+ straightforward functions. We performed our benchmarks on a
+ quad-core X-series ThinkPad with 8GB of RAM running Debian
+ GNU/Linux, and took the mean of the 10 central samples of 20 runs,
+ with the number of iterations per run chosen so as to take
+ substantially over the clock resolution for the fastest case.
+ Despite these precautions, we advise against reading too much into
+ these numbers, which are best used as an order-of-magnitude
+ estimate.