my lack of commenting on that excerpt came mostly from the fact that i didn't have time to read it. things are busy for me, so i've unfortunately had to do some LJ skimming to get a big picture of what's happening with people as opposed to details.

as for direct flickr link, try opening up one of those links, right-clicking the picture to get the pop up menu (apple-click if you're on a mac), say "copy image location" or something similar, and then paste that into an img tag. For example, the first second lovely picture would be: