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How was your day?
That's a question most all of us get asked sooner or later come the close of another 24-hour period, and the answers are likely to vary depending on the responder and what has or hasn't transpired.
Pretty good.
Not so hot.
Not long enough.
Don't ask.
Better Half and I usually share a mid-day progress report, a high noon check-in.
It's our "how's-it-going" husband-and-wife conference call - the barometer for the inevitable how-was-your-day dialogue to come later on at some point.
"What's going on?" I'll ask Better Half on these around-noon Alexander Graham Bell moments in Kiaski daily history.
"Same old, same old," Better Half will assure, rattling off a lackluster list of domestic engineering chores that he is tending to on my behalf, God bless him.
"Washed some dishes. Did some clothes. Walked the dog. Made the bed. Ate some breakfast."
I can't hardly top that, but I give it the old college try.
"How are things going with you?" he wonders aloud.
I utter a sound that can't be spelled but speaks volumes.
Then I sigh.
"I'm writing some stories. Laying out community pages."
I can interpret the brief silence that follows in two ways.
He is either impressed, moved beyond words for commentary.
Or he's nodded off, bored.
Was that a yawn I heard?
We part until later, reveling in each other's achievements and complaints so far.
The days are full of them, fodder for the "how-was-your-day" assessments.
Days come with feel-good moments - the late-blooming pink tulips spared a drooping demise thanks to old beach towels blanketing them overnight in artificial warmth.
We feel encouraged that we're actually having dinner on some days or that we finally finished something that we started.
And we gripe about the weather and whine about whatever.
It all comes together for the final assessment.
How was your day?
"Better now that you're home, honey," Better Half will tell me at the end of the day when I walk through the door.
I can't hardly top that.
(Kiaski, a resident of Steubenville, is a staff columnist and features writer for the Herald-Star and The Weirton Daily Times and community editor for the Herald-Star. She can be contacted at firstname.lastname@example.com.)


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May 4, 2012
By NYU Head Gardener, George Reis
Chives (Allium schoenoprasum) on the Green Roof at the Global Center for Academic and Spiritual Life, 238 Thompson Street
Have you always wanted a kitchen garden, but didn't know how to start one? Here's the plant for you: chives. Easy to grow, perennial, and so versatile in the kitchen. The flowers even have excellent ornamental value as you can see on the new green roof on top of NYU's new Global Center for Academic and Spiritual Life. The green roof is visible from the Kimmel Center next door. Chives are perfect for a sunny window box in an apartment. If they can thrive on a green roof in Manhattan, you know they're tough!
This Article is in the following Topics:
NYU Garden Shop, Sustainability
Type: Article
Press Contact: Christopher James | (212) 998-6876

subset: commoncrawl


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I hope this is not offtopic. I need a video tutorial for complete song production specially for logic studio. If you can't find specially for logic studio, for any other audio editor is fine also. Goal is to record one song with few instruments and learn to make complete mixing and mastering.
migrated from avp.stackexchange.com Jan 24 '14 at 18:14
This question came from our site for engineers, producers, editors, and enthusiasts spanning the fields of video, and media creation.
A simple google search has Apple's site, where this link is described as "Watch video tutorials that show you how to compose, record, mix, and perform with ... " as it's first result. That pretty much sounds like what you need.
However, from Stack's FAQs, this link includes, as its first point,
Your reputation score tells me you're a little green, but seriously--check out the FAQ. You'll get better results with your questions if you understand the expectations. Just sayin'.


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Stand Up For The Start Up - PRO Edelbrock Drag Racing SeriesWritten by on March 21, 2003 Contributors: Paul Rosner PRO Series Rocks as NMRA Offshoot
Street legal drag racing has endured a rough road over the past ten years. When the PRO Edelbrock Drag Racing series held its 2002 debut at Beech Bend Raceway in Bowling Green, Kentucky, the jury was still out as to what level of success this new street legal organization would have. Born from ProMedia, the same crew that founded the very successful "all-Ford" NMRA Ford Drag Racing Series, it didn't take long for the buzz to catch on. Featuring seven classes of heads-up racing and three classes based on index-style racing, the PRO-Edelbrock organization held four races during its inaugural season including a resurrection of the season-ending World Street Finals in Memphis.
The four PRO-Edelbrock events were held at Beech Bend, Cordova Dragway in Northwestern, Illinois, Maple Grove Raceway near Reading, Pennsylvania, and at Motorsports Park in Memphis. A fifth race was to be contested at Atlanta Dragway in September, but heavy rainfall from the remnants of Tropical Storm Hannah forced its cancellation.
The series retains several classes and rule packages that would be familiar to even novices of street legal drag racing, such as Denso Pro Street and Nitto Tires Super Street. It also departs from the norm with new classes such as Vortech Xtreme Street, which carries a flavor akin to that of the very popular Super Street class, from the sport's beginnings. There is also MSD True Street, a class designed to allow local racers to compete against the clock at the national event level, in their street-driven machines.
The PRO series enjoyed a solid turnout during the season, with well-known street legal veterans such as Pat Musi, Gary Rohe, Bill Glidden, and Joel Greathouse competing at multiple events. The champions that were crowned at the season-end PRO Award ceremony were Musi in Pro Street and Glidden in Super Street, familiar names to Popular Hot Rodding readers.
"It's our goal to offer a wide variety of classes where heads-up racers can compete," explained PRO Director Charlie Harmon. "From the ultra-quick Pro Street cars to the relatively affordable, entry level Mr. Gasket Cheap Street class, there is a class for anyone who wishes to give heads-up racing a try," Harmon added. "In addition, we are especially excited about our growing auto show segment and the burnout contest, and we've received great feedback from our spectators."
As for the success of the first season, Harmon attributes it to good planning and lessons learned from the NMRA. "We had a strong business model already in place from the NMRA, and we applied many of those same principles to the new PRO Edelbrock Series. We are trying to build this series with a strong foundation for the racers and enthusiasts, so we can be around for years to come."
While last year, the new series certainly had people talking, Harmon points out that it was still the series' rookie season. "We made some great strides in 2002, and exceeded many of our expectations, but as we enter our sophomore year there's still plenty of room for refinement and growth," he added.
The series will receive it's first taste of 2003, when its season opens at Bradenton (Florida) Motorsports Park in April--the first of a six-race season which, after the opener, returns to the same venues which hosted the tour in 2002. For more information, you can check out the PRO website at www.fasteststreetcar.com.
More Photos From This Article View Slideshow
Gary Elliott gets a little more bite than he bargained for, in his Nostalgia Pro Street '67 Firebird in Memphis. Elliott ended up winning the event, his first of the season, which clinched a come-from-behind championship.Billy Glidden had been absent from Super Street racing for three seasons. In 2002 however, he came back to compete in the PRO series with his '90 Mustang. The result was four number one qualifying efforts, three wins, a runner-up, and the season championship.Eric Patterson emerged as the Superchips Open Comp champion after a season long battle with several other competitors. The Open Comp class is an entry level, index-based, Pro-tree class designed for racers who don't have the budgets or time to dedicate to heads-up racing.Jamie Gelting and his '98 Grand Am finished second in the '02 Nitto Tires Super Street championship behind his engine builder, Billy Glidden.One of the most talked about classes in 2002 was PRO's Vortech Extreme Street. The class rules were designed in an effort to mirror the Super Street rules of the mid-nineties, including no wheelie bars! Cameron Coble was one of several drivers who decided to test the waters in the new class. Despite no wins in 2002, Coble and his '69 Nova were able to secure the third spot in points.One of the most outrageous cars to hit the Pro Street scene in many years is Larry Nadeau's 2002 PT Cruiser. Nadeau came up with the idea after a pulling up behind one at a stoplight near his home in Florida. The car is powered by an aluminum 525ci Keith Black Olds engine with an SSI 14-71 blower on top, and has posted 7.11s at nearly 200 mph.One of the leaders in the resurgence of true muscle cars has been Bobby Barrick. He and his fellow Nostalgia Muscle Car drivers are dedicated to the preservation of stock appearing '60's and '70's era machines. Barrick's weapon of choice is this beautiful small-block powered '66 Deuce.
James Foldenauer drove his '77 Monza to two wins in MSD True Street. The class is designed for legitimate street cars that are tagged and insured. In order to qualify, all contestants must first complete a 30-mile highway cruise. Once back at the track, the cars run three consecutive, quarter-mile passes, with the fastest three-lap average determining the winner. If you're wondering, Foldenauer's Monza ran 8.20s.One of the more popular classes emerging on the street legal scene is Nostalgia Pro Street. Although the intent of the class was to offer a place for older-style Pro Street cars to compete, it didn't take long for purpose-built cars to appear. Now the term "nostalgia" has become more of a reference to the rules rather than the cars themselves. Tony Nesbitt, pictured here driving his '67 Camaro, earned "Rookie of the Year" honors from PRO.Tony Orts and his Firebird, were in a seesaw Vortech Xtreme Street points battle with Dave Rudisell, all season long. The championship was decided in the semifinals at the season finale in Memphis where Orts bested Rudisell, clinching the championship.Mr. Gasket Cheap Street, heads-up drag racing's first claimer class, centers around a $3,000 engine long-block claimer. Jeremy Taylor (pictured here) was the first ever champion of the innovative class.


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Nike LIVESTRONG Men's Pro Combat Compression Shorts
Buy Online & Pick Up In-Store
Nike LIVESTRONG Men's Pro Combat 6" Compression Shorts are a practical layer when it's cold outside. The shorts feature anti-chafe, strategically designed seams to help you stay comfortable. The fabric offers superior breathability and moisture management so you can focus on your workout. 6" inseam.


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WEIRTON - Guests packed Williams Country Club Saturday night, decked out in beads, masks and festive wigs for the annual Mardi Gras Gala, presented by the Rotary Club of Weirton Heights.
This year's gala will benefit Piece by Peace, a local non-profit which provides sensory rooms for those with conditions on the autism spectrum, as well as autism and other similar health concerns.
Piece by Peace, located at Krazy Bout Sportz on Weir Avenue in Weirton, currently has an "active" sensory room, providing various items to assist in the development of their sense of touch.
Article Video
They are in the process of organizing a "quiet" room to help with sight, hearing and other related senses and skills.
Rotary Club of Weirton Heights President David Whalen welcomed everyone in attendance, and thanked them for their support, making particular note of those who had sponsored the gala.
"We couldn't do this without your support," Whalen said. "We're truly, truly appreciative."
Article Photos
Many of those in attendance at Saturday's Mardi Gras Gala spent the evening dancing and having fun. -- Craig Howell
Members of the Rotary Club of Weirton Heights Carole Scheerbaum, left, and Barb Owens welcomed those arriving at Williams Country Club for the event. -- Craig Howell
Musical entertainment for the evening was provided by local group Legend, which performed several selections as many of those in attendance danced. -- Craig Howell
Whalen also thanked Williams Country Club General Manager Tom Raymond and his staff for their work in helping to put the event together.
Live musical entertainment was provided by local group Legend, playing a variety of music from the 1950s, 60s and 70s.
Sponsors for this year's Mardi Gras Gala included:
Fact Box
Additional photos from the event can be found in our CU galleries.
Platinum level: First Choice America Community Federal Credit Union; MedExpress Urgent Care; Top of West Virginia Convention and Visitors Bureau; Weirton Medical Center; West Virginia Northern Community College
Gold level: James White Construction; Lauttamus Communications; Serra Village Retirement Community
Silver level: Bodkin, Wilson & Kozicki; Bogarad Law Office; City of Weirton; Dr. Matthew Nardone - Ohio Valley Optimal Healthcare; Fairfield Inn and Suites; Guglielmo Scholarship Foundation; Hancock County Savings Bank; Intrepid USA Healthcare Services; Jeremy Crow, DDS; Mazur Kraemer Business Law; McDonald's - Doane Family Enterprises; N. Powell Company; Robinson and Son Construction; Wine and Beverage Merchants; Dr. Edward Jagela - Ohio Valley Vision Center
Bronze level: Del. Ronnie Jones; Doc and Peggy Bahnsen; Dolly and J.K. Luthra; Ed and Hazel Powell; Fourth River Development - Sally Flinn; Gus's Goodies; Holiday Inn Weirton; Jack and Debbie Fowler; Lee Eye Center; Montina Corp.; Nathan and Julie Mazur; Newbrough Photo; P.S. Marketing; Penn Way Pharmacy; R.E. Saxon Jeweler; Starck Van Lines; Starvaggi Charities; Steel Valley Bowling Center/Blue Steel Grill; Stephen and Mary Kladakis; the Marl-Inn; United Bank; Vapor Jet; Volvo Rents; Webster Properties; Weirton Area Chamber of Commerce; The Weirton Daily Times; Weirton Lumber Co.; Weirton Rental Center; WesBanco.
(Howell can be contacted at email@example.com, and followed via Twitter @CHowellWDT)


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Given $n$ circles of possibly different radii, how many distinct regions can there be? For small $n$, I can work it out with pictures. (I'm pretty sure $n=4$ can yield 13 distinct regions, but not positive.)
Just curious what an approach to the problem could be.
E.g. I have considered that is could be a quadratic sequence based on skimpy evidence, but don't know why that would be, or how to prove it.
I would also be interested to know if there was a way of doing this problem with regular $n$-gons. (I am assuming that there would be more regions, but am not sure.)


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Comments about 'Poinsettia Bowl: Officials concede call was incorrect'
- Oldest first
- Newest first
- Most recommended
Why do you have a BYU-homer like Scott Taylor writing about the Utes? Obviously, Taylor was going to pick something negative to write about, and he did. Next time D-News, try having someone that knows even a tiny, little bit about the team write something.
- 1:26 a.m. Dec. 21, 2007
- Like
- Report abuse
You are right Scott let's play the what if game...
-What if Ludwig could have figured out before the second half that passing on Navy actually works?
-What if Navy passed for 800 yards and ran for 300 yards?
-What if the nation wasn't at war at this time, would Navy had won?
-What if aliens came down during the game looking for signs of intelligence and you were passed over?
-What if Austin Collie was playing for Navy, would God have blessed the Midshipment with a victory?
-What if you had 3 friends who could sell my "miralce health juice" to their 3 friends, etc.
I think there is one thing we can all agree on, what if you your silly article wasn't published... we would all be better off.
- 2:05 a.m. Dec. 21, 2007
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face it the utes can't win unless they get breaks from the stips...but enjoy your spectacular victory over a weak academy football team. harline and collie are still open!
- 2:11 a.m. Dec. 21, 2007
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Sounds like the Utes give credence to the phrase "It's better to be lucky than good". How can you criticise the D-News for writing something negative about the officials admitting a major blown call when the utes are endlessly complaining about two obvious calls against them at BYU claiming "that's why we lost". When a call in their bowl game probably made the difference in their lucky win.
- 5:56 a.m. Dec. 21, 2007
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Utah didn't score, Navy went 4 and out. And I don't want to hear any of this
"well they would have scored if starting from the 20 and not the 1 inch line"
from any BYU fans looking to discredit another win. If you really think where
the ball was changes Navy's playcalling then I would disagree. I don't think
they ran more than 4-5 different plays the whole game anyways.
I'm not saying the call was right, it was obviously wrong...just that it shouldn't taint the win because Navy had more than enough chances.
- 6:22 a.m. Dec. 21, 2007
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Hey BYU...quit whining and by the way did you hear Lou Holtz not once, not twice, but three seperate times claim that Utah, "has the best non-BCS personnel in the country". BYU..that includes you, regardless of what your your weak tiny minds might think...
- 7:20 a.m. Dec. 21, 2007
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Once again the game is decided by poor officiating and not the players. There is no excuse for the review officals to miss that call. Someone should be held accountable for that blunder.
- 7:39 a.m. Dec. 21, 2007
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Hey Anonymous:
Are you serious? I guess I need to remind you of the free 30 yards byu received on its final drive against Utah from 2 horrible calls.
It is nice to have a bad call go our way for a change. Now I know how it feels to be byu.
- 7:41 a.m. Dec. 21, 2007
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Everyone one knows, even Andy Ludwig (which it seems he doesn't know much) that
play calling at the 1 inch line is much different than at the 20. Navy got
hosed on a play call that everyone at home KNEW it was a touchback.
It is unfortunate to see Utah's good win be tainted, but it is, a bit.
I also question why Utah's play calling is so awful. Does anyone think that Whittingham shouldn't have changed the offensive scheme ONE BIT after the Fiesta Bowl run? But, does the offense resemble that one at all?
- 7:49 a.m. Dec. 21, 2007
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There are DOZENS of examples over the past couple of years of game officials
getting clear, unambiguous replay feeds and still getting the call wrong.
Make them wear microphones and do their deliberations on camera so that the whole process is public. Let's see if they are corrupt, cowardly or simply stupid.
In this case I suspect cowardly. Their lame admission handed to bowl officials after they've collected their check and are on the way to the airport is little solace. There's simply no excuse.
Do replay correctly, or not at all!
- 8:04 a.m. Dec. 21, 2007
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Sometimes the calls from the officials are against you and sometimes they go your way, welcome to the imperfect world of sports officiating. I had a basketball referee tell me once Ill stop making bad calls when you stop missing your shots, especially free throws. It is time for the Ute fans to realize that they may have got a break this time and for the BYU fans to realize they may have got a break in the BYU Utah football game this year. Get over it and learn this one lesson Life is not always fair, no matter what.
- 8:29 a.m. Dec. 21, 2007
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The blown call had no change on the game. The triple option that Navy runs
would have had them calling the same plays on the 20 as it does on backed on
their goal-line. No body likes to see bad calls but this one had no change on
the outcome of the game.
An to Anonymous, BYU should now all to well about benefiting from bad calls, so think twice about what you write next time. As for Navy being a week oponent, BYU has lost to them more than once in a bowl game. Once again think before you write.
- 8:36 a.m. Dec. 21, 2007
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Come on, Cougars! Can't we just have a truce during bowl season? Each team
needs the other to grab a bowl victory for the good of the conference. I don't
understand why some, though I'm sure a minority, of BYU fans have to come
complain about the officiating. Navy isn't a top 25 team, but they've had a
pretty good year. That Utah win was good for the MWC and BYU.
As for the specific call, it really didn't make a difference. Navy ran the ball just about every play, and it would have been no different on the 20. Utah would have gotten the ball back inside the 30 and scored just the same. In fact, the way Navy struggled to stop the Utes in the second half, the blown call may actually have given Navy a better chance to win. If Utah got the ball on the 29 instead of the 9, it would have taken Utah that much longer to get into the end-zone, and Navy wouldn't have had as much time to get back in the game. The refs had to note the mistake, but it didn't affect the outcome.
- 8:39 a.m. Dec. 21, 2007
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If it was the wrong call, too bad. Show me a game in any sport where all the calls are perfect. I'm sure that from time to time a bad call can make a difference but in the long run, it's the team that wins the game. I'm a BYU fan and I loved the Utah win. Great game and I hope that Utah wins every game they play except the BYU game.
- 8:41 a.m. Dec. 21, 2007
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Win is tainted, period. It is an obvious DISADVANTAGE to start that deep in one's own territory versus the 20.
- 8:44 a.m. Dec. 21, 2007
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it would have made a difference if they did get the call right...they stuffed them on the goal line right after that....which gave them more momentum...get real
- 9:00 a.m. Dec. 21, 2007
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Of course their play calling would have been different from the 20, instead of
the 1/2.
Just look at the splits their offensive linemen were taking backed up on their goalline. Completely different situation. It was a horrible, horrible call. No excuse for that.
- 9:01 a.m. Dec. 21, 2007
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Navy should have had the ball at the 20 which would have changed the whole complexion of the game. Face it Utah you gotta cheat um to beat um! Give the little trophey you got to Navy!
- 9:02 a.m. Dec. 21, 2007
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wow who else to write a story like this! right guys! dick harmons my boy!
- 9:03 a.m. Dec. 21, 2007
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The rule book is pretty unclear on this and kind of contradictory. Look at the
NCAA Rule Book: Section 2. Out Of Bounds: Ball Out of Bounds, Article 3.a. A
ball not in player posession, other than a kick that scores a field goal, is out
of bounds when it touches the ground, a player, a game official, **or anything
else that is on or outside a boundary line.** (pylons are outside the boundary
line as article 3.b. will clarify)
b. A ball that touches a pylon is out of bounds.
So really, what should the call be? I think given the circumstances, they called it right. I think the NCAA needs to make the rule a bit more defined.
- 9:06 a.m. Dec. 21, 2007
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I think it was on this site where I saw a link listing numerous schools/instructors around the country sorted by state teaching defensive firearms instruction. Anybody know the link? I'm looking for "Gunsite" like schools that might be a little closer or cheaper. Thanks.
Employed by Galco Gunleather - www.galcogunleather.com / Veteran OEF VIII
Donate to the Christian and Stephanie Nielson Recovery fund: http://www.nierecovery.com/.
All opinions, particularly those involving politics and Glocks, are mine and not Galco's.
Thanks Mike.


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1. Why do you attach such importance to the question of evolution? Why do you devote yourself to this subject?
ADNAN OKTAR: Because it is Darwinist ideologies that lie at the bottom of the suffering, lovelessness, selfishness, bloodshed, terror, anarchy and conflict people are subjected to. Darwinism, which proclaims that human beings are the supposed work of blind chance, that conflict is essential for progress, that that the weak must be crushed and that might is right, is the fundamental basis for all bloody ideologies and especially communism, fascism and imperialism. It is not me saying this. Marx says it himself, and Lenin, and Mao. Marx studied Darwin's Origin of Species, published in 1859, and saw that it represented a great foundation for his own theory. In a letter written to Engels on 19 December, 1860, he said, "this is the book that includes the historic basis of our views." (Marx's Letters to Engels, p. 426) In a letter to Lassalle on 16 January, 1861, he says: "Darwin's work is a great work. It represents the historic class struggle in terms of the natural sciences." (Marx's Letters to Engels, vol. 2, p. 126) Mao makes the connection between Darwinism and his bloody ideology crystal clear in the words, "Chinese socialism is based on Darwin and the theory of evolution." (K. Mehnert, Kampf um Mao's Erbe, Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 1977) In short, the fact that Darwinism is the supposed scientific basis for communism, materialism and atheism is perfectly well known to researchers, writers and thinkers. There can be no materialism without Darwinism, and no communism without materialism.
For that reason it is essential to expose the scientific invalidity of Darwinism. People are alarmed by terror, anarchy, oppression and bloodshed, but they are ignorant of the cause of these scourges. In other words, there is acid rain, but they do not look to see what causes it and where this trouble comes from. The fact is that if there is terror somewhere, Darwinism will be there, too. If there is ruthlessness and selfishness, there will also be Darwinism. In short, wherever there is pain and suffering, Darwinism inevitably lies behind it. It is essential for those who wish to eliminate suffering to engage in an intellectual struggle to eradicate the supposed intellectual justification behind it.
2. How many followers do you have in Turkey?
ADNAN OKTAR: I have around 300 close colleagues. But I also have millions of readers in Turkey and overseas. Some 10 million people visit my web sites every month, and more than 100 million of my books are downloaded from them.
3. Do you have followers in Holland?
ADNAN OKTAR: Among those who follow my works with great interest are people living in Holland. Following the arrival in Europe of the Atlas of Creation in particular there was a huge rise in the number of my European readers. Because the book has been instrumental in Europe entering a true age of enlightenment. It saw how it has been deceived by Darwinist lies for the last century and a half or so. People no longer want to waste time on frauds and lies told under the disguise of science. The internet is an excellent piece of technology, and people can easily use it to obtain true and accurate information.
4. People are questioning evolution all over the world. Do you engage in joint activities with Christians?
ADNAN OKTAR: Creationist scientists from the USA attended two conferences held by the Science Research Foundation in Istanbul previously. But there has been no other joint activity. As you know, some Christian scientists put the age of the Earth at 6000 years. This is not a scientific statement, and it is impossible to produce ideas against Darwinism in this way. All the information we provide is based on concrete scientific facts. That is why Darwinists are in such a great panic. Otherwise, thousands of books criticizing evolution have been written to date, thousands of other studies have been carried out. But none has had the impact of mine, and particularly the Atlas of Creation. Because none has been able to deal a lethal blow to Darwinism in the way that Atlas of Creation has. By Allah's leave, we have dealt Darwinism a knockout blow.
5. Is it possible to believe in the theory of evolution and still be a Muslim?
ADNAN OKTAR: All efforts to reconcile evolution with Islam and the Qur'an are in vain. Some Muslims, with the knowledge of the 1940s-50s, imagined that evolution is a theory supported by science and seek, in their own eyes, to reconcile Islam and evolution using a hopeless and peculiar logic along the line of "Muslims knew about evolution long before Darwin." This logic is the product of profound ignorance. First of all, the idea of evolution did not first see the light of day with Darwin. All materialists throughout the course of history have claimed that living things formed spontaneously from stone or earth and that living species are supposedly all descended from one another. Evolution is a pagan belief dating back thousands of years. The ancient Sumerians and Egyptians used to believe in evolution and advocate it. For example, the Egyptians thought that living things emerged spontaneously from the muddy waters of the Nile. It is therefore pointless to say that "evolution was known before Darwin and Muslims knew about it," as if making a grand new discovery. Of course Muslims, and the first Jews, the first Christians, the Sumerians and the Egyptians were aware of a heretical belief known as evolution. But as in our own day, rational people of good conscience then could clearly see that evolution was an error, though some people espoused that error because of their atheist and materialist mindsets. Second, no scientific findings support the idea that living things are all descended from one another. If living things really were descended from one another, as Darwin or evolutionists living in the past maintained, then this should be clearly visible in the fossil record. More than 100 million fossils have been unearthed to date. But not a single one shows that one life form turned into another or that living things have a so-called common ancestor. Without exception, all these 100 million fossils show that living things appeared suddenly and with all their attributes, in other words that they were created and have remained unchanged for hundreds of millions of years, or, to put it another way, that they never evolved. If not a single transitional form has been discovered in all the excavations carried out over the last 150 years, if nobody has responded to the challenge issued to evolutionists that "I will give 10 trillion lira to anyone bringing in a transitional form", and even Darwin himself said his theory would collapse if no transitional forms were found, in other words, if there is no concrete evidence of any kind, then spinning tales under captions such as "our forefathers were microbes," "the ancestor of birds has been found" or "our ancestors were dates" is meaningless. The answer these people who claim that man developed through evolution will give when asked how the angels and the jinn were created will again be "Allah created them from nothing." The way that these people, who accept and know that Allah created the angels and the jinn, fail to think that Allah also created man in the same way is very grave. It is amazing that they fail to see that our Lord, who created the angels instantaneously by telling them to "Be!" also created human beings in that way. In the same way, these people have no answer to the question of how the mansions, trees, gardens, handmaidens and houris of paradise were created. Anyone wishing to respond with verses and scientific evidence to people who make ignorant claims on this subject should read my book The Qur'an Refutes Darwinism. They can download it free of charge from http://www.HarunYahya.com
6. Do you share any opinions or activities with Fethullah Gulen on the subject of evolution? Would you consider such a thing?
ADNAN OKTAR: Fethullah Gulen is a genuine and immaculate Muslim whom I like and respect very much and consider to be very honest. I do not regard what people say against him as honest or rational. I find those illogical. They do very beneficial, excellent work. May Allah be pleased with them. They open beautiful schools. They produce really civilized, cultured, rational and pure young people. Fethullah Hodja is a worthy individual preparing the way for Hazrat Mahdi (as) before his appearance in the End Times. He is a significant and historic figure. His task is a great and significant one. He is performing great work for the development of the system of the Mahdi and to prepare the ground for the coming of Hazrat Mahdi (as). Insha'Allah he will do more in the future. As for me, mine is an intellectual activity directly targeting atheism, materialism and Darwinism. Once we have seized hold of Darwinism we knock it down; we pull it down on its back. It is irrelevant to me what others may say or do. In other words, I will hold nothing back for Allah's sake... For example, I adopt a direct, scholarly attitude toward freemasonry and communism and use very clear language against them. I explicitly say that Hazrat Mahdi (as) is coming; I explicitly describe Hazrat Mahdi's (as) coming. I explicitly describe the coming of the Prophet Jesus (as). But the followers of Fethullah Hodja bears a very heavy burden. They are walking on egg shells. So they have to be very cautious and careful.
7. What activities do you engage in to spread your word?
ADNAN OKTAR: All my activities are intellectual and cultural ones. I have written more than 300 books to date, the great majority of which have been translated into 63 languages. There are more than 550 web sites based on my works and these have also been translated into many languages. There are also many documentaries based on my works that are broadcast regularly on more than 100 TV stations. My colleagues have held more than 3,000 conferences in Turkey alone in which they have fully documented the invalidity of evolution. They have held seminars in many universities abroad, in United Kingdom, the USA, Indonesia and Israel. And this work is accelerating with every passing day.
8. Are there other theories that are unacceptable to Islam?
ADNAN OKTAR: Islam is a faith of love and compassion. Islam holds to freedom of thought. Major contemporary values such as democracy and laicism lie at the heart of Islam. Of course no idea that denies the existence of Allah or encourages people toward conflict, ruthlessness or oppression is compatible with Islam, and there is nothing oppressive or compulsive in Islam. Allah says in the Qur'an that "There is no compulsion where the deen is concerned. Right guidance has become clearly distinct from error." In other words, according to Islam, one describes why an error is wrong and shows what the truth is; but the choice is left up to the individual concerned. One cannot eliminate error through force and compulsion. It is enough to demonstrate why that is an error intellectually. And no rational person will in any case prefer error over truth. People turn away from religious moral values because they are not made aware of the truth, because they forget love, humanity and compassion, and then they turn to superstitious ideologies. Once this climate of ignorance is eliminated, when people are shown that love, the food of the soul, depth, affection and trust all lie in love of Allah, they will naturally turn toward religious moral values. You will clearly see this inclination explicitly in the present century, insha'Allah. The 21st century will be one of faith, love and brotherhood.
9. What is the reason for the increasing skepticism about evolution in the West?
ADNAN OKTAR: Let me openly state that my Atlas of Creation has had a huge impact. Darwinism is practically the only ideology to be protected by just about all the states in the world. It is literally under the custody of a Darwinist dictatorship. You can never see someone who opposes Darwinism making any progress in his academic career. You never see those opposed to Darwinism being protected by the media. On the contrary, comprehensive campaigns are waged against them. That is why the great majority of people in Europe believed this deception was true. Then they saw the truth, when they least expected it, literally with a midnight raid. It was as if the Sun had suddenly come up. All Europe saw the Sun come up, and even if some people still keep the drapes closed and say "No, the Sun has not risen," this will do them no good. It is no longer possible for them to mislead and deceive people who have seen the light of the Sun.
10. What do you think about cloning?
ADNAN OKTAR: Some people ignorantly imagine that cloning is evidence for evolution. That is not the case. The theory of evolution is built on the idea that inanimate matter gave rise spontaneously to life. Cloning is the use of genetic material in the cell to copy a living thing. It is based on a living cell that already exists and the biological process is repeated artificially by being moved to the laboratory. There is no "random" process or "inanimate matter coming to life" here that represent the basic idea of evolution. The copying process in fact constitutes no evidence for evolution, and it is clear evidence of a biological law that eradicates evolution right from its roots. That law is the principle that "life comes only from life" put forward at the end of the 19th century by the famous scientist Louis Pasteur. The way that copying is depicted as evidence of evolution in the face of this manifest reality is a terrible distortion and deception led by the media. Life coming only from life is the scientific proof of creation and the explicit rebuttal of evolution. Another misunderstanding people fall prey to regarding copying is that they conceive of it as "creating human beings." The fact is that copying has definitely no such meaning. Copying consists of adding already existing genetic data to a reproductive mechanism belonging to an already existing living thing. Neither a new mechanism nor any new genetic data are manufactured in the process. Genetic data are taken from an already existing human being, placed inside a mother's womb and the child to be given birth to by the mother is thus the "single egg twin" of the person whose genetic data were obtained.
11. Why are the reports in the media about you always negative? (That you sit on a gold throne, for instance)
ADNAN OKTAR: Had certain pro-Darwinist and materialist media organizations supported me, it would have been really surprising. That is what people should have been really suspicious of. I am honored by the fact that adherents of Darwinism are opposed to and slander me. I have been waging an intellectual struggle against Darwinism, materialism, atheism and atheist Zionism for the last 30 years and have been exposed to numerous conspiracies. I am greatly honored by that, thanks be to Allah. I have been imprisoned many times following no legitimate legal process, and was detained in a mental hospital. I was even kept chained by my feet to the bed for 40 days. I was kept in solitary in a tiny cell. A false allegation was made against me by cocaine being mixed in with my food at the Security Department. They made assassination attempts against me 9 times. Ridiculous libels have been published about me in press, and are still appearing. But Allah has always ensured that these plots come back to hurt the plotters. I have been acquitted in all the cases brought against me. The Military Hospital issued a report saying I am mentally healthy. A Forensic medicine report proved that cocaine had been mixed in with my food during my detention by the police. The courts have proved that the reports appearing about me were all slanders and had nothing to do with facts. Events that appear to be hardships, troubles and difficulties just increase my enthusiasm and raise my determination to struggle on many times over. I regard such incidents as perfectly natural. When we look at the lives of our Prophet (saas), the companions, true believers and other Prophets, we see they have all suffered similar events.
12. What would you like to see taught about evolution in schools?
ADNAN OKTAR: Of course evolution should be taught in schools. Young people should take the way that people were once misled by frauds as a warning. There is no harm in teaching it as a historic reality for deterrent purposes. But if they try to mislead young people by saying "this is a scientific fact," then that is wrong. In fact, it is now impossible to convince young people of any such thing, insha'Allah. Students begin looking their teachers in the eye and laughing at them when they start to tell them about evolution. They right away start asking why, if evolution is true, not a single transitional form has ever been found. They ask how the first cell came into being when it is mathematically impossible for even a single protein to emerge by coincidence. They point to fossils they have seen pictured in the Atlas of Creation; they ask whether these also evolved, and if so, how it is that these life forms have undergone not the slightest change over millions of years. Their teachers can say not a word. They cannot utter a word, because their students are talking science. It is impossible for any adherent of Darwinism to produce any scientific documentation in support of it.
13. Is faith growing weaker or stronger in Turkey?
ADNAN OKTAR: The Turkish people have always been devout and devoted to spiritual values. There has never been anything else at any time, and it is impossible for anything else to happen. But there has of course been huge recent progress in consciousness and awareness of this subject. Turkey has the lowest level of belief in evolution in the world. It was rather different in the '70s and '80s. Almost 70% of people then believed in evolution. But now 95% do not believe in evolution. My works and the conferences and exhibitions held by my colleagues have of course had a major impact in this. The public have been fully informed. If you stop anyone in the street and ask why Darwinism is false, they will tell you quite clearly and with a lot of supporting information. The same applies to other Islamic countries. My works are some of the best selling in many Islamic countries and are used as important reference texts in universities. Allah has made these works His instrument, and Darwinism has suffered a huge defeat, insha'Allah.
14. What do you think about Intelligent Design?
ADNAN OKTAR: I regard the inability of the people, who espouse these ideas, to explicitly state the existence of Allah and say that He created all things as dishonest. One must explicitly state "Allah is the Creator." They just say "a force created, something created." But why say "something"? Why not just say, "Allah created" on the open? Of course the other person hearing this realizes just how dishonest that explanation is and he is made uneasy by that. Anyone would consider that to be a dishonest approach. That is why they should adopt a language that explicitly states that Allah creates and describes Allah's sublime creation.
15. Science is increasingly signing up to the possibility of life on other planets. Do you believe in the existence of life elsewhere in space?
ADNAN OKTAR: There are angles, and jinn; there are many jinns in space. These pictures of flying saucers – that is how they attract attention. They sometimes come as very bright apparitions, in the form of hemispherical objects, and then those images suddenly disappear. They sometime frighten people; they sometimes take hold of somewhere. The jinns are naughty like that. They want to attract attention to themselves by behaving mischievously.


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Is it that DirectX is easier or better than OpenGL, even if OpenGL is cross-platform? Why do we not see real powerful games for Linux like there are for Windows?
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locked by World Engineer♦ Sep 9 '13 at 3:42
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Many of the answers here are really, really good. But the OpenGL and Direct3D (D3D) issue should probably be addressed. And that requires... a history lesson.
And before we begin, I know far more about OpenGL than I do about Direct3D. I've never written a line of D3D code in my life, and I've written tutorials on OpenGL. So what I'm about to say isn't a question of bias. It is simply a matter of history.
Birth of Conflict
One day, sometime in the early 90's, Microsoft looked around. They saw the SNES and Sega Genesis being awesome, running lots of action games and such. And they saw DOS. Developers coded DOS games like console games: direct to the metal. Unlike consoles however, where a developer who made an SNES game knew what hardware the user would have, DOS developers had to write for multiple possible configurations. And this is rather harder than it sounds.
And Microsoft had a bigger problem: Windows. See, Windows wanted to own the hardware, unlike DOS which pretty much let developers do whatever. Owning the hardware is necessary in order to have cooperation between applications. Cooperation is exactly what game developers hate because it takes up precious hardware resources they could be using to be awesome.
In order to promote game development on Windows, Microsoft needed a uniform API that was low-level, ran on Windows without being slowed down by it, and most of all cross-hardware. A single API for all graphics, sound, and input hardware.
Thus, DirectX was born.
3D accelerators were born a few months later. And Microsoft ran into a spot of trouble. See, DirectDraw, the graphics component of DirectX, only dealt with 2D graphics: allocating graphics memory and doing bit-blits between different allocated sections of memory.
So Microsoft purchased a bit of middleware and fashioned it into Direct3D Version 3. It was universally reviled. And with good reason; looking at D3D v3 code is like staring into the Ark of the Covenant.
Old John Carmack at Id Software took one look at that trash and said, "Screw that!" and decided to write towards another API: OpenGL.
See, another part of the many-headed-beast that is Microsoft had been busy working with SGI on an OpenGL implementation for Windows. The idea here was to court developers of typical GL applications: workstation apps. CAD tools, modelling, that sort of thing. Games were the farthest thing on their mind. This was primarily a Windows NT thing, but Microsoft decided to add it to Win95 too.
As a way to entice workstation developers to Windows, Microsoft decided to try to bribe them with access to these newfangled 3D graphics cards. Microsoft implemented the Installable Client Driver protocol: a graphics card maker could override Microsoft's software OpenGL implementation with a hardware-based one. Code could automatically just use a hardware OpenGL implementation if one was available.
In the early days, consumer-level videocards did not have support for OpenGL though. That didn't stop Carmack from just porting Quake to OpenGL (GLQuake) on his SGI workstation. As we can read from the GLQuake readme:
This was the birth of the miniGL drivers. These evolved into full OpenGL implementations eventually, as hardware became powerful enough to implement most OpenGL functionality in hardware. nVidia was the first to offer a full OpenGL implementation. Many other vendors struggled, which is one reason why developers preferred Direct3D: they were compatible on a wider range of hardware. Eventually only nVidia and ATI (now AMD) remained, and both had a good OpenGL implementation.
OpenGL Ascendant
Thus the stage is set: Direct3D vs. OpenGL. It's really an amazing story, considering how bad D3D v3 was.
The OpenGL Architectural Review Board (ARB) is the organization responsible for maintaining OpenGL. They issue a number of extensions, maintain the extension repository, and create new versions of the API. The ARB is a committee made of many of the graphics industry players, as well as some OS makers. Apple and Microsoft have at various times been a member of the ARB.
3Dfx comes out with the Voodoo2. This is the first hardware that can do multitexturing, which is something that OpenGL couldn't do before. While 3Dfx was strongly against OpenGL, NVIDIA, makers of the next multitexturing graphics chip (the TNT1), loved it. So the ARB issued an extension: GL_ARB_multitexture, which would allow access to multitexturing.
Meanwhile, Direct3D v5 comes out. Now, D3D has become an actual API, rather than something a cat might vomit up. The problem? No multitexturing.
Now, that one wouldn't hurt nearly as much as it should have, because people didn't use multitexturing much. Not directly. Multitexturing hurt performance quite a bit, and in many cases it wasn't worth it compared to multi-passing. And of course, game developers love to ensure that their games works on older hardware, which didn't have multitexturing, so many games shipped without it.
D3D was thus given a reprieve.
Time passes and NVIDIA deploys the GeForce 256 (not GeForce GT-250; the very first GeForce), pretty much ending competition in graphics cards for the next two years. The main selling point is the ability to do vertex transform and lighting (T&L) in hardware. Not only that, NVIDIA loved OpenGL so much that their T&L engine effectively was OpenGL. Almost literally; as I understand, some of their registers actually took OpenGL enumerators directly as values.
Direct3D v6 comes out. Multitexture at last but... no hardware T&L. OpenGL had always had a T&L pipeline, even though before the 256 it was implemented in software. So it was very easy for NVIDIA to just convert their software implementation to a hardware solution. It wouldn't be until D3D v7 until D3D finally had hardware T&L support.
Dawn of Shaders, Twilight of OpenGL
Then, GeForce 3 came out. And a lot of things happened at the same time.
Microsoft had decided that they weren't going to be late again. So instead of looking at what NVIDIA was doing and then copying it after the fact, they took the astonishing position of going to them and talking to them. And then they fell in love and had a little console together.
A messy divorce ensued later. But that's for another time.
What this meant for the PC was that GeForce 3 came out simultaneously with D3D v8. And it's not hard to see how GeForce 3 influenced D3D 8's shaders. The pixel shaders of Shader Model 1.0 were extremely specific to NVIDIA's hardware. There was no attempt made whatsoever at abstracting NVIDIA's hardware; SM 1.0 was just whatever the GeForce 3 did.
When ATI started to jump into the performance graphics card race with the Radeon 8500, there was a problem. The 8500's pixel processing pipeline was more powerful than NVIDIA's stuff. So Microsoft issued Shader Model 1.1, which basically was "Whatever the 8500 does."
That may sound like a failure on D3D's part. But failure and success are matters of degrees. And epic failure was happening in OpenGL-land.
NVIDIA loved OpenGL, so when GeForce 3 hit, they released a slew of OpenGL extensions. Proprietary OpenGL extensions: NVIDIA-only. Naturally, when the 8500 showed up, it couldn't use any of them.
See, at least in D3D 8 land, you could run your SM 1.0 shaders on ATI hardware. Sure, you had to write new shaders to take advantage of the 8500's coolness, but at least your code worked.
In order to have shaders of any kind on Radeon 8500 in OpenGL, ATI had to write a number of OpenGL extensions. Proprietary OpenGL extensions: ATI-only. So you needed an NVIDIA codepath and an ATI codepath, just to have shaders at all.
Now, you might ask, "Where was the OpenGL ARB, whose job it was to keep OpenGL current?" Where many committees often end up: off being stupid.
See, I mentioned ARB_multitexture above because it factors deeply into all of this. The ARB seemed (from an outsider's perspective) to want to avoid the idea of shaders altogether. They figured that if they slapped enough configurability onto the fixed-function pipeline, they could equal the ability of a shader pipeline.
So the ARB released extension after extension. Every extension with the words "texture_env" in it was yet another attempt to patch this aging design. Check the registry: between ARB and EXT extensions, there were eight of these extensions made. Many were promoted to OpenGL core versions.
Microsoft was a part of the ARB at this time; they left around the time D3D 9 hit. So it is entirely possible that they were working to sabotage OpenGL in some way. I personally doubt this theory for two reasons. One, they would have had to get help from other ARB members to do that, since each member only gets one vote. And most importantly two, the ARB didn't need Microsoft's help to screw things up. We'll see further evidence of that.
Eventually the ARB, likely under threat from both ATI and NVIDIA (both active members) eventually pulled their head out long enough to provide actual assembly-style shaders.
Want something even stupider?
Hardware T&L. Something OpenGL had first. Well, it's interesting. To get the maximum possible performance from hardware T&L, you need to store your vertex data on the GPU. After all, it's the GPU that actually wants to use your vertex data.
In D3D v7, Microsoft introduced the concept of Vertex Buffers. These are allocated swaths of GPU memory for storing vertex data.
Want to know when OpenGL got their equivalent of this? Oh, NVIDIA, being a lover of all things OpenGL (so long as they are proprietary NVIDIA extensions), released the vertex array range extension when the GeForce 256 first hit. But when did the ARB decide to provide similar functionality?
Two years later. This was after they approved vertex and fragment shaders (pixel in D3D language). That's how long it took the ARB to develop a cross-platform solution for storing vertex data in GPU memory. Again, something that hardware T&L needs to achieve maximum performance.
One Language to Ruin Them All
So, the OpenGL development environment was fractured for a time. No cross-hardware shaders, no cross-hardware GPU vertex storage, while D3D users enjoyed both. Could it get worse?
You... you could say that. Enter 3D Labs.
Who are they, you might ask? They are a defunct company whom I consider to be the true killers of OpenGL. Sure, the ARB's general ineptness made OpenGL vulnerable when it should have been owning D3D. But 3D Labs is perhaps the single biggest reason to my mind for OpenGL's current market state. What could they have possibly done to cause that?
They designed the OpenGL Shading Language.
See, 3D Labs was a dying company. Their expensive GPUs were being marginalized by NVIDIA's increasing pressure on the workstation market. And unlike NVIDIA, 3D Labs did not have any presence in the mainstream market; if NVIDIA won, they died.
Which they did.
So, in a bid to remain relevant in a world that didn't want their products, 3D Labs showed up to a Game Developer Conference wielding presentations for something they called "OpenGL 2.0". This would be a complete, from-scratch rewrite of the OpenGL API. And that makes sense; there was a lot of cruft in OpenGL's API at the time (note: that cruft still exists). Just look at how texture loading and binding work; it's semi-arcane.
Part of their proposal was a shading language. Naturally. However, unlike the current cross-platform ARB extensions, their shading language was "high-level" (C is high-level for a shading language. Yes, really).
Now, Microsoft was working on their own high-level shading language. Which they, in all of Microsoft's collective imagination, called... the High Level Shading Language (HLSL). But their was a fundamentally different approach to the languages.
The biggest issue with 3D Labs's shader language was that it was built-in. See, HLSL was a language Microsoft defined. They released a compiler for it, and it generated Shader Model 2.0 (or later shader models) assembly code, which you would feed into D3D. In the D3D v9 days, HLSL was never touched by D3D directly. It was a nice abstraction, but it was purely optional. And a developer always had the opportunity to go behind the compiler and tweak the output for maximum performance.
The 3D Labs language had none of that. You gave the driver the C-like language, and it produced a shader. End of story. Not an assembly shader, not something you feed something else. The actual OpenGL object representing a shader.
What this meant is that OpenGL users were open to the vagaries of developers who were just getting the hang of compiling assembly-like languages. Compiler bugs ran rampant in the newly christened OpenGL Shading Language (GLSL). What's worse, if you managed to get a shader to compile on multiple platforms correctly (no mean feat), you were still subjected to the optimizers of the day. Which were not as optimal as they could be.
While that was the biggest flaw in GLSL, it wasn't the only flaw. By far.
In D3D, and in the older assembly languages in OpenGL, you could mix and match vertex and fragment (pixel) shaders. So long as they communicated with the same interface, you could use any vertex shader with any compatible fragment shader. And there were even levels of incompatibility they could accept; a vertex shader could write an output that the fragment shader didn't read. And so forth.
GLSL didn't have any of that. Vertex and fragment shaders were fused together into what 3D Labs called a "program object". So if you wanted to share vertex and fragment programs, you had to build multiple program objects. And this caused the second biggest problem.
See, 3D Labs thought they were being clever. They based GLSL's compilation model on C/C++. You take a .c or .cpp and compile it into an object file. Then you take one or more object files and link them into a program. So that's how GLSL compiles: you compile your shader (vertex or fragment) into a shader object. Then you put those shader objects in a program object, and link them together to form your actual program.
While this did allow potential cool ideas like having "library" shaders that contained extra code that the main shaders could call, what it meant in practice was that shaders were compiled twice. Once in the compilation stage and once in the linking stage. NVIDIA's compiler in particular was known for basically running the compile twice. It didn't generate some kind of object code intermediary; it just compiled it once and threw away the answer, then compiled it again at link time.
So even if you want to link your vertex shader to two different fragment shaders, you have to do a lot more compiling than in D3D. Especially since the compiling of a C-like language was all done offline, not at the beginning of the program's execution.
There were other issues with GLSL. Perhaps it seems wrong to lay the blame on 3D Labs, since the ARB did eventually approve and incorporate the language (but nothing else of their "OpenGL 2.0" initiative). But it was their idea.
And here's the really sad part: 3D Labs was right (mostly). GLSL is not a vector-based shading language the way HLSL was at the time. This was because 3D Labs's hardware was scalar hardware (similar to modern NVIDIA hardware), but they were ultimately right in the direction many hardware makers went with their hardware.
They were right to go with a compile-online model for a "high-level" language. D3D even switched to that eventually.
The problem was that 3D Labs were right at the wrong time. And in trying to summon the future too early, in trying to be future-proof, they cast aside the present. It sounds similar to how OpenGL always had the possibility for T&L functionality. Except that OpenGL's T&L pipeline was still useful before hardware T&L, while GLSL was a liability before the world caught up to it.
GLSL is a good language now. But for the time? It was horrible. And OpenGL suffered for it.
Falling Towards Apotheosis
While I maintain that 3D Labs struck the fatal blow, it was the ARB itself who would drive the last nail in the coffin.
This is a story you may have heard of. By the time of OpenGL 2.1, OpenGL was running into a problem. It had a lot of legacy cruft. The API wasn't easy to use anymore. There were 5 ways to do things, and no idea which was the fastest. You could "learn" OpenGL with simple tutorials, but you didn't really learn the OpenGL API that gave you real performance and graphical power.
So the ARB decided to attempt another re-invention of OpenGL. This was similar to 3D Labs's "OpenGL 2.0", but better because the ARB was behind it. They called it "Longs Peak."
What is so bad about taking some time to improve the API? This was bad because Microsoft had left themselves vulnerable. See, this was at the time of the Vista switchover.
With Vista, Microsoft decided to institute some much-needed changes in display drivers. They forced drivers to submit to the OS for graphics memory virtualization and various other things.
While one can debate the merits of this or whether it was actually possible, the fact remains this: Microsoft deemed D3D 10 to be Vista (and above) only. Even if you had hardware that was capable of D3D 10, you couldn't run D3D 10 applications without also running Vista.
You might also remember that Vista... um, let's just say that it didn't work out well. So you had an underperforming OS, a new API that only ran on that OS, and a fresh generation of hardware that needed that API and OS to do anything more than be faster than the previous generation.
However, developers could access D3D 10-class features via OpenGL. Well, they could if the ARB hadn't been busy working on Longs Peak.
Basically, the ARB spent a good year and a half to two years worth of work to make the API better. By the time OpenGL 3.0 actually came out, Vista adoption was up, Win7 was around the corner to put Vista behind them, and most game developers didn't care about D3D-10 class features anyway. After all, D3D 10 hardware ran D3D 9 applications just fine. And with the rise of PC-to-console ports (or PC developers jumping ship to console development. Take your pick), developers didn't need D3D 10 class features.
Now, if developers had access to those features earlier via OpenGL on WinXP machines, then OpenGL development might have received a much-needed shot in the arm. But the ARB missed their opportunity. And do you want to know the worst part?
Despite spending two precious years attempting to rebuild the API from scratch... they still failed and just reverted back to the status quo (except for a deprecation mechanism).
So not only did the ARB miss a crucial window of opportunity, they didn't even get done the task that made them miss that chance. Pretty much epic fail all around.
And that's the tale of OpenGL vs. Direct3D. A tale of missed opportunities, gross stupidity, willful blindness, and simple foolishness.
I found it strange that everybody's focusing on user base, when the question is 'game developers', not 'game editors'.
For me, as a developer, Linux is a bloody mess. There are so many versions, desktop managers, UI kits, etc... If I don't want to distribute my work as open source, where the user can (try to) recompile so it fits his unique combination of packages, libraries and settings, it's a nightmare!
On the other hand, Microsoft is providing (most of the time) incredible backward compatibility and platform stability. It is possible to target whole range of machines with one closed-source installer, for instance computers running Windows XP, Vista and 7, 32 and 64 bits flavors, without proper DX or VC redistributables installed, etc...
One last thing, PLEASE EVERYBODY ON THE INTERNET STOP COMPARING OPENGL AND DIRECTX! Either compare Direct3D vs OpenGL or don't do this. DirectX provides input support, sound support, movie playing, etc etc that OpenGL doesn't.
It's because there are more Windows users on the planet than Linux and Mac. The truth is that people make things for whichever has the biggest market.
Because Windows has over 90% market share, and Linux (since you specifically asked about Linux) has a reputation for having lots of users who don't like to pay for software. Whether or not that's true or how true it is is irrelevant; the perception is there and it influences people's decisions.
Because Windows is backed by a huge organization, that more than a decade ago decided they want game development to happen on their platform.
This wasn't true for the Mac, and it isn't true now. Not even for iOS. Apple doesn't provide tools for iOS game development. But it's a huge market (there's more iPhones out there, than there was PCs in 1995) with relatively little competition, so people do it anyhow.
As for Linux, there's not even some sort of central institution, that could set any sort of priorities. The direction in which Linux is going, is more less determined by a bunch of very good, yet slightly unworldly programmers.
To create a PC game today, you need a lot of 2d/3d artists, game designers, scriptors, actors, testers and what not. As to the actual programming, you might simply use an actual game engine (CryEngine, Unreal Engine, Quake Engine, Source Engine). So you might be able to do the whole thing without any actual programmers.
Because of that, and because of the nature of businesses, programmers have little say in which platform is chosen. And typically, managers look for support, which is something Microsoft claims to offer, and to deal with things that are somehow seizable to their thought patters, which open source is not.
For that reason, most commercial end-user software development is done on windows.
As some have already said, the most important part is the user-base. 95% of PC users use Windows. PC gamers use almost exclusively Windows. Even these who use Mac or Linux most often run Windows games through some virtualization or emulation (with very, very few exceptions).
But demographic is not everything. I wouldn't underestimate the part that Microsoft is doing to make the platform more attractive for game developers. Basically you get fully featured set of tools for free, most importantly XNA Game Studio. This allows not only development for Windows, but also for Xbox360. And with the latest edition even for WP7 phones. Obviously since it's Microsoft tool, it uses DirectX, not OpenGL.
Ewwww, I don't. I use Linux almost exclusively. I dual-boot to Windows to make Windows builds, and use the Mac for the Mac builds, but that's it.
The trick is a cross-platform framework we've developed over the years. Our games are built on top of that, and behave identically in Linux/OpenGL, Mac/OpenGL, and Windows/Direct3D (and soon in iOS/OpenGL).
Admittedly my company doesn't do AAA titles, so it may not apply to these, but we do make top casual games (see website - CSI:NY, Murder She Wrote and the two upcoming 2011s are examples of titles using important licenses, The Lost Cases of Sherlock Holmes 1 and 2 were quite successful as well)
I wouldn't give up gedit+gcc+gdb+valgrind for anything else.
These days Linux is more of a curio when it comes to games development and most developers would be better off fiscally doing an OS X port version before a Linux version (see things like Steam). Even then the console market is worth more than these two platform combined for games...
If you wanted to mono platform DirectX is fine. If you want to be cross platform there's a strong chance you will have to go with OpenGL on at least some of the other platforms.
The answer is obvious. The objective of writing a game is to make money. More end users run Windows, therefore there is a bigger market and you would expect to make more money from a Windows game than a Linux game. It's that simple.
If ever you ask yourself the question 'Why does someone do...', just remember that money makes the world go round.
Tools, tools, tools.
That's what it comes down to. Develop on Windows and you get access to some of the best development tools on the planet. Nothing comes even remotely close to Visual Studio's debugger, the DirectX Debug Runtimes are awesome, PIX is awesome, and comparable equivalents just don't exist on other platforms/APIs. Sure, there is some good stuff there; I'm not saying that the tools on other platforms are bad, but those that MS provide are just so far ahead of the pack (honourable exception: Valgrind) that it's not even funny.
Bottom line is that these tools help you. They help you get stuff done, they help you be productive, they help you focus on errors in your own code rather than wrestle with an API that never quite behaves as documented.
So I've gone over all these answers, and as a game developer who has code on console games that have been on Walmart shelves, I have a very different answer.
See, if you want to be on a Nintendo console, you have to get Nintendo's permission, buy from Nintendo's factories, pay Nintendo's overheads, negotiate with Walmart, deal with warehousing, you need money up front to manufacture, to print boxes, to ship, to do all the insurance, et cetera.
If you want onto the XBox, sure there's XBLA, but you still need Microsoft's blessing, you have to wait your turn in line, it's tens of thousands of dollars just to release a patch, etc.
On iOS, you still need Apple's okay, and they can (and do) capriciously pull you.
On Steam, you still need Valve's permission or greenlight, and lots of money.
On Windows? You set up a website and a download button.
I'm not saying the other platforms aren't valuable. But there is so *much* horrible stuff going on when you're trying to develop a game, that to me, the promise of being able to just slap a binary on a site and focus on the work - at least to get started - really lowers a lot of potential failure barriers.
"We can do the XBLA port later, when things are stable" mentality.
And to a lesser extent sure this is fine for Linux too, and if seven customers is good, you can start there.
But Windows has three massive advantages: genuinely open development, genuinely open deployment, and a very large, very active customer base which is interested in quirky stuff.
It's hard to imagine where else I'd rather start.
I think you should read more about the History of DirectX and This Article.
I think MS chose DX over openGL because they like to lock people into using their own OS.
A lot has to do with politics and control. In the late 90s, SGI and MS actually agreed to combine efforts:
SGI invested heavily in the project, MS did not. SGI needed MS more than MS needed SGI. The rest is history.
D3D and OpenGL are two very different APIs, it is up to the developer to choose which is right for your needs.
Simply because Linux failed horribly as a desktop system. As somebody pointed out earlier Linux is a mess for developers (different libraries, ui toolkits, etc)
Another problem is freetardism and the lack of support for proprietary software. Nvidia always provides fine (proprietary) drivers for Linux however Ubuntu and other distros are not shipping it. There is also no binary driver interface available for Linux as for Windows. (There is a text file called binaryApiNonsense.txt or something in the Kernel sources) Having said that only Nvidia hardware is properly supported under Linux. You can play most of ID softwares games using Nvidia hardware under Linux.
Next thing development tools. MSFT provides excellent C++ support and the Visual Studio debugger is better then gdb with regard to C++. Last but not least, further tools are missing such as Photoshop. Also .net allows you to quickly create gui tools. Many game studios code their tools for internal use using the .net framework.
I almost forgot: The graphics system is horribly, back in the days they just ported X11 over because it was the easiest thing which worked. They failed to properly design and implement a modern graphic system which OSx and Win have.
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Sources: Valve [1], [2], Engadget, The Verge
quote: Linux vs Windows exclusives and now you require two OSs just to play all your games. I know I certainly don't want that.
quote: That doesn't make any sense. Having gaming on PC is never going to move over the existing library of tens of thousands of DOS/Windows 95/Windows 98 games. Exclusives will only further fragment the ecosystem.
quote: And by then if you tell people why it used to suck they won't get it as they've already forgotten the beginning. People don't have that long a memory these days :p


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Baby Steps: Automated Publishing with Arbortext and SharePoint
Brett McCorkle and Rita Briody
The introduction of DITA and XML-based documentation has changed the way we can deliver content to end-users. XML makes possible the integration of a multitude of applications to improve the delivery of content to users.
Erie Insurance's goal was to provide users with full-text search of multiple document types, presented as Web search results. An automated publishing solution that included our authoring tool, content management system, and SharePoint 2010 would act as the infrastructure to meet this goal. This would allow the company to move away from document-centric publishing to deliver content in discrete topics that provide targeted results for users, thereby saving them time and improving overall efficiency.


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Students of Spanish studies need not worry about paying for over-priced textbooks anymore – renting textbooks is an option! Spanish textbooks – for example Asi Es (Spanish Edition) by [Levy-Konesky, Karen Daggett], and Adelante Grade 6: Practice and Activity Book (Adelante/En Camino 2003) (Spanish Edition) by [Holt Rinehart & Winston] – are often some of the most frequently updated books by Publishing companies. The field of Spanish is constantly changing, and new editions can come yearly and at a huge cost to students who continually buy new books. So why buy when you can rent cheap textbooks? There are plenty of Spanish books to rent – BookRenter has of them all!
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I'm thinking about starting a project where I'd like to have access to the "chat" feature of the stack exchange sites. I saw this project here:
But I don't believe that it works with the current revision of the chat system.
API access is also requested here:
Will the API support the chat system?
but it appears that the feature has been deferred. In the meantime, what ways do I have with interacting with the chat features of the network? It looks like there might be a "starred comment" rss feed, (http://chat.stackexchange.com/feeds/rooms/starred/ROOM_NUM) but is that the only interaction possible currently?


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Is it possible to write $0.3333(3)=\frac{1}{3}$ as sum of $\frac{1}{4} + \cdots + \cdots\frac{1}{512} + \cdots$ so that denominator is a power of $2$ and always different? As far as I can prove, it should be an infinite series, but I can be wrong. In case if it can't be written using pluses only, minuses are allowed as well.
For example, $\frac{1}{2}$ is $\frac{1}{4}+\frac{1}{8}+\frac{1}{16}+\cdots$ So, what about $\frac{1}{3}$?


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Tort Liability for Human Rights Abuses
By George P. Fletcher
{Hart Publishing: 2008}
In his new book, Tort Liability for Human Rights Abuses, Columbia Law School Professor George P. Fletcher presents a bold new theory that urges the use of tort law, rather than the traditional criminal law, to fight human rights abuses worldwide. In defending this view, Fletcher draws upon an act of Congress passed 220 years ago: the Alien Torts Claims Act of 1789.
"This provision in the First Judiciary Act has created a unique version of universal jurisdiction—one you would never expect to find in the United States," says Fletcher, the Law School's Cardozo Professor of Jurisprudence. "The term [universal jurisdiction] was probably unknown at the time and yet, today, the Alien Torts Claims Act of 1789 is probably the most effective instrument to correct the evil of human rights abuses in the world."
In the book, Fletcher examines a series of cases, starting with Filártiga v. Peña-Irala, which extended the jurisdiction of U.S. courts to tortious acts committed around the world, and culminating in the 2004 case of Sosa v. Alvarez-Machain, which involved the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency's abduction of a Mexican citizen in a drug case. Through his analysis, Fletcher shows how torture cases led to a reawakening of the Alien Torts Statute, thus giving legal practitioners a tool with which to assist victims of torture and other extreme human rights abuses. Tort Liability for Human Rights Abuses also closely examines current cutting-edge cases, particularly those involving liability for funding terrorism.


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GENESEO, N.Y. -- It just became significantly easier for SUNY Geneseo alumni to stay in touch with each other.
The college's Office of Alumni Relations has launched a new online community, U-Knight, for alumni to stay in touch with friends, to network and to receive timely information about Geneseo events and other campus activities. The name is derived from the Geneseo athletic team nickname -- the Blue Knights.
"We are very excited to offer this wonderful new tool," says Rose Anderson, assistant vice president for alumni relations. "It's an extremely powerful program yet easy to use that will serve our alumni in multiple ways. Anything having to do with Geneseo alumni will be on the site and available 24/7."
U-Knight membership is open to all Geneseo alumni and will be available to students in the college's current graduating class this spring. The membership never expires and alumni will have the option of acquiring a permanent Geneseo email that can route information to Gmail, Yahoo or other email accounts.
"It's a permanent email forwarding address so even if you change your outside email, you will always have that Geneseo.edu address," says Fran Zablocki, the college's online community manager, responsible for developing and maintaining U-Knight. "It will also help our alumni to join the official Geneseo network on Facebook, which requires a geneseo.edu email."
Zablocki and his colleagues spent two years developing U-Knight and will continue to expand the initiative, including a mentorship network to connect alumni with talented undergraduate students seeking advice or experience in their field.
Geneseo has more than 50,000 alumni in the world. More details about U-Knight are available in the fall edition of the college's alumni magazine, Geneseo Scene, or online at go.geneseo.edu/uknight.
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In the TV series Two and a Half Men, why is Alan Harper called as a loser multiple times in multiple episodes by various different people?
After all, the difficulties in his life are only due to the divorce. Otherwise he had his own home. Also he his poor only because of the alimony, otherwise he is fine.


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If I want to take the derivative of $ax^n$, I will get $anx^{n-1}$. If I were to take the derivative again, I get $an(n-1)x^{n-2}$.
We can generalize this for integer k easily to get the kth derivative $a\frac{n!}{(n-k)!} x ^{n-k}$. But what about for a more general k?
Does this have some name? Has it been widely studied? If so, can you show how to generalize this formula for kth derivative of $ax^n$, and explain how it works? If not, is there a good reason it is impossible?


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Italian Election Outcome Sparks Selloff
European stocks slumped and Italian yields spiked on Tuesday, as inconclusive Italian election results fueled fears of political instability.
Italy's FTSE Mib retreated 4.9% to 15552.20, sliding almost 800 points and posting its biggest percentage drop since April 10, 2012. The benchmark Stoxx 600 index fell 1.3% to 284.60. Spain's IBEX-35 lost 3.2% to 7980.70, Germany's DAX retreated 2.3% to 7597.11, France's CAC-40 shed 2.7% to 3621.92, the U.K.'s FTSE 100 index lost 1.3% to 6270.44, and Greece's ASE Composite index fell 0.4% to 991.56.
Italian government bond yields soared to their highest levels since late November.
Voters gave the thumbs down to austerity measures, with former Prime Minister and market favorite Mario Monti securing less than 10% of the vote, while antiausterity populists on the left and right performed strongly. While the center-left coalition won the Lower House by a thin margin, no clear majority triumphed in the Senate.
"At the very least, a prolonged period of uncertainty faces the Italian economy, affecting investor sentiment. In coming months, fiscal slippage and obstacles to structural and labor market reforms would not at all be well received by global investors," said Andrew Milligan, head of global strategy at Standard Life Investments, SL. 3.66 % in emailed comments.
European banks tumbled. The Stoxx 600 index for the sector ended down 3%, led by Italian lenders. Intesa Sanpaolo ISNPY 5.39 % slid 9.1% and UniCredit UNCFF 9.21 % fell 8.5%. Italy's market regulator intervened in a bid to quell volatility by temporarily suspending short-selling of shares in Intesa Sanpaolo.
Italy's 10-year government bond yield soared 0.52 percentage point to 4.88%, while the corresponding yield on Spain's bond also jumped, rising 0.24 percentage point to 5.34%. Sentiment was further eroded after an auction of short-dated Italian government bonds saw borrowing costs leap to a four-month high. This bodes ill for Italy's auction Wednesday of up to €6.5 billion in longer-dated bonds.
"The possibility of bond purchases by the European Central Bank might stop [bond] yields rising back to or above the supposedly critical 7% threshold," said Ben May, European Economist at Capital Economics. "Nonetheless, given the particularly bleak economic backdrop for Italy and the growing risk that the next government will at best have a limited mandate to continue the reform process begun by Mario Monti, we would not be surprised if a sustained bout of market pressure were to force Italy to eventually to request some form of support package [from the European Central Bank]."
The euro was more composed, trading within a tight range. The common currency was at $1.3059 Tuesday afternoon in New York, from $1.3062 late Monday.
In the U.S., Home Depot HD 0.20 % rose 5.4%, leading a rebound in the Dow Jones Industrial Average one day after the year's largest drop, as Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke signaled stimulus policies would continue.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 108 points, or 0.8%, to 13893, in Tuesday afternoon trading. The Standard & Poor's 500-stock index rose seven points, or 0.5%, to 1495 and the Nasdaq Composite Index gained 10 points, or 0.3%, to 3126.
Upbeat U.S. data failed to lift the mood in Europe. New-home sales posted the biggest monthly jump in nearly two decades last month, reaching the highest level since mid-2008. Separately, U.S. home prices improved in December, reversing declines in November, according to the S&P Case-Shiller 20-city home prices index.
In European corporate news, shares in French telecommunications company Vivendi VIVHY 0.15 % retreated 1.8% after reporting a drop in full-year 2012 profit and as it warned that its French telecoms unit, SFR, would likely weigh again on results this year.
Building-materials supplier CRH advanced 2.2% after the company maintained its dividend while also targeting further cost reductions.
Engineering group GKN GKNLY -0.26 % rose 3.6% as it posted a 68% rise in pretax profit during the full year-end, achieving record profits in all four divisions.
Among commodities, light, sweet, crude for April delivery fell 71 cents to $92.40 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Most actively traded gold for April delivery on the Comex division of Nymex rose $28.90 to $1,615.50 a troy ounce.
Corrections & Amplifications
Yields on 10-year Italian bonds jumped to hit their highest level this year on Tuesday. A previous version of this article said they were at their highest level in a year.
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The foundation of any wardrobe is a perfect pair of pants – perfect styling, perfect fabric, perfect fit – and just a few of the reasons Equestrian has become our go-to line for this staple season after season.
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Oh, Crumbs.
Looks like something went horribly wrong somewhere in the Internet.
As a result, the page you've requested isn't available. Or maybe it doesn't exist. Maybe it never existed. Maybe this page is a figment of your imagination. Maybe the world is a figment of your imagination. Did we just blow your mind?


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The only mixing bowl I have for now is a plastic one. But recently it came to my mind that I should have bought a stainless one instead. Is there any pros of plastic bowls, or some task that's best done with plastic bowls?
For your average mixing task, pretty much any bowl (of the right size, shape) will do. Also, "plastic" isn't one material, it's a bunch of different materials. For example, some advantages of polypropylene bowls do not apply to melamine formaldehyde bowls, but both are plastic.
So, here are some advantages of a polypropylene (PP) bowl over a metal bowl:
Of course, they have disadvantages too:
And there are things which are just different, like metal conducts heat better (so it works better when cooling in an ice bath, but also you're much more likely to get burnt on it), metal is denser (PP floats, metal doesn't).
If you get metal bowls, except for a few applications where copper is nice (those egg whites, again), you want stainless steel. Stainless is fairly resistant to acid and also corrosion (plain steel is not). Note that stainless comes in different grades, which vary in their corrosion, rust, and acid resistance.
There isn't much difference at all really. I have ceramic bowls, glass bowls, steel bowls and plastic bowls. I use my plastic bowl the most as its lighter and has a 'grip' on the bottom. Steel mixing bowls are heavy and if you use an electric beater make a really loud noise as they strike the bowl. No nonstick steel or plastic bowls exist on the market (as far as I'm aware of) however ceramic ones do. Metal bowls are supposedly easier to clean than plastic bowls as plastic bowls tend to cling to fats and lipids more than metal bowls however I have only seen this referenced (albeit frequently) in meringue recipes where it really matters. Weighing up the odds, I don't think it's worth it to go out and buy a steel bowl if you've already got one as the difference is to minimal.


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Let C be an nxn matrix, then the polynomials in C (with appropriate coefficients) form an algebra of commuting matrices. I feel that I should know if the converse is true but I do not. So my first question (adding several conditions) is: Suppose A and B are symmetric integer matrices with AB=BA, must there be a matrix C such that both A and B are polynomials in C? This would imply that the algebra which A and B generate has dimension n or less. In general: Let A be an algebra of pairwise commuting nxn matrices over an integral domain D, Under what conditions (if any) on D and A can we conclude that there is a matrix C so that A is contained in the D-algebra generated by C? I am thinking of conditions such as D is an algebraically closed field, D has characteristic zero, the matrices are symmetric. etc.
Consider the subalgebra of $M_{2n}(k)$ spanned by the matrices of the form $\left(\begin{smallmatrix}0&A\\0&0\end{smallmatrix}\right)$ (all blocks are $n\times n$) together with the identity, which is commutative. Its dimension is larger than $2n$ when $n$ is sufficiently large, so it is not generated by a single matrix.
For symmetric matrices over the reals, the answer is yes: if $A$ and $B$ commute, then they can be simultaneously diagonalized. That is to say, there exists an orthogonal matrix $U$ ($U^TU = I$) such that $U^TAU$ and $U^TBU$ are both diagonal. It follows that for any diagonal matrix $D$ with distinct diagonal entries, both $A$ and $B$ are polynomials in $C = UDU^T$.
In general it is instructive, and loses no generality, to assume that $A$ is in a normal (Jordan, Smith, etc.) form. Over a field, for example, the dimension of the space of polynomials in $A$ is the same as the degree of the minimal polynomial of $A$, which is the sum, over all eigenvalues $\lambda$, of the size of the largest Jordan block for $\lambda$ in the Jordan normal form of $A$ over the algebraic closure of the field. It's not too hard to verify that every matrix commuting with $A$ is a polynomial in $A$ if and only if the minimal polynomial is the characteristic polynomial, that is if every eigenvalue has a single Jordan block (as happens automatically for example if there are $n$ distinct eigenvalues).
I can't remember the precise statement of something that surprised me, some unsolved problem related to the dimension of a commuting set in terms of Jordan block sizes. Someone please comment if you are familiar with this open problem and can state it precisely.
Thanks for the answers. Just to wrap up a bit, here are a few examples.
1) Sometimes an ACM (algebra of commuting matrices) is sure to be generated by one of its members
2) Other times it has dimension too large to possibly be (embedded in) an ACM with a single generator.
3) An ACM might be generated by 2 matrices, not generated by any of its members, but embed in a larger ACM which does have a single generator.
4) An ACM might be generated by 2 matrices, not generated by any of its members, but not embed in a larger ACM which does have a single generator (even in the 3x3 case).
1) If the matrices are all normal then they can be simultaneously diagonalized. This reduces the problem to an algebra of diagonal matrices, which is easy to understand. Such an algebra is actually generated by one of its members.
2) The 5 dimensional algebra ${\cal{A}}_5$ mentioned by Mariano (4x4 matrices with 2x2 blocks $\left(\begin{smallmatrix}0&A\\0&0\end{smallmatrix}\right)$ has dimension too large to be generated by a single matrix. Furthermore, each member M generates only the 2 dimensional algebra of matrices $jI+kM$ so no subalgebra of dimension 3 or 4 has a single generator.
3) Consider the subalgebra ${\cal{A}}_3$ of ${\cal{A}}_5$ generated by $\left(\begin{smallmatrix}0&A\\0&0\end{smallmatrix}\right)$ and $\left(\begin{smallmatrix}0&B\\0&0\end{smallmatrix}\right)$ with A and B 2x2 invertible matrices (neither a scalar multiple of the other). As mentioned, we can't embed ${\cal{A}}_3$ in a singly generated 4 dimensional subalgebra of ${\cal{A}}_5$ However it also embeds in other 4 dimensional algebras.
For example a 4x4 matrix $\left(\begin{smallmatrix}BA^{-1}&C\\0&A^{-1} B\end{smallmatrix}\right)$ will generate an ACM which commutes with everything in ${\cal{A}}_3$. I guess in this case it would automatically contain ${\cal{A}}_3$. I certainly verified that randomly filling in the C does this in several cases. In many cases I tested one can get away with one or both of A and B having rank 1... but not always. The two 4x4 matrices made from matrices with $A=\left(\begin{smallmatrix}1&0\\0&0\end{smallmatrix}\right)$ and $B=\left(\begin{smallmatrix}0&1\\0&0\end{smallmatrix}\right)$ give an example of that. One can shrink this to 3x3 (in the case that the underlying ring is $\mathbb{Z}_2$ as noted by Martin and missed by me), so I will:
4) The two $3 \times 3$ matrices $\left(\begin{smallmatrix}0&1&0\\0&0&0\\0&0&0\end{smallmatrix}\right)$ and $\left(\begin{smallmatrix}0&0&1\\0&0&0\\0&0&0\end{smallmatrix}\right)$ generate an algebra A with eight members $\left(\begin{smallmatrix}a&b&c\\0&a&0\\0&0&a\end{smallmatrix}\right)$.
The open problem that surprised me was on the lower bound of dimensions of maximal commutative subalgebras of $M_n(\mathbf C)$. A maximal commutative sublagebra of $M_n(\mathbf C)$ can have dimension strictly lass than $n$. See for example Courter's article, where he gives a 13 dimensional maximal commutative subalgebra of $M_{14}(\mathbf C)$. I think, In general the problem of finding lower bound for the dimension of maximal commutative subalgebras in $M_n(\mathbf C)$ is still open.