Torchlight 2 beta screenshots

So I'm lucky enough to be in the torchlight 2 closed beta. And since there's no NDA (NDA are for babies!), I'm free to share whatever I want about it. Maybe I'll write a proper review later, but I can tell you that it is totally awesome. The beta takes about 6 hours to complete and is the first act of the game. There will be 3 acts in the game, plus a 4th boss act, and a lot of end game content.

Cheat to max out your Dropbox referral space

I love dropbox. It has really helped me synchronize important files between computers, while making an online backup of everything. But because the 2 gb free space that you get on a basic account isn't enough for me, I've been looking for ways to increase it. Of course there are the normal ways to increase your dropbox space, described here. You can get 16 gb extra space by referring 32 people, but this is hard to do if you're friendless like me. I found a way to cheat the referral system here and here. The steps on these pages seem a bit outdated though, so I decided to rewrite it a bit according to my own experiences. Who knows, maybe it can help someone.

Let me start by saying  that if you have friends that could use dropbox, you should really just get them to try it out. If you have the money (and aren't a cheapskate like me), just pay for a pro account. If you're afraid of getting your account banned, don't do this either.

1. Sign in with your account on dropbox.com. Save your referral link.

2. Download virtualbox and install it.

3. Download an Ubuntu iso (you can also use any windows or linux iso/cd if you want)

4. In virtual box manager, create a virtual machine for your ubuntu iso by pressing "New" and following the steps

5. Start the virtual machine. In the first run wizard, select the ubuntu iso as your installation media. The virtual machine will now load using the ubuntu iso.

6. On the ubuntu welcome screen, choose "try ubuntu". Ubuntu will now start up.

7. In ubuntu, open firefox and go to dropbox.com. Download dropbox for ubuntu. (Download -> ubuntu 32 or 64 bit -> open .deb file in ubuntu software center -> in software center, click install)

8. Run dropbox. On the startup screen, choose "I already have a dropbox account".

9. Make a snapshot of the current state. (In the virtualbox menu: Machine -> Take Snapshot)

10. Use your referral link to sign up for a dropbox account. You don't have to use an existing email address to sign up, it will just accept anything that looks like one. You can either do this step in your normal OS or in virtualbox itself.

11. Enter the email address and password of the account that you just created. Click forward. Now you should've gained 500 mb extra space on your original dropbox account.

12. Close the virtual box and return it to the snapshot (Machine -> Close -> Power off Machine & select Restore current snapshot)

13. In the virtualbox manager, start the virtual machine again by pressing start.

Repeat steps 10-13. It should only take a few minutes per referral, so it's fast enough to do once you've set it up.

EDIT: As suggested in the comments, you can try a combination of these solutions between every try if it doesn't work for you:
-change the mac address of the virtual machine
-change your IP address
-boot back to the live cd and continue from step 5

Please stop spamming this post with referral links.

EDIT2: Maybe you should consider using Copy instead of Dropbox. Copy offers 15 GB of free space and 5 GB per referral. If you sign up using a referral link, you also get 5 GB extra space to start with. Here is my referral link if you're interested.

Tarepanda amigurumi

I've always loved tarepanda, the cute lazy panda. Lately, I've started making amigurumi (crochet dolls) and I really wanted to make a tarepanda one. I found the Japanese pattern here. At first, the Japanese pattern had me puzzled because I'm a noob at handwork and I had never seen any kind of pattern before, let alone in Japanese. But after reading this guide, it all makes sense to me. There seem to be some people that want this pattern written out in English though, so I'll do my best to write it out. If you see any mistakes or have suggestions, let me know so I can improve it.

You'll need white and black wool for this. Everything that should be black is highlighted in black, the rest is white. In the Japanese pattern, every round was joined with a slip stitch, but I didn't do that because it didn't seem necessary. You only really have to use slip stitch to join in the two round before you switch between colors in the body or it will look odd, so I wrote that in my pattern.

Explanation of terms used

Ch = chain
Circle = magic circle
Sc = single crochet
Sc-increase = increase single crochet
Sc-decrease = decrease single crochet
Dc = double crochet
Dc-triple = 3 double crochets inserted in the same stitch
Half-Dc = half double crochet
Half-Dc-increase = two half double crochets inserted in the same stitch

Head

Ch 14

1) 30x Sc (14 on each side of the chain and 1 extra at both ends) = 30

2) Sc-increase, 12x Sc, 3x Sc-increase, 12x Sc, 2x Sc-increase = 36

3) Sc-increase, 13x Sc, 2x (Sc-increase, Sc), Sc-increase, 13x Sc, 2x (Sc-increase, Sc) = 42

4) 2x Sc, Sc-increase, 14x Sc, 2x (Sc-increase, 2x Sc), Sc-increase, 14x Sc, Sc-increase, 2x Sc, Sc-increase = 48

5) 48x Sc = 48

6) Sc-increase, 15x Sc, 2x (Sc-increase, 3x Sc), Sc-increase, 15x Sc, 2x (Sc-increase, 3x Sc) = 54

7) - 8) 54x Sc = 54

9) 2x Sc, Sc-increase, 16x Sc, 2x (Sc-increase, 4x Sc), Sc-increase, 16x Sc, Sc-increase, 4x Sc, Sc-increase, 2x Sc = 60
10) - 14) 60 Sc = 60
15) 4x Sc, Sc-decrease, 16x Sc, 2x (Sc-decrease, 4x Sc), Sc-decrease, 16x Sc, Sc-decrease, 4x Sc, Sc-decrease = 54
16) 3x Sc, Sc-decrease, 15x Sc, 2x (Sc-decrease, 3x Sc), Sc-decrease, 15x Sc, Sc-decrease, 3x Sc, Sc-decrease = 48
17) 2x Sc, Sc-decrease, 14x Sc, 2x (Sc-decrease, 2x Sc), Sc-decrease, 14x Sc, Sc-decrease, 2x Sc, Sc-decrease = 42
18) Sc, Sc-decrease, 13x Sc, 2x (Sc-decrease, Sc), Sc-decrease, 13x Sc, Sc-decrease, Sc, Sc-decrease = 36
19)  Sc-decrease, 12x Sc, 3x Sc-decrease, 12x Sc, 2x Sc-decrease = 30
20) Sc-decrease, 11x Sc, 2x Sc-decrease, 11x Sc, Sc-decrease = 26
Sew the head closed

Body

Ch 12
1) Sc 26 (12 on each side and 1 extra on each end) = 26
2) Sc-increase, 10x Sc, 3x Sc-increase, 10x Sc, 2x Sc-increase = 32
3) Sc-increase, Sc, 3x half-Dc, 4x Dc, 3x half-Dc, Sc, Sc-increase, half-Dc-increase, Dc-triple, half-Dc-increase, 12x Sc, half-Dc-increase, Dc-triple, half-Dc-increase = 42
4) 2x half-Dc, half-Dc-increase, 3x half-Dc, 4x Dc, 3x half-Dc, half-Dc-increase, 2x half-Dc, Sc-increase, 2x Sc, Sc-increase, 18x Sc, Sc-increase, 2x Sc, Sc-increase = 48
5) 6x (Sc-increase, 7x Sc) = 54
6) - 10) 54 Sc = 54
11) 6x (7x Sc, Sc-decrease) = 48
12) - 14) 48 Sc = 48
15) 6x (6x Sc, Sc-decrease) = 42
16) - 17) 42 Sc =  42
18) Sc-decrease, 4x Sc, 2x(Sc-decrease, 5x Sc), Sc-decrease, 4x Sc, Sc-decrease, Sc, 6x Sc, Sc-decrease, 5x Sc, join with slip stitch = 36
19) 23x Sc, 8x Sc, 5x Sc, join with slip stitch = 36
20) 36 Sc = 36
21) 6x (4x Sc; Sc-decrease) = 30
22) 30 x Sc = 30

The extra black in 18) and 19) should be in the middle of the tummy. When I made my panda, this didn't work out, so you might have to adjust the pattern a little so it's in the middle.

Arm (make 2)

Circle 6
1) 3x (Sc-increase, Sc) = 9
2) 3x (Sc-increase, 2x Sc) = 12
3) - 7) 12 Sc = 12

Leg (make 2)
Circle 6
1) 3x (Sc-increase, Sc) = 9
2) 9x Sc = 9
3) 3x (Sc-increase, 2x Sc) = 12
4) 12x Sc = 12
5) 3x (Sc-increase, 3x Sc) = 15
6) 3x (Sc-increase, 4x Sc) = 18

Ear (make 2)
Circle 6
1) 6x Sc-increase = 12
2) - 3) 12x Sc = 12

Tail

Circle 6
1) 6x Sc-increase = 12
2) 12x Sc = 12


Attach the head to the body; the slit where you closed the head should be on the bottom. Then you can attach the arms, legs, ears and tail. Finally, you can make the eyes out of black and white felt and glue them on. Look at the following images for reference. You can print this on an A4 paper to get the shape of the eyes right.