Wanted: Better Benchmarks

Wanted: better benchmarks.

H ow much should a nation spend on science? What kind of science? How much from private versus public sectors? Does demand for funding by potential science performers imply a shortage of funding or a surfeit of performers? These and related science policy questions tend to be asked and answered today in a highly visible advocacy context that makes assumptions that are deserving of closer scruti...

Multicore OS Benchmarks: We Can Do Better

Current multicore OS benchmarks do not provide workloads that sufficiently reflect real-world use: they typically run a single application, whereas real workloads consist of multiple concurrent programs. In this paper we show that this lack of mixed workloads leads to benchmarks that do not fully exercise the OS and are therefore inadequate at predicting real-world behavior. This implies that e...

Diagnosis Wanted

Wanted—Skulls

In order to determine the characters of a race, it is necessary that comparison should be made of at least twenty skulls. It is further desirable to have as many of the bones of the skeleton as possible, as comparison of pelvic and long bones give important results in determining race peculiarities. The Hunterian Museum, now under the direction of Professor Flower, F. E. S., is especially inter...

Wanted: Uniform Law Enforcement