Wow! great stuff. Thanks a lot for all your work. You guys kick ass [insert picture of Marc-Andre Moreau kicking donkey here].

We have the @Asynchronous annotation in Java 6 that pretty much does the same thing.

http://docs.oracle.com/javaee/6/api/javax/ejb/Asynchronous.html

It is actually pretty nifty.

There is a lot of difference between most religions and Scientology.

1. No other religion copyrights the scriptures and actively discourages members from sharing the scriptures with others. CoS goes after websites or any other organisation who may publish things about Scientology especially the high level stuff.
2. The only church-sanctioned way of accessing the content of the "scriptures" is to pay for the different programmes.
3. No other reilgion actively infiltrates government with the explicit purpose of thwarting investigations.
4. Scientology and Islam are the two religions which go after any detractors using any and all sorts of tricks and violence. It is actually codified into their system of working. Read about "Fair Game". http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_Game_%28Scientology%29
5. There are multiple quotes by Ron Hubbard about how it makes sense to setup a religion to make money.

Where did you get that bit of information?

This statement seems unnecessary and implies that Newton was found of taking credit for other people's work. Newton's accomplishments are huge - even his work in the Royal Mint.

Yes, Ramanujam was great, but why put down Newton's reputation to exalt Ramanujam?

How does one go about confirming that a specific mark on the vertebrae of an animal definitely came about because a T-Rex bit it? Couldn't it have been caused by a tree trunk falling on the animal or be caused by another animal other than a T-Rex? Even herbivorous animals fight with each other and can cause serious damage to each other.

Congratulations to the team! Learnt much by sticking around here. Great website which has spawned 1000s of clones but none have been quite as good.

Long time Slashdot user here. Congratulations Taco. Slashdot is still one of the best sites for tech news. You have managed to build an extraordinary community here where even the top nerds regularly post. I am sure you will do a wonderful job at WaPo. Best of luck.

- from a grateful user

Don't worry.. give it a week.. we will be back to talking about IMPORTANT things such as if iphone is better than Samsung Galaxy.

I absolutely agree.. Full disclosure: I am an Indian.

The management of businesses in the US and the first world make it seem like the Asians are all hardworking geniuses and that is why all the work is being outsourced to Asia - but the truth is that the work is only being farmed out because the salaries in Asia are much lower than in the first world.

The truth be told, for the most part, the Asians aren't as skilled or as educated as their western counterparts. Not to say that Asians don't have degrees - there may in fact be more Asians with postgraduate degrees than the first world.. and not that Asians are stupid or lazy either.

It is just that the educational institutions in most Asian nations are there simply to hand out degrees not an education. In the west, a lot of students take up courses because they enjoy the subject - but most Asian students take up courses with a view of getting a high paying job - with very little interest in the subject. And this impacts the quality of their skill and also their overall understanding of the subject.

By the way, when I say Asians, I am also including Indians into this - we are also part of Asia.

The Indian intelligence agency Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) put out a notice in 2010 claiming that Huawei is involved in spying for the Chinese government.
http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2010-05-07/news/27580384_1_chinese-telecom-huawei-technologies-ren-zhengfei

I think the similarity is very easy to see. Galileo was silenced because his views contradicted the consensus of the time. You can only miss this fact if you are already pretty religious in your "beliefs" about climate change and you view any dissenting opinion almost like heresy or blasphemy.

Many people who post comments on Slashdot and most US-centric websites assume that if someone posts anything critical of climate change research, they must necessarily be a Republican Teabagger. Many of us are not even Americans and we don't live in the US - we are not being paid off by your oil companies. We have nothing whatsoever to do with your internal US politics.

Some of us believe that climate change may be occurring. But we are not certain about what is causing it. The scientists keep blaming it on the use of fossil fuels and a lot of the discussion seems to surround it.

Vast tracts of forests are being completely cleared for industries and housing, and though this does find mention in the IPCC reports, most of the cure for global warming which is given in scientific publications seems to focus only on things like alternate energy. Very little is actually spoken about reversing the deforestation - about increasing green spaces. Why is that?

At a higher price. They should see the Touchpad version 1 as the promotional for the second version of the Touchpad. There are so many people who have purchased Touchpads now that there is now a market for WebOS apps unlike earlier.. and also there are enough people who have used Touchpads to know that HP can make a very decent tablet.

I am not trying to be a jackass or be sarcastic. But let me ask you why you aren't considering starting a protest? I wouldn't advise violence of any kind though for the simple reason that the ultimate result of violence is more and more hatred.. and the cycle of violence will be hard to stop.

But there are so many homeless people in the US - and so many unemployed people; many of whom who lost their jobs because of the greed of the banks and the super rich. These people may be very willing to join in a protest - but they need someone to start it for them; and also handle all the planning and the logistics involved.

If you are a person who can handle this, why don't you consider starting the protest. I am serious.

If one were to sit down and write out a plan for a long, prolonged protest which is both popularly supported as well as sustainable - at least sustainable enough to bring about change, then what would that plan include:

1. It would include a set of points which the government / wall street must agree to. This must be clear and specific so that progress can be measured. These should be communicated very clearly to the government and to all volunteers who join the protest.

2. It would include setting up volunteers to:

a) Recruit more volunteers

b) Provide the logistics needed to handle the crowds

c) Manage the marketing
c.1) To transfer the enthusiasm of the core group managing the protest so that the crowd can buy into the overall vision behind the protest.
c.2) T-Shirts, banners and all sorts of media work

d) Manage the dissemination of news and public relationships

e) Handle the legal aspects such as permits, getting legal services to those who are arrested etc.

f) Manage the generation of funds

g) Manage the accounting of the funds so that there is no misappropriation etc.

I am sure there are many on Slashdot who may be willing to step in to help with this.

I am not American and neither do I reside in the US, but if I were there, I would definitely either start this protest or join in long term in the protest.

People travel out of the US for treatment not because US is lagging behind technologically, it is because the healthcare in the US is ridiculously expensive. A lot of people travel to places like Asia for treatment - and most Asians are known to be deeply religious - especially parts of South Asia where most people go for treatment - Thailand, India, Malaysia etc.

Face the facts - US is pretty advanced technologically including in medical science and for some types of treatment, US is absolutely the best. There are a LOT of people who travel to the US for treatment - even from Asia; but they are mostly the very wealthy because US is by far the most expensive place in the world for healthcare related services.