E o Windows 2000? E o 98?

Muita gente desconhece a história do Windows, e se confunde, gerando equívocos e críticas injustas ao Windows e à Microsoft. A Microsoft NÃO RETIROU O DOS DO WINDOWS XP, ele simplesmente NUNCA TEVE O DOS. Vamos voltar um pouco no tempo, ir lá no tempo do Windows 3.x.

Desde o primórdio do DOS, quando a Micro$oft estava desenvolvendo o ambiente gráfico Windows, “compraram” uma idéia de um cara e o puxaram pra ela, com um sistema mais estável e seguro - Eis o Windows NT, ótimo para empresas e redes. “NT” vem de “New Technology”. Ele não era baseado no DOS, e aproveitava ao máximo o duplo processamento, suportava mais memória, praticamente não travava, era multitarefa (gerenciava os processos de forma competente, diferentemente do que ocorre no DOS e, consequentemente, no Windows 9x/Me). Era destinado a computadores mais potentes e servidores. Numa linha paralela, teve o Windows 3.x, que posteriormente foi sendo atualizado para o Windows 95, 98 e Millennium, que no fundo no fundo são “interfaces” gráficas com muitas melhorias e modificações, mas que rodam sob o DOS. A dependência do DOS veio diminuindo a cada versão, mas o sistema se mostrava cada vez mais instável e ruim, usando o DOS com suas limitações e ao mesmo tempo tendo que se adaptar a novas tecnologias (USB, por exemplo, no Windows 98, e um maior suporte a redes, no Millennium). O Windows NT, que seguia uma linha separada ANTES MESMO DO WINDOWS 95, e que nunca teve DOS, deu origem ao Windows 2000 (uma atualização dele), com versões para servidor e estações de trabalho, assim como já ocorria no Windows NT 3.5x, (que tinha a cara do Windows 3.x, mas sem o DOS). O Windows 2000 foi o maior projeto de software executado na época, com um excelente sistema de detecão de erros e testes. Tanto é que foi o mais estável. Notando o desempenho do 2000 perante os outros, e o nível de compatibilidade atingido, a M$ lançou o XP eliminando definitivamente a “linha do DOS”, que passou pelo 95, 98 e findou no “Windows Millennium Edition”. Assim o desenvolvimento se manteve apenas na linha do NT. O Windows NT 4.0, de 1996, não tinha o DOS e já era incompatível com muitos programas e itens de hardware feitos para o Windows 95/98/Me. Como melhoria, para expansão e facilidade de uso, trazia a interface visual do Windows 95. Não rodava quase nenhum jogo ou programa feito para o MS-DOS. No Windows 2000 o nível de compatibilidade aumentou um pouco, o sistema ficou mais robusto e inteligente (afinal em 1998, 1999, 2000 os PCs já eram muuuuito mais avançados do que em 1994, 1995 e 1996). O XP Professional é uma atualização do 2000 Professional, para desktops e estações de trabalho. Herda assim toda a sua estabilidade e estrutura, mais de 70% do kernel do XP é o mesmo do 2000. Ele vem com suporte a itens de hardware mais novos, melhorou muito a compatibilidade com programas antigos, é muito rápido e estável (mas para isso, exige um hardware a altura). Para poder atingir em cheio o mercado doméstico, eliminaram alguns recursos do XP Professional deixando o XP Home, mais barato por sinal e nem por isso mais ruim - praticamente tudo o que roda no Professional roda no Home, e ele é tão estável quanto o Professional. Apenas não tem algumas ferramentas e recursos que podem interessar em cheio a empresas e corporações, estas ficam com o Professional. A versão “Starter” (como o próprio nome diz, “Iniciante”) na verdade foi uma tentativa de pegar o público desinformado, afinal muitos estavam pirateando o Windows ou partindo para soluções Linux, como os projetos de Inclusão Digital e o programa “Computador para todos” (do Governo Federal), que deixou o Windows de lado. Ela é funcional mas tem muuuitas limitações, só abre três janelas, não é tão personalizável, etc… E nem é gratuita: custa cerca de 100 reais (hoje deve estar bem mais barata). Do lado dos servidores, a atualização do Windows 2000 Server não se deu com o XP, mas posteriormente, com o Server 2003 (até porque não se atualizam servidores com a mesma rapidez que se atualizam estações de trabalho e micros domésticos). O Windows 3.x, 95, 98 e Millennium nunca foram sistemas para servidor, eles podem se conectar a rede como clientes (embora haja pequenos programas que “os transformam” em servidores específicos, porém instáveis). Assim, a cada versão foram implementados recursos de servidor, afinal as redes domésticas estavam cada vez mais comum. Resumindo: o Windows 95, 98 e Millennium dependem do DOS, e o NT/2000/XP/2003/Vista são sistemas independentes. Eles têm sim um prompt de comando, que “simula” o DOS emulando algumas de suas funções, mas os programas não têm mais controle sobre o pc e memória como era no DOS. Por isso tanta incompatibilidade… Surgem soluções brilhantes como o DosBox, um emulador de DOS para Linux, que ganhou versão para Windows e permite rodar muitos jogos sob o Windows XP, jogos estes que não rodariam diretamente.

Antes de finalizar… Como é um sistema proprietário, não se sabe ao certo o que acontece por trás dos panos, digo, por trás das telas. “Se” ele vier a ter códigos ou módulos do DOS ainda hoje em dia, certamente não faz jus ao conhecido MS-DOS, um sistema operacional antigo, cheio de limitações e que a cada adaptação (como o Windows 95, 98 e Me) se mostrou pior. No entanto a instalação do Windows XP em modo texto é praticamente idêntica à das últimas versões do DOS, e até mesmo do Windows 3.11. Nada demais aproveitar códigos prontos, em programação isso é muito comum. Se você já tem uma rotina para fazer uma coisa, e vai lançar um novo produto, porque não utilizar as rotinas prontas? Idéias assim ganham forças com a chamada Programação Orientada a Objetos.

Espero que com isso você possa entender um pouco melhor e se orientar na hora de “julgar” o Windows XP e a extinção do MS-DOS.

Certainly, some people are easily identifiable even by neurotypical people as Autistic. Others are "passing" as neurotypical but are often recognized by others on the spectrum. Then, there are people who just seem to surprise others with their behavior, but who most NT people pass over as "weird," rather than the lightbulb going on that says, "autistic."

As Amanda Baggs said *link is to Google cache because her site is down temporarily,* "We’re (Autistic people are) the person who everyone calls “retarded” who suddenly comes out with things that seem very intelligent, and the person everyone calls a “genius” who can’t do some really simple stuff."

But then you have the NT people who do Autistic-like things, but who are never given an autism-spectrum label. For example, stimming. I've heard in various places that 10%, 25%, half, or nearly all NTs stim to some degree, but that NT stims just happen to be more socially acceptable. I found an NT blogger with an Aspie partner who puts it well: "NT stims tend to increase with greater anxiety, discomfort, or boredom. Though most are 'socially acceptable' in their style, they can become socially unacceptable if done to excess, because they are distracting and signal discomfort." NT stims include tapping, leg bobbing, chair rocking, hair twirling, zit popping, head scratching, shifting weight side to side... all sorts of things that NTs see as normal, and which are normal, but the jump is rarely made from "My neurotypical stims are normal," to, "Autistic stims are normal; they're more obvious, and sometimes self-injurious, but they're normal."

I also think that NT stimming differs from Autistic stimming largely in that NTs are more able to inhibit stims-- some of the typical Autie stims like rocking or hand flapping are just as appealing to small NT children as small Autistic children, but NTs develop a greater capacity for identifying situations in which these stims won't be perceived as acceptable. For example, an NT person who stims by staring at fan blades might do so while waiting for an entree at a restaurant by herself, but not during a business meeting with 20 corporate suits. A stim that's rarely, if ever, socially acceptable might be suppressed entirely: For example, headbanging. Or, an NT person who likes to headbang might channel it into doing so at concerts where that behavior is expected.

Another behavior typically associated with autism, but frequently seen in NTs, is avoidance of eye contact. Many NTs avoid eye contact but don't associate that avoidance with the autism spectrum. "I'm shy," or, "I just don't like to make eye contact with people I don't know well," are frequently-used explanations for the avoidance of eye contact by an NT. I think Shiva perceived me as autistic from my photos because I avoid "eye contact" with cameras instinctively unless I'm thinking very consciously about looking right into the camera lens. That results in my looking down in a lot of my photos, or looking up in some-- usually, the weirdest photos of me are the ones where someone said "Chin up!" and I tipped my chin up, but my eyes followed it up, and I end up looking over the camera. When a person looks at a photo of another person, the viewer's eyes are in the place of the camera lens, and one perceives a photo of someone looking away from the lens as a photo of a person avoiding eye contact with the viewer.

My posture and positioning in photographs may also appear autistic; however, I'm not familiar enough with the body movements typical of autism/Aspergers/ASD to explain that one. I do trend away from posing facing my body straight toward the camera for photographs, but I think that has more to do with a long history of hearing about my thighs and hips being larger than average than anything. You can see from my photos that I'm of average weight, but I have a pear-shaped figure like my mother's, and "affectionate" (read: needling) comments from my father about her legs and behind affected my own perception of my body shape. Then there's the acting classes-- "Hollywood stars stand at a thirty degree angle for red carpet photographs, with one leg in front of the other, because that angle is slimming."

So, back to my initial question-- when is a collection of behaviors associated with Autism sufficient to warrant a label or diagnosis? My initial impulse is to say, "When those behaviors impair the person's ability to participate in NT-dominated society," but that's pretty subjective also. I don't think I should have a diagnosis-- I think I'm just one of many neurotypicals who don't suppress Autism-like behaviors as readily as most, and that my bookwormness has sort of a chicken and the egg relationship with my social awkwardness. But have I benefited from the Autie/Aspie/ASD blogosphere and community? Sure. So, maybe someone who isn't impaired significantly could still benefit from being assigned a label if it comes with encouragement to explore that community and culture. So, maybe, "When that person finds a sense of community and acceptance among autistics/aspies that they do not feel in communities of neurotypicals."

It's not an easy line to draw, and I wonder if perhaps the difficulty of making that determination is responsible for the enormous numbers of self-diagnosed Aspies roaming the internet, who identify as Aspies but haven't ever seen any type of professional to confirm that label. I don't know that professionals are really more qualified to diagnose Asperger's Syndrome than other Aspies, since the Aspie-dar some people have (like Shiva) is sensitive enough to detect commonality even in people who identify as NT but who fall slightly closer to Aspergers/Autism than average for NTs.

Stigma comes with a diagnosis, but so does self-awareness and the availability of community support and community-based learning. So, where's the line? When should a parent refer hir child for a possible autism-spectrum label? When should an adult self-label or see a professional to talk about the possibility of an autism-spectrum diagnosis?

Here's a rough, graphical representation of how I see the Autism spectrum, the NT spectrum, the connection between the two, and me. I realize this is most certainly flawed and may well reveal some of my own unconscious biases, but I'd appreciate if others would share their thoughts on how they perceive the differences and similarities between self-identifying NTs and self-identifying Autie/Aspie/ASD people.

Please click to access the full image; wordpress cuts it off and shrinking it loses the text.

Visual Description: A red line representing the Autistic spectrum connects to a blue line representing the neurotypical spectrum. Below, a purple line draws a rough bell curve showing the most people toward the center of the NT spectrum. An X representing me is about one-fifth of the way toward the right on the NT spectrum. Toward the far right is "very social and extroverted, no autism-like traits" and to the far left on the Autistic spectrum is "Autism affecting mental age and social interaction, LFA label, most or all traits associated with autism."

All contemporary unit testing frameworks focus on unit testing in user mode. Certainly, the vast majority of testing code can be assumed to be targeting user mode, so this does not come at a surprise. Tools for driver testing, of which there are quite a few, focus on integration testing -- they usually test whether the driver works in its entirety.

While these tools are very useful indeed, they do not support true unit testing -- i.e. offering the ability to test individual routines or subsystems of a driver. To perform such tests, it would be neccessary to write a separate test driver or revert to other techniques such as this one.

cfix 1.1 fills in this gap and offers the ability to write kernel mode tests. That way, individual parts of what may eventually become a driver can thoroughly be tested in isolation, without neccessitating much boilerplate code.

Example

Writing a kernel mode unit test is as easy as writing a user mode unit test -- the API is the same for user and kernel mode tests. Even the tools, cfix32 and cfix64 are the same for both modi. The only true difference is that kernel mode tests require slightly different build settings.

The following listing shows an example for a kernel mode unit test -- but the same code could just as well be compiled into a user mode unit test.

#include <cfix.h>

static void FixtureSetup()
{
  CFIX_ASSERT( 0 != 1 );
}

static void FixtureTeardown()
{
  CFIX_LOG( L"Tearing down..." );
}

/*++
  Test routine -- do the actual testing.
--*/
static void Test1()
{
  ULONG a = 1;
  ULONG b = 1;
  CFIX_ASSERT_EQUALS_ULONG( a, b );
  CFIX_ASSERT( a + b == 2 );

  // You are free to use all WDM APIs here!

  CFIX_LOG( L"a=%d, b=%d", a, b );
}

/*++
  Define a test fixture.
--*/
CFIX_BEGIN_FIXTURE( MyFixture )
  CFIX_FIXTURE_ENTRY( Test1 )

  CFIX_FIXTURE_SETUP( FixtureSetup )
  CFIX_FIXTURE_TEARDOWN( FixtureTeardown )
CFIX_END_FIXTURE()

Once built, the test can be run from the command line:

C:\cfix\bin\i386>cfix32 -nologo -kern ktest.sys
Module: ktest (ktest.sys)
  Fixture: MyFixture
    Test1

For a more detailed discussion and more example code, please refer to the tutorial.

Architecture

For user mode code, the cfix architecture roughly looks like this:

The tests are compiled into a DLL. Using the testrunner application cfix32 or cfix64, one or more fixtures defined in the DLL can be run and the results are reported to the console or to a log file.

For kernel mode code, the acrhitecture looks a little different. The tests are compiled into a driver rather than into a DLL. The driver is verly lightweight and, besides the tests, contains only very little cfix-provided code (basically, just a DriverEntry implementation).

When cfix32 or cfix64 is requested to run a kernel mode tests, it will load the Reflector, a driver that contains the kernel mode fraction of the testing framework. Relaying control operation and output through the reflector, the kernel mode unit tests can be run.

All these additional steps are performed without additional user intervention -- the drivers are installed, loaded and stopped automatically. From a user perspective, running a kernel mode tests feels just like running a user mode test.

More...

cfix 1.1 introduces additional new features. I will discuss some of them over the next weeks. In any case, whether you have not used cfix yet or are a cfix 1.0 user, you should go straight to the download page now.

This is what I been up to.

Image: Martin S.

Edition: Anne V.

This may come as a surprise to many, but there are women in this world who take their pils seriously, very seriously.

Ouch, after an opening like this I can hear my girlfriends' lectures on my silent acceptance (worse even, I might appear to encourage by endorsing it, if only for a joke) of that old-fashioned prejudice that "les hommes savent pourquoi".

Anyway, Jenny likes beer and so her and Martin make beer every year, and this year I happened to be staying with them so here are the pics.

This (pic above), by the way, is Jenny, she's the kind of person that makes you feel happy just being around her, Martin is lucky. Probably the easiest person to understand in German, must be because she's so nice I don't feel under pressure when she speaks to me, and I know that if I don't get it she repeats it in English.

Then this is me, measuring water, I carried my task with great care as you can tell.

Ho yes, the brewery was set on their balcony, check out the views when they appear in the background, this is such a nice place!

As I said, this is a serious business, with many rules and checks. No I shall not write anything about it being, or not, suited to the German people, after all the Belgians too are renowned for their beers if not for their rigor and ability to conform to and follow rules! Ever heard of Belgian order, our politic system is but one example thereof...

It's fun work though.

Or not?

There's nothing like watching someone else work...

Here Jenny is reading the protocol sheet (doing the work), and I am trying to read the German instructions that came with it (it is work too, really).

Iode test, there was nothing in the book telling you what to do if the test results weren't good. Would they really have thrown it all away if it hadn't been OK?

Not beer yet.

Looking good?

So what, all these emotions made me hungry, hardly surprising really. Can you believe the view?

En NT se trata de un resumen + complemento

En EpS tenemos un resumen y tests por temas

Son dos archivos zip. Uno por asignatura. Los podéiss descargar aquí mismo, pinchando el enlace o en el lugar correspondiente a cada una de las asignaturas, donde se quedarán de forma permanente.

Gracias, Natalia

Numbers 22, 23, 24, 25

2 Peter 2:15,16
Jude 11
Revelation 2:14

Numbers 31
Slaughter of Balaam

Balaam "loved the wages of unrighteousness"

-Alex

*
παραδιδωμι: hand or give over, deliver up; betray, entrust, commit, give; hand down pass on; risk; permit.

*
I live but no longer I, but Christ lives in me; and while I now live in the flesh, I live in the belief of the son of the god who loved me and delivered himself up for me.

*
KJM: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.

When programming in assembly, it is equally easy to use memory below and above the stack pointer. Reading from or writing to addresses beyond the top of the stack is unusual and under normal circumstances, there is little reason to do so. There are, however, situations -- rare situations -- where it may tempting to temporarily use memory beyond the top of the stack.

That said, the question is whether it is really just a convention and good style not to grab beyond the stack of the stack or whether there are actually reasons why doing so could lead to problems.

When trying to answer this question, one first has to make a distinction between user mode and kernel mode. In user mode Windows, I am unable to come up with a single reason of why usage of memory beyond the top of the stack could lead to problems. So in this case, it is probably merely bad style.

However, things are different in kernel mode.

In one particular routine I recently wrote, I encountered a situation where temporarily violating the rule of not reaching beyond the top of the stack came in handy. The routine worked fine for quite a while. In certain situations, however, it suddenly started to fail due to memory corruption. Interestingly enough, the routine did not fail always, but still rather frequently.

Having identified the specific routine as being the cuplrit, I started single stepping the code. Everything was fine until I reached the point where the memory above the stack pointer was used. The window span only a single instruction. Yet, as soon as I had stepped over the two instructions, the system crashed. I tried it multiple times, and it was prefectly reproduceable when being single-stepped.

So I took a look at the stack contents after every single step I took. To my surprise, as soon as I reached the critical window, the contents of the memory location just beyond the current stack pointer suddenly became messed. Very weird.

After having been scratching my head for a while, that suddenly started to made sense: I was not the only one using the stack -- in between the two instructions, an interrupt must have occured and been dispatched. As my thread happened to be the one currently running, it was my stack that has been used for dispatching it. This also explains why it did not happened always unless I was single-stepping the respective code.

When an interrupt occurs and no privilege-level change has to be performed, the CPU will push the EFLAGS, CS and EIP registers on the stack. That is, the stack of whatever kernel thread happens to be the one currently running on this CPU is reused and the memory locations beyond the stack pointer will be overwritten by these three values. So what I initially interpreted as garbage, actually were the contents of EFLAGS, CS and EIP.

On Windows NT, unlike some other operating systems (FreeBSD, IIRC), handling the interrupt, which involves runing the interrupt service routine (ISR) occurs on the same stack as well. The following stack trace, taken elsewhere, shows an ISR being executed on the stack of the interrupted thread:

f6bdab4c f99bf153 i8042prt!I8xQueueCurrentMouseInput+0x67
f6bdab78 80884289 i8042prt!I8042MouseInterruptService+0xa58
f6bdab78 f6dd501a nt!KiInterruptDispatch+0x49
f6bdac44 f6dd435f driver!Quux+0x11a
f6bdac58 f6dd61db driver!Foobar+0x6f
...

Morale of the story: Using memory beyond the current stack pointer is not only bad practice, it is actually illegal when done in kernel mode.

Last Saturday marked the first anniversary of the Northern Territory Intervention, but it is far from something we should be celebrating. It has been a long year for those living with this paternalistic, top down policy; one that will no doubt make future generations ashamed.

This legislation was a knee-jerk reaction that seemed designed purely to gain an election bounce for the Coalition (made even more ludicrous by the recent admission from former Indigenous Affairs Minister Mal Brough that the whole plan was thought up in one 48-hour session), but it is the Rudd Government’s decision to “stay the course” that has been most disappointing. Frankly, we expected better.

A quick scan of the recently released Northern Territory Emergency Response: One Year On report shows a fanciful set of claims boasting dramatic improvements, without the figures to back them up.

For example, during the last session of Senate Estimates, it was revealed that just one of the safe houses promised under the Intervention was operational as of Tuesday 3 June. The One Year On report states that as at Wednesday 18 June, 10 safe houses had been completed in eight communities. How credible is it that in just two weeks there were suddenly another nine fully operational safe houses?

Similarly, we are told to believe that Indigenous communities are now safer, with increased numbers of police. But a large proportion of these police (33 of 51) have been shipped in temporarily from interstate. How are Indigenous communities to build any kind of trust in a police force that is likely to be shipped back home at the end of their term? And what will happen when they leave?

For the whole of Australian history, the resources committed to addressing the problems in Aboriginal communities have been totally inadequate for the scale of the disadvantage they face. Now, after so many years of crying out for more resources, it is frustrating and soul destroying for those struggling on the ground that the resources finally forthcoming are being squandered on unnecessary, ill-conceived and ineffective measures while successful Aboriginal programs and organisations still go begging.

The money poured into the NT Intervention has the potential to turn around lives in remote communities, but more needs to be done to ensure it is spent on things that actually make a difference, such as the Safe Families program, a project of the Tangentyere Council in Alice Springs.

This program focuses on reducing family violence and preventing kids from needing to enter the child protection system. It is staffed only by members of the local indigenous community, employing 10 full time Indigenous residential care staff.

The Federal Government used to contribute to this vital program under the Family Violence Partnership Program, but it now faces losing staff and resources due to funding cutbacks. Ironically, this program would be a perfect candidate for Intervention funding. Without support from the Federal Government, the community will lose a successful, effective child protection program.

The initial justification for the Intervention, of course, was concerns about the child sexual abuse illustrated in the Little Children are Sacred report. As part of the Intervention, the Australian Crime Commission (ACC) was given broad powers to investigate allegations of child sexual abuse and violence in Indigenous communities. During Senate Estimates in May, the ACC reported that it had found no evidence to date of organised paedophile rings in Northern Territory Aboriginal communities, contrary to claims made by the then Minister.

They did indicate that a significant proportion of the intelligence they gathered in the Territory related to underage sexual activity. This is consistent with the evidence given to Senate Inquiry hearings in the Northern Territory, which suggested that few charges have been brought for child sexual abuse in the Northern Territory since the Intervention commenced last year. It is also in keeping with anecdotal reports we have received from Aboriginal communities.

Child sexual abuse is recognised as prevalent across the Australian community, and there is absolutely no doubt that there remains serious concern for the safety of children in Aboriginal communities. Yet only one coordinator and seven child protection officers have been put in place as a result of the Intervention. You would have thought more resources would have been put into this vital area.

Underage sexual activity is also a significant issue in many Indigenous communities, and one that creates a range of social problems that need to be addressed. It is a pressing social problem of a different nature to child abuse and requires an entirely different response.

A community education campaign is needed to ensure teenagers and young people understand and abide by age of consent laws, respect community standards, and appreciate the harm inappropriate underage sexual activity can cause.

Perhaps the greatest issue any Intervention in the Northern Territory must address if it wants to deliver better health and education outcomes and ensure children’s safety is the lack of safe and appropriate housing in many communities. Overcrowded housing and sleeping rough are arguably the biggest contributors to poor health outcomes for Aboriginal people, particularly for high rates of infectious diseases.

If the Rudd Government is going to close the gap on life expectancy within a generation, there needs to be a huge amount of work undertaken to fix this issue — as well as ensuring existing houses have working power and plumbing, functioning bathrooms and kitchens.

Labor has already made a big funding commitment, putting aside $813 million to build new houses in the NT. While this is less than the estimated $2.3 billion needed to address the current level of unmet need for housing, let alone for projected population growth (42.4 per cent of the Aboriginal population in the NT is under the age of 17), it is a step in the right direction.

However, we remain concerned that adequate resources have not been committed to repairs and ongoing maintenance, despite the fact that this has been the key finding of all studies into the sustainability of Indigenous housing.

The heavy handed and paternalistic approach of the NT Intervention isn't working and very clearly was never going to work. Labor has always held a commitment to evidence-based policy in Indigenous Affairs and yet it is still pushing on with these ill-conceived Howard-era policies, for which there was never an evidence base.

The suspension of the Racial Discrimination Act remains a sticking point and an international embarrassment for Labor. We do not need the upcoming review to tell us that this aspect of the Intervention is and always will be morally wrong and ethically unjustifiable.

When the quarantining period comes to an end, those affected won't have been empowered to take control of their own finances, because that has not been a focus of the Intervention, and there still won't be jobs for them to go to. Much more of these resources need to be focused on delivering basic health services and protecting at risk children, on fixing existing houses and building safe new homes for the future.

The Australian Greens remain united and steadfast in our opposition to the approach taken by the NT Intervention. We were the only Party to stand up as one in the Australian Parliament to condemn the Intervention when it was announced, and we continue to maintain our opposition to the suspension of the Racial Discrimination Act, the compulsory seizures of lands, the indiscriminate quarantining of welfare, and the trampling of the human rights of Aboriginal people in the NT.

We've had one whole year of this racist policy; of ill-targeted spending with a total disregard for the basic human rights of Aboriginal people in the NT. We would much rather see these resources spent on truly delivering for Aboriginal communities.

It is high time that the ALP admit they made a mistake in backing the Intervention and commit to an evidence-based, community-development approach to Indigenous Affairs that respects human rights and empowers Aboriginal people.

One year of the NT Intervention is not an anniversary to celebrate — it is a call to action.

The Northern Territories.

_ Fog Dam

_ On the way to the Darwin River dam

_ Yellow Waters, Kakadu national park

_ Katherine Gorge

_ Litchfield national park

_ Humpty Doo and around

_ Darwin

_ Crocodiles

Sydney day trips:

_ The Blue Mountains

_ The Ku-Rin-Gai Chase national park

_ The Hunter Valley

_ At Gregg's and at the zoo

Weekends away:

_ Weekends in Brisbane, January and April 2008

_ Weekend in Melbourne with Rosie and Chris: May 2008

Sydney:

_ The ocean from Coogee then Watsons Bay.

_ Centennial Park.

_ Home and nearby.

_ Work and nearby.

Progressive Revelation

Progressive revelation is actually a good concept to explain at this point. And I hope to show how it bolsters my hermeneutical approach rather than invalidating it. So let's start with revelation.

Revelation

As believers in inerrancy, and the "Sola Scriptura" of the Reformation, we uphold the Bible as the sole source of specific revelation to mankind. God has revealed what was unknowable and hidden from man, by declaring his mind to us in the words which make up the inspired Scriptures. Revelation is a gift to us, and it is not something which changes. God knows all, and He has always known what He would reveal to us. All along, God has had His plan for human history complete and settled. And He has known what He would reveal to us in the Bible. So from this perspective, revelation is similar to God opening a shut window to give us a glimpse, just the specific and intended glimpse He wants us to have, of what God has planned and will do for us.

Progressive

"Progressive" refers to the progression of revelation. As we look at Scripture, we can easily tell that God revealed more truth to David than he did to Moses, who had more truth than Abraham. And of course, we on this side of Christ have the complete revelation and thus have more access to truth than David, or even the apostles had (as the canon was completed after most of them had died). At each stage of human history, God advanced His story of redemption a little more. He revealed a little more truth until all was revealed through the advent of Christ (Heb. 1:1) and the subsequent NT writings (John 16:13-14; 14:25-26).

To go back to our analogy, as the Word of God was being written and compiled, the window of Heaven was being raised a little bit higher, and higher, until now it is fully open and we can know all of what God wills us to know. This is just an analogy, but there are explicit places in the New Testament where this idea is explained.

Scriptural Examples

The New Testament mentions that Old Testament passages were written for our learning (Rom. 15:4; Rom. 4:23; 1 Cor. 9:9-10), and OT events happened as lessons for us (1 Cor. 10:6, 11). Even more explicitly, Old Testament institutions were shadows of things to come (Heb. 8:5; 10:1; Col. 2:16-17). In Christ, the shadow is done away and the substance remains (Col. 2:17). In fact, the Old Testament scriptures testify of Christ and point to Him (John 5:39; Luke 24:27). And many Old Testament events are explained in NT gospel terms (Gal. 3:8).

What does this mean for our study? I take it to mean that all along, God knew the complete revelation of what He would do through Christ. And God as the Divine Author of all of Scripture, deliberately foreshadowed things as he orchestrated events and revealed Scriptures all of which would point to Christ and would have a more full meaning for believers in Christ, than they would for the immediate recipients of the OT Scriptures. Yet even for those Jewish believers in God, the very Scriptures they received would point them beyond their current day and work in them a faith in a coming redeemer.

Conclusion

So with respect to progressive revelation, I hold that God deliberately revealed truth in this way so as to hint at and foreshadow the more full revelation which God would ultimately provide. Just because Abraham and others only saw through a partially open window, does not mean God did not have the full picture in mind as He wrote. When God gave promises to Abraham concerning his descendants, God knew full well that the descendants he had in mind were spiritual faithful children, Jew and Gentile (Heb. 2:15; Gal. 3:29). Abraham knew there was more to the land promise than just the plot of land, for he was looking for a heavenly city (Heb. 11:10, 13-16) even as we believers in Christ do (Heb. 13:14). Abraham had great faith in God, even faith that God could raise Isaac from the dead (Rom. 4:14-22; Heb. 11:19), and he even believed the gospel as revealed to him through the promises (Gal. 3:8).

In short, because of progressive revelation, we have no warrant to ignore the full and intended meanings revealed in the New Testament, as we go back to exegete what Old Testament passages mean. Those passages were written with us in mind and for our learning and instruction.

Now of course much more could be said on this point, and I would encourage you to start with studying how the NT authors used the OT scriptures.  I believe they used the OT in a legitimate fashion, intended to illustrate to us how we are to use it.  Scripture is more than just a literal meaning couched in words.  It has a spiritual meaning, discerned only by the work of the Holy Spirit.  Just as Human authors use many literary devices and allusions to foreshadow events which are to happen later in their book, even so God can do and has done this with His book, the Bible.  I'd encourage you to read this article by my friend Nathan Pitchford on the importance of reading and studying the Bible together as one unified revelation from God.

Watch the brief video appeal from members of some communities affected, read the fact sheet and sign the petition to demand a consultative approach that protects human rights, not strips them away.

Dear Mr Rudd & Ms Macklin:

The NT Emergency Response is an ill-considered, discriminatory and blanket approach to issues that demand serious attention. The Racial Discrimination Act must be reinstated and the ‘emergency’ measures must be replaced with a long-term, consistent community development program that consults directly with the communities affected. These are fundamental issues of human rights, and we encourage you to properly implement the recommendations of the Little Children Are Sacred report.

Sign the Petition here

But then there really was no definition of 'success' provided when the Howard Government introduced the intervention, and Rudd's Government hasn't elaborated on the definition either.  Now there are plans by the Rudd Government, announced by Macklin, to possibly expand the intervention into other states where there is growing disquiet about the abuse of Indigenous girls as young as 12yo.

The new plans include more threats of withholding welfare payments.  But what is really happening in the NT and how are the Indigenous Australians being subjected to it going?

The recurring theme from the intervention has been the need for remote communities having reliable police presences.  Maybe Macklin should be telling her State colleagues to get more police out to these communities.

It is interesting, and somewhat sad, to note that we have not one original document which is contained in the New Testament; the entire compilation is based upon copies, and copies of copies.

Papyrus

Considering that Papyrus (paper, either in rolls or sheets made from the Papyrus plant) was the most common writing material during the first century after Christ's birth, it seems likely that this was the medium for the original works. The longevity of papyrus is unfortunately not of great extent without fortuitous environmental conditions, certainly not when compared with writing surfaces made from leathers (parchment and vellum.) So, perhaps unfortunate timing with regard to the development of mediums for recording the written word accounts for the lack of original documents. Please note that this is a guess of mine, and has no more basis in fact than the assumption that the original books and letters were written in Greek.

Vellum

Recent discoveries (in particular, the Dead Sea Scrolls) date from the first century after Christ, and these contain portions of the Old Testament and other intriguing documents. Not all the available scrolls have been researched or at least have had the results of any research published, and so other information may come to light, but as I write this no similarly dated copies (or originals!) containing portions of the New Testament have turned up.

There are over five thousand different historical (old enough to be used as source references) manuscript copies of the New Testament. Some are in Greek, some in Latin, and some in Hebrew. These generally date somewhere between the ninth and fifteenth centuries. Of that number, most are incomplete copies; sometimes this is due to loss of some of the manuscript, but it is often simply a consequence of the actual bulk of the various ancient transcription mediums (papyrus, vellum and parchment). Often, the New Testament was issued as a series of separate documents, for instance broken into The Four Gospels, the Acts and General Epistles, the Pauline Epistles, and the Book of Revelation.

With all these manuscripts, and parts of manuscripts, one might think that the resulting pool of information would be so vast as to render any effort at translation useless. This is not the case, however. Careful research into the origins of these documents reveals only a few primary sources for the text; and today, new translations often use the following three manuscripts as the basis for the majority of the text:

• The Vatican Manuscript (4th century; missing pages from Hebrews 9:14 to the end of Hebrews, also missing Timothy, Titus, and the Book of Revelation): Still accepted as the best reference by most authorities.
• The Sinaitic Manuscript (4th century; complete, plus contains two books known as "The Epistle of Barnabas" and the "Shepherd of Hermas")
• The Alexandrin Manuscript (5th century; 25 pages missing from Matthew, 2 from John, and 3 from 2nd Corinthians). This is generally known as the poorest of the three manuscripts.

Prior to 1526, the bible (both Old and New Testaments) circulated even among the clergy only in Greek and Latin. These texts were kept closely held by the religious authorities of the day, and even were this not so, the simple fact that the texts were in Latin or Greek with a smattering of Aramaic (or all three in one manuscript) was enough to keep the common man or woman from perusing the books and pondering the stories told within. This situation persisted against a backdrop of increasing agitation for a translation understandable by "all"; eventually the pressure rose to such a level that serious efforts to produce a "bible for the masses" were undertaken by various resourceful and scholarly individuals.

After several false starts and well intentioned but incomplete efforts, the complete New Testament was initially printed in English through the efforts of William Tyndale at Cologne, Germany and at Worms. In 1526 copies were smuggled into England; the church condemned the translation and moreover went so far as to burn copies they managed to obtain in public - they even attempted to buy up all the extant copies. They did not succeed, however. For his trouble, William Tyndale was strangled and subsequently burned at the stake by the church.

Many translations followed close on the heels of Tyndales work; King Henry VIII stated that each church should have a copy of one of these editions (The Great Bible), and caused this to come to pass. Finally, the Geneva Bible, produced in easily readable type and containing both marginal notes and illustrations, became the most widely used bible in England. It seemed the populace preferred it, but the church officials did not, as its commentary (the marginal notes and so on) put forth the views of the Calvinist Reformation. The church officials produced a bible called the Bishop's Bible with which they intended to replace the Geneva Bible, however the Bishop's Bible was never very popular and now has the reputation of not being particularly well produced in terms of scholarship. Finally, the King James version was produced as described next, and it has held the foremost position of all translations to this day.

Work on this version of the New Testament was begun in June of 1604 A.D. by those under the rule of King James I in England. King James' reign began on April 5th, 1603 - it seems quite clear that he wasn't inclined to waste time getting this started! The completed translation was first printed in 1611. Between 1611 and 1616, various changes were made to the text, some single words, the occasional phrase. By and large, however, the text remained as it was when first printed in 1611.

The King James Bible then replaced the bible then in use, the Geneva Bible, over the course of about fifty years. This was not without some resistance at the time, however, as this snippet of a critique penned by Hugh Broughton illustrates:

"Tell his majesty (King James I) that I had rather be rent in pieces with wild horses, than any such translation by my consent be urged on poor churches."

The King James version is well accepted at this time to be a reasonably accurate translation, even to the extent of bringing home the actual style and feel of the various authors of the testaments and epistles. The archaic form of English used in this translation is in some cases somewhat obfuscatory; however, it does lend a feel that assists the reader in the perception that this document is indeed old, and for that reason alone I prefer this translation.

More recent translations have attempted to make some points in the text clearer; however this has (in my opinion) often been at the expense of the sheer literary beauty of the 1611 King James edition.

The New Testament is a most interesting work; I hope that this very brief presentation of its genesis serves you well. If you find this interesting, I would encourage you to do some research on the various aspects of the book yourself. One particular area that will yield immediate results of an interesting nature is that of Textual Criticism, which is simply the area of research that attempts to resolve the bibles we have today with the documents (manuscripts) that they appear to be derived from. Many learned people, both religious and not, have put enormous amounts of effort into this field; It cannot help but hold surprises for the new reader exploring it. Enjoy!

This legislation was a knee-jerk reaction that seemed designed purely to gain election bounce for the Coalition (made even more ludicrous by the recent admission from former Minister Mal Brough that the whole plan was thought up in one 48 hour session), but it was the Rudd Government’s decision to stay the course that has been most disappointing. Frankly, we expected better.

Howard’s original ‘emergency’ lacked the in-depth kind of community involvement necessary to effectively undertake such a radical overhaul of Indigenous life in the territory. Laws were slapped together and rushed through Parliament only to land with a disappointing crash in the laps of Indigenous communities across the NT.

Since that day, most of the money being poured into the NT intervention is being spent on administration and not hitting the ground to address the underlying causes. Imagine what such a huge amount of resources could do to turn around lives in these remote communities, if it were properly thought out and effectively administered in conjunction with existing programs in the Indigenous communities.

Today should be the day that the Rudd Government and the Minister for Indigenous Affairs Jenny Macklin admit they made a mistake in backing the rushed approach taken by the Northern Territory Intervention. It is high time that they returned to the ALP's core values and committed to an evidence-based community-development approach to Indigenous Affairs that respects human rights and empowers people.

Our Indigenous Affairs Minister, Jenny Macklin is clearly still struggling to resolve the contradictions between the punitive approach of the NT Intervention and the ALP’s philosophical commitment to a social inclusion approach to disadvantaged Australians.

For the whole of Australian history, the commitment of resources to address the problems in Aboriginal communities has been under-resourced. However, after so many years of crying out for these resources, they are now being so blatantly squandered on unnecessary, ill-conceived and ineffectual measures, while successful Aboriginal programs and organisations still go begging.

The Tangentyere Council Safe Families program is a prime example of one of these initiatives. This program focuses on reducing family violence and preventing children becoming part of the child protection system. They also provide limited reunification and placements and a strong emphasis on case management. It is staffed only by Aunties and Uncles from the local indigenous community, with 10 full time Indigenous residential care staff being employed.

The Federal Government used to contribute to this vital program, with 50% of Territory and 50% Federal Government funding under the Family Violence Partnership Program, so now they may face having to lose staff and resources. Current funding will cease in less than three weeks. This program serves as a perfect candidate to receive Intervention funding, and without support from the Federal Government, this community will lose a successful, effective child protection program.

While the resources poured into the NT intervention have the potential to turn around lives on remote communities, more needs to be done to ensure money is spent wisely on the things that actually make a difference, such as the Safe Families program.

The heavy handed and paternalistic approach on the NT emergency response isn't working and very clearly was never going to work. The Rudd Government has always held up its commitment to evidence-based policy in Indigenous Affairs and yet it is still pushing on with these ill-conceived Howard-era policies, for which there was never an evidence base.

The suspension of the Racial Discrimination Act remains a sticking point and an international embarrassment for the Rudd Government. We do not need the upcoming review to tell us that this aspect of the intervention is and always will be morally wrong and ethically unjustifiable.

When the quarantining period comes to an end, those affected won't have been educated and empowered to take control of their own finances, because that has not been a focus under the Intervention… and there still won't be jobs for them to go to. Much more of these resources need to be focused on delivering basic health services and protecting children at risk, on fixing existing houses and building safe new homes for the future.

The Australian Greens today remain united and steadfast in our opposition to the approach taken by the NT intervention. We were the only Party to stand up as one in the Australian Parliament to condemn the intervention when it was announced … and we have maintained and continue to maintain our opposition;
• to the suspension of the Racial Discrimination Act,
• to compulsory seizures of lands,
• to indiscriminate quarantining of welfare
• and to the trampling of the human rights of Aboriginal people in the NT

We've had one whole year of this racist policy; of frivolous spending, and of total disregard for the basic human rights of Aboriginal people in the NT. We would much rather see these resources being spent on truly delivering for the Aboriginal communities.

It is not an anniversary to celebrate … it is a call to action.

What are the mysterious stones emerging from Kinneret waters?

A marine scientist has discovered a series of mysterious stone patterns on the lake bed of drought-stricken Lake Kinneret.

The man-made piles of stone, which are now above water, jut out from the freshwater lake, and sit 30 meters from each other along a 3.5-kilometer stretch of the eastern shore, from the Kinneret College campus to Haon resort.

(...)

Though they have not yet been scientifically examined, there are several hypotheses as to what functions they fulfilled. One theory postulates that they were part of a boundary between the ancient lakeside towns of Hippos, also known as Sussita, and Gadara. Both towns were part of the Decapolis, a group of 10 towns that flourished in the eastern part of the Roman province of Palestina, and are mentioned in the New Testament. Others have hypothesized that the patterns were part of a string of watchtowers or small buildings, or were used to set up fishermen's nets. (les meir)

Det er sjølvsagt interessant med dei "mystiske" steinane. Dessutan er det interessant at den israelske storavisa Haaretz finn det naturleg å nemna NT når dei eigentleg skriv om Dekapolis!

She took a thorough family history of both R. and I, marking up a pre-made family tree with blank rectangles. With each potential genetic flaw, she'd scribble a different symbol then pull out her genetic counseling book and tell us the chance that the disease or condition was genetic, and our chance of being a carrier. After two hours, we left with a CVS appointment scheduled for the following Friday. Again, we walked most of the way home a bit dazed by the information and feeling very small and powerless to do anything about the inevitable. I guess you could say we had achieved an unsettling peace, a throw up your hands and sigh surrender.

We would have scheduled the CVS for Monday but because of the bleeding last week, we decided to allow for several more days of healing. The spotting had gone away by Monday and all was fine until last night when I started bleeding again at 11pm. Not heavy, but steady throughout the night, ending sometime in the early morning. When it started, both R. and I started pacing around the apartment. We'd been through it before and I knew what the doctor would say. I wasn't cramping, so no need to panic. What does the book say? R. asked. Why don't you read it? I responded. He picked up "What to Expect" and I found the more clinical "Your Pregnancy & Birth" given to me by Dr. L. on my first visit.

R. read things like, "It's definitely scary to see blood down below when you're pregnant. But what's not definite is that bleeding is a sign that something's wrong with your pregnancy. Many women - about 1 in 5, in fact - experience some bleeding during pregnancy, and a very large majority go on to have a perfectly healthy pregnancy and baby." In my book I found "bleeding" under the "Complications During Pregnancy" chapter: "Miscarriage occurs in about 15-20% of al pregnancies, often during the first three months. Bleeding is the most common sign that a miscarriage might occur." We decided we liked the more fluffy, illustrated "What to Expect" approach and I decided not to consult the other book anymore.

I just talked to my doctor and she said to go ahead with Friday's procedure. The ultrasound will show any problems and if there are risks, they won't do it. We are ready. We want it over with. We want to be able to exhale and poo-poo the numbers.

The test itself is simple and non-invasive. In fact, it was kind of fun. The technician was a friendly, Eastern European woman who obviously enjoyed her job. She needed to get a clear shot of the neck away from the uterine wall (or whatever it was pressed against). The little guy was sleeping. She pointed out the encouraging, strong heartbeat. Good sign. The size of the fetus had doubled since the last screening less than two weeks ago. “I need him to wake up,” she said. “I need him to turn over.” She pressed her paddle into my abdomen and shook it around. I felt a little bad about waking him up from his nap, but we needed to get down to work. “There he goes,” she says, and points out the feet and arms (two of each!) kicking and punching back and forth. I wasn’t prepared for that. Legs? Kicking? In quick paddle like motions. Kick, kick, kick. Pause. Kick, kick, kick. And the little arms and fists scrambling in the air (or fluid). It was a Disney moment. Aw, isn’t that adorable! How wonderful. How amazing!

Then she switched views and showed me the 3D version. This I was not prepared for. This I had not seen in my “What to Expect” book, nor the books Dr. L gave me last week. “What’s that?” I asked, watching this tiny birdlike creature stretch and claw under a sheath of tightly pulled skin. “What the heck is that?” She explained it was a 3D view and more like what the fetus actually looked like. I felt a little sick. I wasn’t prepared to see the un-Disney version. It was real, it was fascinating, but it was a little too much for me. Later, I walked most of the way home, despite the 95-degree heat wave. I stumbled along Broadway in my flip-flops, soaking up the Dominican ambiance, watching all the people who started out as blobs of flesh and bone.

Later, R. said, what did you think? That they start out fully formed? No, of course not. I guess I hadn’t really thought of it. The technician presented me with a handful of snapshots from the session. Two of 3-D view and the rest from the regular ultrasound. One of the latter was particularly clear and showed a shapely little skull with rounded forehead and button nose. I placed that one on the top of the stack and posted it on the refrigerator.

For the next day or two I kept talking about how disturbed I was by the 3-D image. R. scolded me, telling me to stop obsessing about it. I told friends how detached I felt from the pregnancy, how seeing that image had made it more real but more unsettling. I’d lie in bed and think about the creature growing, quickly now, and that half formed face, that alien head without every feature in place. It will grow, R. assured me. And maybe that is what I found most disturbing about the image. That it wasn’t fully formed. That I’d seen it in a state of growth, unfinished, and I fear that that is how it will remain. But I was thrilled to see two arms, two legs. Even fingers and toes.

Yesterday a work, while interviewing a very nice programmer from India, my doctor called me on my cell phone. I knew if I didn’t answer it would be another day or so before we connected. I left the poor guy in the conference room for fifteen minutes while I roamed the halls trying to find a hot spot where my phone worked. Dr. L. assured me that the bleeding I'd experienced the night before was probably nothing to worry about since I'd had a good scan on Monday and she wanted to talk to me about my NT scan. At 3:30am, I'd woken up terrified to see what looked like a heavy menstrual flow. How could she be sure nothing was wrong.? She went on to tell me that my NT results were in line with my age. Basically, we didn’t get the reassurance we wanted. When she told me my range from the test and the range from my age, I quickly calculated that my test, in fact, scored lower. I looked back in the glass enclosed conference room and watched the interviewee click away on his PDA, glad that he had a distraction. Standing in a sea of empty cubicles, I remembered that someone was having a going away party in the larger conference room. I could talk about the risk of Down Syndrome openly, without walls or glass enclosures.

Dr. L. was recommending the CVS and for next week. Rattling off numbers and risks, she assured me the procedure was safe and that their facility was top-notch. I knew I would do it, but said, I have to discuss with my husband. Of course, she said, probably knowing that my decision had been made. I didn’t cry on the phone with her. How could I? I had to get back to my interview. She suggested R. and I meet with a genetic counselor the next day (today) that, she said, would make us feel better about the risks of the procedure. Sure, I said. Of course, more information.

When I went back to the interview, our time was up. I apologized profusely, and wondered if he could read the notes I had scribbled on his resume, the only piece of paper I took with me when I left: CVS, 1/38, 1/ 35, genetic counselor.

I told R. he had to come to the appointment with me on Friday, and that he had to come to the CVS. I’m through doing this alone, I said. I refuse to go to one more appointment by myself and swallow my heart as I watch the ultrasound monitor search for the heartbeat, and hold my breath until I see that fluttering heartbeat pulse on the screen. I realized the last time he’d come to appointment with me was the retrieval, and he had to be there for that. I was feeling very alone.

Talk it one day at a time, he reassures me. And I think, easy for you to say. You aren’t living, breathing, thinking this pregnancy every second of the day. You aren’t the one being prodded and poked, waking up in blood soaked underwear, reading books and searching online for risk factors and what every gurgle and strum of your body means.

Last night I went for a walk in Riverside Park. With the break in heat, the park was busy with dog walkers and joggers and kids coming home from softball games. My irritation with R. for not being there festered. But I realized as I walked along that I wasn’t alone. That I’d been feeling this way, accompanied?, for some weeks now. It’s a strange comfort to know that I’m not alone. And maybe I wouldn’t have felt this way if I hadn’t seen that disturbing image of protoplasm and bones. However unformed, it’s hear with me, every step of my day. Which makes the thought of something being wrong sadder than I can put into words.

Большой размер современных операционных систем означает, что ни один человек не может понимать систему целиком, в результате чего управление системой становится очень трудным делом. Но то же можно сказать, например, и про авианосец. Ни один отдельный человек не знает, как работает авианосец, но все его подсистемы хорошо изолированы. Проблема засоренного туалета не влияет на подсистему запуска ракет. У операционных систем отсутствует подобная изоляция компонентов. Современная операционная система содержит сотни и тысячи связанных вместе процедур, которые образуют единую бинарную программу, выполняемую в ядре. Каждая из миллионов строк кода ядра имеет возможность записи в ключевые структуры данных, используемые несвязанным с ней компонентом, что может привести к краху системы. [см.: «Эндрю Таненбаума, Джоррита Хердера и Херберта Боса "Можем ли мы сделать операционные системы надежными и безопасными»]

Windows NT:
MS Windows 7 Milestone является развитием ОС MS Windows NT. 1-я коммерческая версия Windows NT была выпущена 27 июля 1993 (скоро исполняется 15 лет). Версия сразу вышла под номером 3.1 только из-за того что к изначальному ядру ОС NT были добавлены Windows API, включая оконный интерфейс от среды MS Windows 3.1 [см.: Microsoft Windows - Материал из Википедии]
"Разработка Windows NT, начатая в ноябре 1988 г. под рабочим названием NT OS/2, велась параллельно с разработкой фирмой IBM собственной ОС, OS/2 2.0, которая окончательно вышла только в апреле 1992 г. Одновременно с этим фирма Майкрософт продолжала разрабатывать свои ОС семейства DOS и Windows, отличающиеся меньшими требованиями к ресурсам компьютера, чем IBM OS/2. После того, как была выпущена Windows 3.0 в мае 1990, Microsoft решила добавить в NT OS/2 программный интерфейс (API), совместимый с Windows API. Это решение вызвало серьёзные трения между фирмами Майкрософт и IBM, которые закончилась разрывом совместной работы. IBM стала продолжать разработку OS/2 в одиночку, а Майкрософт стала работать над системой, которая была в итоге выпущена под названием Windows NT. Хотя эта система не принесла немедленной популярности подобно DOS или Windows, Windows NT оказалась существенно более успешной, чем OS/2.
Интересно заметить, что в качестве программных интерфейсов ОС NT изначально планировались API OS/2, и затем POSIX — поддержка Windows API была добавлена в последнюю очередь. Кроме того, в качестве аппаратной платформы для NT изначально планировались Intel i860, и затем MIPS — точно так же, поддержка Intel x86 была добавлена позднее..." [см.: Windows NT - Материал из Википедии]
То, что сегодня называется Windows Vista, это NT до ужаса обвешенная всякими библиотеками API и интерфейсами придуманными в Microsoft. По информации MS в ОС Windows 2000 содержится 35 – 60 миллионов строк кода, а в Windows XP более 45 миллионов строк кода, который постоянно дорабатывается и модернизируется. Исходный код написан на языках программирования ассемблер, С и С++. Даже в самой Microsoft не совсем точно понимают, что же они разработали. Разбираться в коде очень и очень сложно. Скорее всего Microsoft Windows во всех своих версиях содержит уязвимость, которую исправить невозможно (по мнению некоторых сторонних исследователей в разных версиях подобные Абсолютные Ошибки разные). Лечить её примерно то же самое, как заделывать дыру в середине фундамента, на котором уже стоит многоэтажный дом. Безусловно Microsoft прекрасно осведомлены насчёт наличия Абсолютной ошибки, но не считают её уязвимостью.

Выходом из сложившегося тупика являются Микроядерные ОС, которые могут обрести новую жизнь благодаря потенциальной возможности обеспечивать более высокую надежность:
Надежность Микроядрных ОС происходит из разных источников. Во-первых, размер кода, выполняемого в ядре, составляет около 4000 строк, и общее число ошибок - всего около 24. Небольшой размер ядра позволяет верифицировать его код вручную или на основе формальных методов. Особенности IPC позволяют избежать потребности управления буферами в ядре. Кроме того, для каждого процесса ограничены доступные примитивы IPC, включая адреса назначения и события, о которых происходит уведомление. Например, пользовательские процессы могут использовать только принцип рандеву и посылать сообщения только Posix-серверам. В дополнение к этому, все структуры ядра являются статическими. Все эти свойства значительно упрощают код и устраняют ошибки в ядре, связанные с переполнением буферов, "утечку памяти" (memory leak), несвоевременные прерывания и т.д. Конечно, перемещение большей части операционной системы в процессы, выполняемые в режиме пользователя, не устраняют неизбежные ошибки в драйверах и серверах, но это ограничивает их воздействие на систему в целом. Ошибочный код в ядре может испортить критичные структуры данных, записать на диск ненужные данные и т.д.; ошибочный же код в большинстве драйверов и серверов не может принести такого вреда, поскольку эти процессы строго разделены и очень ограничены в своих возможностях.
Еще одной особенностью, повышающей надежность, является использование раздельных пространств команд и данных. Даже если ошибочный код или вирус вызовут переполнение буфера и поместят чужой код в пространство данных, этот код будет невозможно выполнить путем перехода на него, поскольку ядро не запустит код, не находящийся в пространстве команд процесса (доступном только по чтению).
Среди других особенностей, способствующих повышению надежности, наиболее важным является свойство самовосстановления. Если драйвер производит запись по неверному указателю, впадает в бесконечный цикл или дурно ведет себя каким-либо другим образом, то сервер реинкарнации автоматически заменит его, часто без влияния на другие процессы.

MS Singularity:
Цитата Эндрю С. Таненбаума: «…Microsoft тоже интересуется микроядрами. Она как никто другой отчётливо понимает все проблемы сопровождения монолитных ядер. Windows NT 3.1 была нерешительной попыткой создания микроядерной системы, однако попытка эта была реализована не совсем корректно. Да и производительность ОС на оборудовании начала 90х годов также была недостаточно хороша, поэтому Microsoft на время отказалась от этой идеи. Но недавно Microsoft попыталась сделать это снова, но уже на новом оборудовании, что привело к появлению ОС Singularity. Сегодня, как я вижу, многие полагают, что если Microsoft делала это, то она явно сошла с ума. Но руководившие проектом Singularity Гален Хант (Galen Hunt) и Джим Ларус (Jim Larus) – очень умные ребята и они-то как раз хорошо понимают, какую мешанину на самом деле представляет собой ОС Windows и насколько компании Microsoft необходим совершенно новый подход для её дальнейшего развития. Даже работающие над Vista люди видят, что у них имеются серьёзные проблемы. Поэтому-то они и переносят драйверы в пространство пользователя, то есть делают именно то, что я и рекомендую.» [см.: «Вторая часть "Марлезонского балета". Дискуссия Таненбаума и Торвальдса: часть II»]
Проект Singularity разработанный в в Microsoft Research предлагает наиболее радикальный подход к разработке надежной ОС построенной на микроядре. Но к Singularity никак не возможно прикрутить Windows API и не возможно перенести Soft написанный под Windows API на эту систему, так что этот теоретический по своему уникальный проект никак не сможет помочь рядовым пользователям MS Windows:( [ см.: «Эндрю Таненбаума, Джоррита Хердера и Херберта Боса "Можем ли мы сделать операционные системы надежными и безопасными»]

Микроядро L4:
L4 построено таким образом, что на его базе можно построить практически любой API. Оно абстрагируется от конкретных алгоритмов управления памяти и прочих стратегий, но предоставляет механизмы для реализации их (стратегий) в произвольном виде. Также оно поддерживает много аппаратных платформ, имеет поддержку многопроцессорности (SMP) в ядре. Поддерживаются драйверы в user space и запуск одновременно нескольких ОС на одном микроядре. Кроме того, поддерживается создание как ОС реального времени, так и обычных ОС с разделением времени; как ОС для embedded применений, так и desktop OS; можно реализовать различные стратегии планировщика процессов (и управления памятью).
Если сравнивать Mach и L4, то микроядро Mach было очень громоздким, у него было больше сотни системных вызовов, оно содержало в себе порядка 100000 строк кода, занимало около 500 Кбайт на диске. L4 же на 1-2 порядка компактнее. Оригинальная реализация L4 содержала всего 7 системных вызовов, сложность его была порядка 10000 строк кода, на диске оно занимает примерно 100 К (формат ELF, платформа Intel; данные для L4Ka::Pistachio), а вот в памяти оно занимает всего 12 Кбайт! (По другим данным — 32 Кбайт, это зависит от версии ядра). Поэтому L4 также часто называют наноядром (nanokernel), поскольку его размер на 1-2 порядка меньше классического микроядра.
NICTA - Национального исследовательского центра информационно-коммуникационных технологий, который занимается развитием ядра L4, создал коммерческую компанию под названием Open Kernel Labs (OK Labs), для продвижения на рынке решений (в основном, встраиваемых) на базе L4. OK Labs разрабатывает собственную коммерческую реализацию NICTA::Pistachio- embedded, вместе с Wombat и Iguana. Эта собственная версия L4, Wombat и Iguana носит название OKL4. "Коммерческость" OKL4 не отменяет свободности ее лицензии. OKL4 лицензируется под BSD лицензией и ее исходники открыты. OK Labs обещает примерно к середине 2009 года выпустить первое микроядро с математически доказанным отсутствием ошибок (formally-proven bug-free microkernel)!

Apple MacOS X:
В NICTA кроме проектов Kenge/Iguana/Wombat, существует проект под названием Darbat, или L4/Darwin. Это ни что иное как порт ядра Darwin, на котором основана MacOS X, на микроядро L4. Darbat пытается улучшить производительность Darwin за счет использования IPC L4, которое намного более производительное, чем IPC микроядра Mach, на котором основан Darwin. Также Darbat содержит порт IOKit на L4, который стремится получить выгоду от использования user-level драйверов (в Darwin многие драйвера работают в режиме ядра, а в Darbat они выносятся в userlevel). Одной из целей является поддержка немодифицированных драйверов Darwin в userspace. Darbat не стремится полностью удалить Mach из Darwin, а взамен этого получить версию MacOS X, почти без изменений работающую под L4, и использующую выгоды, которые дает L4 по сравнению с Mach.
Цитата Эндрю С. Таненбаума: «Mac OS X также является разновидностью микроядерной ОС. Изнутри она представляет собой Berkeley UNIX, функционирующий поверх модифицированной версии микроядра Mach. Однако, поскольку всё это запускается в режиме ядра (для того, чтобы выбрать всю возможную производительность), Mac OS X не является истинно микроядерной. Тем не менее, поскольку Университет Карнеги-Меллона (Carnegie Mellon University) уже много лет назад запускал Berkeley UNIX в пространстве пользователя поверх микроядра Mach, то это, вероятно, могло бы быть сделано снова, хотя и с небольшой потерей производительности, как в случае с L4Linux. В частности, существует проект Darbat по портированию кода Apple BSD (Darwin) на L4 с тем, чтобы сделать её истинно микроядерной ОС.» [см.: «Вторая часть "Марлезонского балета". Дискуссия Таненбаума и Торвальдса: часть II»]
Говорят, что в Apple параллельно с текущей системой-наследником Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard, ведется разработка, новой системы "большого скачка". Возможно именно о ней, Джобс упомянул в интервью в 2007 году, по случаю официального выпуска "Леопарда". В ней, судя по тщательности зачистки "Снежного барса", будут уже "открытия". И не простые открытия, а весьма серьезные. Учитывая одержимость Apple простотой и элегантностью решений, логично было бы предположить, что новая система (Apple OS X 11, или еще какая-нибудь), в своей основе будет построена на уникальном Микроядро L4, и будет использоваться на всей, без исключения, продукции Apple. От смартфонов iPhone до серверов. Это достаточно красиво, чтобы могло прийти в голову Стива Джобса. А превращать сумасшедшие мысли в изделия, которые имеют сумасшедший успех, у Джобса обычно получается. [см.: «Возможно, следующей будет Mac OS 10.6 "Snow Leopard"»]
И если это случиться, то Apple OS X 11 будет иметь непревзойденную надежность и универсальность!

И вывод напрашивается сам собой у MS Windows нет будущего. При современном подходе в Microsoft к разработке ОС, будущая MS Windows 7 к сожалению так и останется с 10-ми тысяч багов и с раздраженными пользователями. И я бы ни за что не стал разрабатывая большие и требующие надежности программные проекты, выбирать за базовую ОС творение компании Microsoft:(

© zboris