On the way to perfect computing

In most Java VM implementations, the garbage collector has the right to stop a thread in order to reclaim memory no longer used by that thread. Such garbage-collection pauses are the main reason threads running in a regular JVM cannot guarantee the exact timing of their execution…

Original source – http://www.artima.com/lejava/articles/javaone_2007_realtime_gc.html

mp3 podcast is also available there.