Or phrased with a bit more seasoning: "Reading from L1 cache is like grabbing a piece of paper from your desk (3 seconds), L2 cache is picking up a book from a

Or phrased with a bit more seasoning: "Reading from L1 cache is like grabbing a piece of paper from your desk (3 seconds), L2 cache is picking up a book from a nearby shelf (14 seconds), main system memory is taking a 4-minute walk down the hall to buy a Twix bar, and waiting for a hard drive seek is like leaving the building to roam the earth for one year and three months." — Gustavo Duarte (http://duartes.org/gustavo/blog/post/what-your-computer-does-while-you-wait/ http://duartes.org/gustavo/blog/post/what-your-computer-does...)