Having Fun with Hotlinkers

I was watching the referrer log on my server today while testing something for work and happened to see that someone had hotlinked one of my pictures on newyork.craiglist.org. Some putz realtor was using a photo I made of the view of Downtown from the South Street Seaport to sell an apartment. People who hotlink should realise how easy it is to redirect to anything else...

The ad, with my image:

The ad, redirected to a lovely picture of the Lower East Side at its spectacular mid-1970's low-point:

Games to Play on Transit #14

See how many times you can board using last month's pass.

Completely unwittingly I have been playing this game all week, possibly longer. On Monday, when it was sunny I moved my pass from my coat pocket to my shirt pocket, noticing at the time it was quite bent because my shirt pocket wouldn't sit flat. I have been showing the same bent pass all week. Just today I noticed just as I was about to board the bus that this bent transit pass was for March. I dug frantically for half second for the correct April pass and in not finding it immediately chose to intentionally flash the March pass and hope for the best, knowing that the April pass had to be in my pocket somewhere and, if challenged I could always fake a flustered, "Oh! I'm terribly sorry. The right one is in here somewhere..." and dig for it as necessary. Fortunately it worked as well as it has been all week and I was able to find the correct pass in the comfort of a rear seat and without the disapproving stare of the driver.

I'm amazed that I've managed to go a week, maybe longer, showing last month's pass.