Taking output from guitar amp to desk

[Custom24]

I'm new, and could do with a little question anwered.

I came across this
http://www.homerecording.com/direct.html

Although it tickled my funny bone, I don't understand. The article that referred me to it, http://www.homerecording.com/newbies.html

seemed to indicate that you could actually damage a desk by connecting your amp somehow to the desk.

But how? The only ways I know to record the sound of a real physical guitar amp are

1. Mic it up
2. Take the line out jack to an line level input
3. Take the DI output (if it has one) to a mic level input

Although I can imagine that some of these will sound better than others (only the first one actually is the sound of the amp itself), none of them would actually damage the desk, would they? So what am I missing?

Thanks for any suggestions.

 

[Farview]

You are correct, but some people will try to plug the speaker output into the desk. That is not a good idea.

 

[Custom24]

Plug the speaker output into the desk? Yes - I'd forgotten that on some amps there is a jack output for the speaker to plug into. In this case you'd ruin both amp and desk, because the amp would not be under any load either.

Thanks for clearing it up for me - I wasn't being as stupid as I assumed.