Left the option not to force ssl in development in the environments config file for development.
Told mercury to use the sessions helpers authentication system to authenticate users.
Installed paper-trail and implemented it for articles.
Small modifications in Articles controller in passing.
Changed asset pipeline not to require the whole tree anymore.
Added test for issuing get request on ne article as user not signed in.
Refactored articles controller to use a before filter like all the other controllers in his class do.