diff --git a/.settings/edu.umd.cs.findbugs.core.prefs b/.settings/edu.umd.cs.findbugs.core.prefs
index 129e6553113110c92ede9914e509ee4d4c68a676..6aba28e5986cd8348751ed6d3c025c915ad7b0d2 100644
--- a/.settings/edu.umd.cs.findbugs.core.prefs
+++ b/.settings/edu.umd.cs.findbugs.core.prefs
@@ -1,5 +1,5 @@
 #FindBugs User Preferences
-#Wed May 13 15:54:28 CEST 2015
+#Fri Jun 12 08:15:02 CEST 2015
 detector_threshold=2
 effort=max
 excludefilter0=.fbExcludeFilterFile|true
diff --git a/src/main/java/teetime/stage/Counter.java b/src/main/java/teetime/stage/Counter.java
index 0dcfc2d54eaf34750fca64c430fa82dbc294de4c..9bfc67c23c9a6994b9e12d1d92bf3f25e7910705 100644
--- a/src/main/java/teetime/stage/Counter.java
+++ b/src/main/java/teetime/stage/Counter.java
@@ -31,8 +31,10 @@ public final class Counter<T> extends AbstractConsumerStage<T> {
 		outputPort.send(element);
 	}
 
-	// BETTER find a solution w/o any thread-safe code in this stage
-	public synchronized int getNumElementsPassed() {
+	/**
+	 * <i>Hint:</i> This method may not be invoked by another thread since it is not thread-safe.
+	 */
+	public int getNumElementsPassed() {
 		return this.numElementsPassed;
 	}