwidth but also my theory and make out like it was devised by an expert!
The one on the right is a new leaf that has grown this year. So, according to some experts, it would be a warmer than average summer
There are no other experts - I came up with the method! And I’m not an expert!
I really don’t know what has bugged me more about this - the fact that he’s hotlinking my images and stealing my bandwidth, the fact that he’s ripping off my homespun weather prediction method without any credits or the fact he’s claiming the method was devised by experts. Probably the latter, now that I think about it. At least now I’m an expert. 
Some screencaptures:
The hotlinker:
1 Comment Add your own
1. Soapy | October 14th, 2007 at 6:42 pm
Looks like some people have no sense of humour. Pat Timm has removed the post. Never mind, at least I have plenty of screen captures.
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