"With all due respect, ma'am, you can go jump off a bridge,"

http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2009/11/16/pledge_of_allegiance/index.html?source=rss&aim=/opinion/feature

I used to live in the US once. More than 10 years ago now. I was, in essence, also sent to the principal's office when I both refused to recite the oath, and when I didn't want to stand. I got out of reciting the oath, what with me not being a citizen and all, but I had to stand, because the other students were jealous of me sitting down when they were all forced to stand.

Torchlight

Welcome to Diablo 2.5! After having spent only a handful of hours with Torchlight, I can already proclaim, with a fair bit of certainty the best game of the year. It's made by many (if not all) of the same people who made Diablo 2. I have played countless hours of Diablo 2. It was my goto game for several years, before WoW took hold of me. Anyway, Torchlight is a lot like Diablo 2. So much so, in fact, that anyone who has ever played Diablo 2 might think that this is simply a sequel.

What does differ from Diablo 2, however, and what makes Torchlight a better game (so far anyway), is primarily that there seems to be a more open quest system. As some of you may recall, Diablo 2 had a fixed set of quests that you repeated in all difficulties, until you were "done". This was a fairly small set, 30 quests per difficulty in the last expansion, if memory serves, which made the Diablo 2 end-game more about loot hunting than anything else. Don't get me wrong, I liked that too, but having played a lot of WoW, I really like the almost endless supply of quests that you have. Sure, Torchlight won't be like that, most likely, with a comparatively smaller world to explore, but it does feel like they've given this particular part some though. The other very nice part is that you can have a pet companion that not only can carry things for you, it can go back to down and sell them for you! No more having to TP to town every 3 minutes because your inventory got full. You can also equip your pet (a dog or a cat) with rings, amulets and spells. It's like a better version of the hirelings that you could have in Diablo 2.

For everything else, Torchlight is exactly like Diablo 2. Similar game mechanics, similar interface, hell, even the hotkeys are mostly the same. This, of course, makes Torchlight, for someone who loved Diablo 2, a wonderful experience. If you didn't like Diablo 2, though; Torchlight is probably not for you.

So, if you were not completely against playing Diablo 2, there's a fair chance that you will love Torchlight. I know I already do. Start playing this game today! You won't regret it!

It's OK to not write unit tests

This guy is 100% correct. It's perfectly fine to not write unit tests for everything.
I don't even know what to write here. This guy is just so fucking right. Read the article, and follow some of the links. Do it! Stop being a slave to dogma!

Blast From The Past

I came across this name the other day on the internet: Keill Randor.
It rung a bell, so I started investigating. It turns out that he's a character in a book I read ages ago as a "young adult" that I loved. I no longer have the book (I wonder where all those books went), but I remember it fondly.

Since it is written for "young adults", I doubt that I would like it, should I re-read it now, but it was still quite funny to happen upon this little nugget of my past.