What we generally encounter for database as opposed to purely computational work is that without Intel’s HyperThreading (blue bars on the chart above) wall clock time for a quad core processor minimizes at about 10 threads. With HyperThreading (red bars on the chart on the previous page) the minimum is 15% to 20% lower (here about a significant 60 seconds) and there are gains to be realized from scheduling 6 to 8 additional threads.
As the number of threads increases it is reasonable to expect a slight linear increase in the time needed to process a fixed number of transactions.
It seemed to us that with a reasonable CPU, a decent hard disk and some aggressive thread management, we could sort out the incoming devices and capture the sensor measurements. Then Professor Peter Wayne and others at Harvard Medical school e-wrote to tell us it was important to measure even during sitting and standing. The ideal in the WuJi style of meditation we teach is to be motionless. What they had found was that sway – how far and how quickly one’s head moved from an ideal position – was a powerful indicator.
So now we had much less time to do a great deal more work.
