It doesn't come across as a benchmark of a particular system or a performance tuning guide. It is a few simple experiments to get ballpark figures for just how

It doesn't come across as a benchmark of a particular system or a performance tuning guide. It is a few simple experiments to get ballpark figures for just how fast a modern computer is and to trigger a couple of effects (such as cache misses) that can really slow down the system. I think the real value is to show how to start having a play with things yourself.