1990s meme, yeah right. I'm not dissing Java, I quite like Java, but serious Java programs are slow.
Show me one serious and complex Java GUI app which does not totally suck performance-wise. The only Java app I can put up with is Azureus. It totally sucks performance wise even on my extremely fast computer. Azureus is the only serious Java app I use, I can put up with the performance because it is a very good app.
Similarly for games, Revenge of the Titans is the only Java game I can think of that I really like. It's a fairly simple game, and yet it runs slow on my netbooks. I highly doubt it could run well on the Pandora if remains in Java.
As for the stackoverflow post you quoted, the top response mentions six reasons why Java is slow:
Arrays are slow, IO is slow, it uses "a LOT more memory than C", no low level functionality, string operations are slow, startup times are slow. I think that covers just about everything except for some possible benchmark programs that carefully avoid those things.
The ultimate proof that Java is slow? The Java compiler is really damn slow (and jikes is really damn fast). If the Java developers want to impress me with Java's great speed, they can try to make their Java compiler run fast - without rewriting it in C. I'm happy if it runs fast with like an -O0 flag. Maybe javac is just badly written, but that