[0xbadcafebee]

Completely useless tangent: the word "benchmark" comes from a mark that surveyors would make in rock so that they could place a leveling rod for surveying. Benchmarks are made relative to other benchmarks so that surveying can be done relative to the height of one known fundamental benchmark.

It could be argued that it isn't really a benchmark unless you can accurately calculate the result based off of a common fundamental benchmark.

[DougBTX]

Cool, I always assumed that a benchmark was a mark on a bench, but it turns out that it is the bench which goes on the mark.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benchmark_(surveying)