On Chimps

Posted on February 21, 2009 by Paul — No Comments ↓

Here’s an interesting article on the perception of African American as apes even today:

The researchers consistently discovered a black-ape association even if the young adults said they knew nothing about its historical connotations. The connection was made only with African American faces; the paper’s third study failed to find an ape association with other non-white groups, such as Asians.

In case you’re wondering about those historical connections, this (perhaps biased) source has a couple of pointers.

Performance Testing – A Simple Plan

Posted on February 10, 2009 by Paul — 5 Comments ↓

I was asked to outlline what I’d expect someone to decide before they started a performance test exercise. A quick look at StickyMinds shows this document, which looks very good. It is, however, 8 pages long, which is about 7.5 pages longer than I need if my target audience is going to bother with it. Here, then, is my simplified version. Slightly cryptic, perhaps, but workable (at least for a web server, which is what we’re dealing with).

Purpose?
*Performance Test – see what it will do
*Stress Test – see the most it will do
*Load Test – see what happens when it does more than that
*Sizing – Guide to customers on hardware requirements

Test platform?
*Number of machines
*Machine specs
*Network spec

Test Application?
*Low complexity to concentrate on platform
*High complexity to simulate real-life loads
*Think times emphasize load or real-life use.

Finally, how will results be measured?
*Throughput (or equivalents)
*Constraints (e.g. is app under test memory bound, CPU bound, network bound)
*Recommended hardware – e.g. X users per Y GB of memory and Z GHz of processor.

Quiet

Posted on February 9, 2009 by Paul — No Comments ↓

Boy it’s quiet round here, eh? I am snowed under by a combination of work, domesticity and online flash games. Oh, and apathy. But mostly flash games.

I’m currently pondering switching over to a somewhat longer post once per week. I’ve the feeling this would be a lot less work than either a) my previous near-daily posts, and b) my current nothingness (because the guilt, she weighs heavy). In the meantime, go play a flash game.