http://basilsunshine.com Good coffee, great spew. Fri, 11 Dec 2009 21:01:48 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en Ah, I remember the good old days of eBay, when you could peruse the entire inventory in an hour, read about the Ebola virus on the main page, and list your soul for sale if the mood struck you. But now it seems the online auction house's rules, growing more ... http://basilsunshine.com/2009/12/12/ebay-protecting-the-stupid-at-everyone-elses-cost/ Recently the House passed an amendment to the Matthew Shepard Act, intended to further protect LGBTIQ (that is, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex and/or queer) people from hate crimes. President Obama has already announced that he intends to sign the bill. Senate is preparing to vote. That is all well and ... http://basilsunshine.com/2009/05/08/american-family-association-sinks-to-new-low/ I have been recently asked how to create one of these web form verifications things (particularly, featuring CAPTCHA images) which will confirm that a real human is submitting your form, rather than a bot sending you ads for Viagra and other happy pills. I can tell you firsthand that some ... http://basilsunshine.com/2009/04/26/creating-anti-spam-bot-verifications-for-web-forms/ At my local grocery store, they have a unique setup allowing you to pick up your grocery purchases at a drive-thru, where the groceries are loaded into your car for you. (Old and/or lazy people love it, but I digress!) Each of the little bins they put your groceries in ... http://basilsunshine.com/2009/04/26/more-hilarity-from-the-universe/ In these challenging economic times, this recipe will yield an inexpensive but delicious latte-like drink which will satisfy most $4.00 Starbucks iced latte addicts. Die-hard espresso afficionados may detect the difference, but even they will most likely accept this drink (at least when times are tough!). Ingredients: Medaglia D'Oro Instant Espresso ... http://basilsunshine.com/2009/04/22/basil-sunshines-poor-mans-iced-latte-recipe/ Shit, in fine sterling silver. 10. Sterling Silver Oh Shit Charm (9/16th"). For shits and giggles. Includes chain. We all know someone who thinks they're hot shit. 9. Hot Shit Costume. One size fits all. Not just for Halloween. Or perhaps their shit doesn't stink. 8. Dollar Sign Fake Poo. Wow, just ... http://basilsunshine.com/2009/04/21/the-shit-list-top-10-shittiest-gifts/ Is it just me, or are all these verification things swearing at me? [caption id="" align="alignnone" width="385" caption="Yes this really came up."][/caption] See also previous post, FAIL Blog Contribution. http://basilsunshine.com/2009/04/21/fail-blog-part-ii/ Yahoo!, how you disappoint me. I'm afraid I shall start Googling more often. A few months ago I was alerted by Bob Parsons that Yahoo! Domains was raising their prices for domain renewals from something like ten bucks to $34.95 per year, which of course is a ridiculous price for a ... http://basilsunshine.com/2009/04/14/yahoo-domains-sucks/ Or, "How Not to Get the Dreaded PSAs (Public Service Announcements)." As a webmaster, I learned some good lessons recently about Adsense's over-sensitivity to certain words. Immediately upon publishing a page about mesothelioma, a specific type of cancer, the Adsense ads were replaced with PSAs. No matter what I did, it ... http://basilsunshine.com/2009/04/09/lessons-in-adsense-sensitivity/ Here is my contribution to the FAIL Blog. This code really came up in one of those verification boxes on a site I was recently browsing. After I took the screenshot, I refreshed the code about fifty times to see if some smartass programmer did it on purpose, but all the ... http://basilsunshine.com/2009/04/01/fail-blog-contribution/