Its a little disheartening to see so many people (even techies) who dismissed it out of hand given how much better it was (with no disadvantages that I can discern). I understand why, sort of, since it really wasnt explained at all, and it took me several hours of screwing with to figure out just what it was, and could do. But one would hope the prevailing attitude on slashdot would be "that looks interesting, lets test it and find out if its any good" rather than "that looks complicated, im going to stick with what I know because this scares me".

Accusing people of being scared of it seems a little insulting, IMHO. There are a lot of things asking for our attention these days. Wave asked for it in big ways, and frankly, most of us just didn't have the time to bother to figure out what the hell we're supposed to do with it.

Wave was a victim of it's own complexity. People couldn't figure out (quickly) what to do with it, so they didn't bother.

Why is the burden of proof on the side of skepticism? If someone wants to claim that arctic melting is caused by man-made global warming, it is up to them to make their case, not the other way around.

FWIW, shipping lanes through the north pole have been possible several times in the past, and never previously have they been considered a sign of global warming.