7 ms·
HFT in the Banana Land
- lordnacho 11y agoI wonder if there's a business in offering to fly a swarm of large drones in the Fresnel zone of the customer's choice.
- atemerev 11y agoUnless you also have a way of recharging them...
- RaSoJo 11y agoMaybe Aerial Re-charging via other drones? [EDIT] Or there are the Facebook planes: http://www.theverge.com/2015/7/30/9074925/facebook-aquila-solar-internet-plane http://www.theverge.com/2015/7/30/9074925/facebook-aquila-so...
- atemerev 11y agoThey have to maintain steady position (impossible for planes). Also, the weather over the Channel can be quite unforgiving. Drones are not the end of the line, though. A quick Google search for "hft neutrino" shows how creative these guys could be in their insatiable quests for shaving off microseconds.
- sniperinmahwah 11y agoThe neutrino thing was a failed experience (false data), so no HFT here.
- atemerev 11y agoNot this one. The idea of using neutrinos to beam through the Earth directly, from London to NYC.
- sniperinmahwah 11y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faster-than-light_neutrino_anomaly https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faster-than-light_neutrino_ano...
- evanpw 11y agoEven if they only move at the speed of light, they can travel in a straight line directly through the earth instead of along the curved surface, saving time. The problem is that if neutrinos can pass through the entire earth unimpeded, most of them will pass through your detector on the other side too.
- wnkrshm 11y agothe microwave signal you are trying to block is basically wireless power
- skykooler 11y agoWell...there's a handy beam of microwave power there, I guess.
- lmm 11y agoGoogle has Project Loon which sounds vaguely similar. In theory you could have a faster transatlantic signal path by putting microwave relays on blimps at the right altitude.
- mkj 11y agoI thought lordnacho meant blocking the signal with a swarm...
- stcredzero 11y agoWhat about releasing clouds of chaff tuned to specific frequencies? To maximize utility, time certain transactions at the same time.
- dovdov 11y agoUK - Europe This tells a lot. :)
- Zr40 11y ago"Europe" here refers to the continent, which the lands of the UK clearly are not a part of. It does not refer to the European Union.
- vog 11y agoThe point is that only UK citizens simplify that to "Europe" instead of saying "Continental Europe". Also, it is strange that they only exclude themselves, not Scandinavia or Iceland. This is really a political issue. Here in Germany nobody would ever think of excluding UK when talking about "Europe". The same goes for France, Belgium, and so on. And nobody would ever have to explicitly say "European Union" just to make clear that they also mean UK. Of course UK is part of Europe! We have deep historical, cultural and political connections, let alone the massive economic interrelations - as depicted in the article. Their strange view is a pity, and we can only hope that the UK politicians will change their view - either by understanding, or by being replaced with more sane politicians in the next elections.
- bb101 11y agoI think many people in the UK admire the Swiss and Norwegian models of participating in the "European project". The country retains sovereignty and only implements laws that suit its citizens. I have to say I am surprised by your comment, as it assumes that politicians are responsible for their country's perspective on Europe? Surely it is the other way round, and the politicians have an obligation to represent their citizens' viewpoints fairly and transparently - regardless of whether it is seen as palatable by the bureaucrats. It does seem that some EU politicians (read: Merkel) are only discovering this right now.
- vog 11y ago> I have to say I am surprised by your comment, as it assumes that politicians are responsible for their country's perspective on Europe? They are responsible for the country's actions towards other countries. To make it more clear: I deeply hope that they are not really backed by the population, and that they will either notice that on their own, or that the next elections which show a shift towards "working together" instead of "against each other" in Europe. We can't solve all issues in Europe if every country optimized only for themselves, ignoring their neighbours. > the politicians have an obligation to represent their citizens' viewpoints fairly and transparently Note that there are also European politicians (the European parliament), which are elected as well and serve their citizens' viewpoints as well. Interestingly, those manage to find better solutions, thinking about all Europeans despite representing just a subset of them. Unfortunately, the European parliament has not much power in the overall EU process, which is another real pity. > It does seem that some EU politicians (read: Merkel) are only discovering this right now. Our German politicians have (and always had) a disproportionally large influence in Europe. So there was never a need for Germany to distance from Europe. However, this also led to suboptimal solutions in the past, to say the least. But to me, this is not a sign that the "European project" doesn't work. For me, it shows that we aren't consequent enough. The member governments (read: European commission) have too much influence and the European parliament (which is the only instance that equally represents all European citizens) doesn't have enough influence.
- zongitsrinzler 11y agobrackets overload
- atemerev 11y ago"inhabitants of the Western world need to realize that the tallest structures they can see in the landscape are the face of what may be a new kind of God: finance." Oh come on, so much drama for a slick lean tower in sparsely populated land, barely visible to anyone but local fishermen. Compare it to, say, this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duga_radar https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duga_radar This is a very prominent military installation that spoiled shortwave communications for years, and nobody dared to say a word against it. If the choice is between Ares and Hermes, I am choosing Hermes. (Disclaimer: I am a trading software engineer).
- sniperinmahwah 11y agoI totally agree. I like guyed towers. They are quite invisible. I just wanted to end with the new eyes of God (dishes)
- atemerev 11y agoMost of the world's trading is now going through three physical unremarkable buildings: Equinix datacenters NY4, LD4 and TY3 in NYC, London and Tokyo respectively. Inside, there is a mess of server racks installed by major banks and financial companies and everybody else (it's not that expensive, by corporate standards, to rent a rack place there), all interconnected by a web of optical fiber. Chaos reigns. These are the places where billions per second change hands.
- sniperinmahwah 11y agoI know. I visited the Basildon NYSE facility. That said, it's half empty (I mean, the colocation halls are half empty).
- fnord123 11y ago>If the choice is between Ares and Hermes, I am choosing Hermes. Ares and Plutus, surely.
- PrivatUser 11y ago
- didsomeonesay 11y ago'The mast will be erected in the western part of the Richborough Power Station, a place referred to as “The Banana Land” (I suppose the name comes from the pseudo-tropical climate created by the station?).' And up until that point in the article I was thinking we were talking about the Blue Banana [1]. Because the Frankfurt-to-London route is in the middle of it. But apparently it is only referring to that former power plant location. Better theory yet: look at the shape of land surrounded by train tracks and River Stour on Google maps [2]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Banana https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Banana [2] https://goo.gl/maps/Sh8h9v1SNYT2 https://goo.gl/maps/Sh8h9v1SNYT2
- supahfly_remix 11y agoOut of curiosity, how long does regeneration of microwave signals take?
- zump 11y agoWhy haven't uWave firms resorted to anonymous EMP?
- pythondz 11y agoAhem... What will happen if we take down a tower ? Or cause interference to the straight line between uk and germany ? If anyone has any idea (a fault-tolerant design maybe) or impacts on the financial markets ?
- lintiness 11y agoten years ago, i'd say not a whole lot -- there were still competitors providing liquidity who weren't speedcentric. today, however, i think market liquidity would disappear. that's not to say all hell would break loose, but there would probably be wild price swings for an afternoon or two.
- scarletham 11y agoMarket liquidity would not "disappear". Liquidity providers do not rely on their microwave lines quite that much (yet). In the case of a microwave failure (more common than you'd think), all one does is failover to physical and keep on pricing. Worst case is widening your quotes while you reassess your view of the world (the book), but never withdrawing completely from the market.
- mrchicity 11y agoThis. Radio networks are not reliable even in normal conditions due to weather conditions or environmental events. You can fail over to another network seamlessly and keep chugging. If your competitor's faster system is still up you may lose money and widen out or turn off a particular product complex. Not a huge deal. Anyone deliberately interfering with licensed radio transmissions would probably get a knock from some guys in black suits pretty quickly anyway.
- kasey_junk 11y agoYou'd hardly notice. The routes also exist via physical links . Prices on the exchanges may get worse for a while...
- 11y ago
- lwhi 11y agoHow long before activists start flying large kites directly in front of these structures?
- Tsagadai 11y agoOr the equivalent to a camera killer green laser. Masers have been around for longer than lasers so it is entirely possible.