4 ms·

I agree - it is far better to have computers do it than run the market at "the clock speed of a babushka at a market stall" as Francis Spufford put it. Althoug

I agree - it is far better to have computers do it than run the market at "the clock speed of a babushka at a market stall" as Francis Spufford put it. Although in this case it'd be the clock speed of a fund manager on a golf course.

nicoburns 7y ago
Do you really think that clock speeds measured in nanoseconds allow enough time for good decisions to be made?
- logicchains 7y ago
  A computer can do in a few nanoseconds calculations that would take a human days.
  - nicoburns 7y ago
    I don't that's true. Single clock-cycles of CPUs are measured in nano-seconds, and human's aren't that slow.
    - pjc50 7y ago
      That comment was obviously a metaphor choosing "nano" as it's the coolest prefix, but since this is Hacker news I suppose now we have to fact-check a metaphor. A Geforce 1080, at the high end of "normal" computing claims about 350 gigaflops. Divide through and we get 350 floating point calculations per nanosecond as an absolute maximum. Depending on what the numbers actually are and what method we make the human use (expert abacus users are surprisingly fast) that looks more like an hour's work for the human. This just highlights how absolutely tiny a nanosecond is, though. Those speeds are only valid for numbers already within the processor; fetching from DRAM could be hundreds of nanoseconds. Also recall Grace Hopper's excellent video with a nanosecond of cable length, which is about a foot long.
      - sabana 7y ago
        pico seconds might be a better measurement of modern high end clock speeds
      - nicoburns 7y ago
        > This just highlights how absolutely tiny a nanosecond is, though. Those speeds are only valid for numbers already within the processor; fetching from DRAM could be hundreds of nanoseconds. Also recall Grace Hopper's excellent video with a nanosecond of cable length, which is about a foot long. This is exactly what I was intending to highlight. The speeds at which High-Frequency Trading operates are so ridiculously fast that even a computer can't put much "thought" (let alone more considered "wisdom") into a problem.
- esoterica 7y ago
  The only decisions being made at the nanosecond level are whether to quote at 148.23 or 148.24. So yes, that’s enough time for trivial decisions like those to be made.

nicoburns 7y ago

Do you really think that clock speeds measured in nanoseconds allow enough time for good decisions to be made?

logicchains 7y ago
A computer can do in a few nanoseconds calculations that would take a human days.
- nicoburns 7y ago
  I don't that's true. Single clock-cycles of CPUs are measured in nano-seconds, and human's aren't that slow.
  - pjc50 7y ago
    That comment was obviously a metaphor choosing "nano" as it's the coolest prefix, but since this is Hacker news I suppose now we have to fact-check a metaphor. A Geforce 1080, at the high end of "normal" computing claims about 350 gigaflops. Divide through and we get 350 floating point calculations per nanosecond as an absolute maximum. Depending on what the numbers actually are and what method we make the human use (expert abacus users are surprisingly fast) that looks more like an hour's work for the human. This just highlights how absolutely tiny a nanosecond is, though. Those speeds are only valid for numbers already within the processor; fetching from DRAM could be hundreds of nanoseconds. Also recall Grace Hopper's excellent video with a nanosecond of cable length, which is about a foot long.
    - sabana 7y ago
      pico seconds might be a better measurement of modern high end clock speeds
    - nicoburns 7y ago
      > This just highlights how absolutely tiny a nanosecond is, though. Those speeds are only valid for numbers already within the processor; fetching from DRAM could be hundreds of nanoseconds. Also recall Grace Hopper's excellent video with a nanosecond of cable length, which is about a foot long. This is exactly what I was intending to highlight. The speeds at which High-Frequency Trading operates are so ridiculously fast that even a computer can't put much "thought" (let alone more considered "wisdom") into a problem.
esoterica 7y ago
The only decisions being made at the nanosecond level are whether to quote at 148.23 or 148.24. So yes, that’s enough time for trivial decisions like those to be made.