
Grace Hopper explains nanoseconds [video] - sgt
https://youtube.com/watch?v=JEpsKnWZrJ8&feature=youtu.be?
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chollida1
If you wanted to know how close HFT's are getting to nano seconds, check out
this blog post.

[https://meanderful.blogspot.ca/2015/08/trade-system-
performa...](https://meanderful.blogspot.ca/2015/08/trade-system-performance-
state-of-art.html)

Short answer below:

Hardware

Ho-hum < 2,000 ns

Good < 500 ns

Excellent < 100 ns

Software:

Ho-hum < 10,000 ns

Good < 5,000 ns

Excellent < 2,000 ns

Man, I remember when I was proud to get trade times down below 1 milli second!

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mhurd
Glad I could help :-)

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favorited
Her whole interview with Letterman
([https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1-vcErOPofQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1-vcErOPofQ))
is great – she also goes over nanoseconds.

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e40
Makes me nostalgic for the early days of Letterman. Man, what a fun show it
was. I used to stay up and watch it every night it was on while in college. It
was so different than anything before it.

~~~
beautifulfreak
I was a fan after seeing one of his first shows, in which he had his dentist
on as a guest to critique Reds, the Warren Beatty movie about the Russian
revolution, all from the point of view of dentistry. The guy was deadpan
serious, using still images to point out historical fallacy in dental work,
anachronism and such. It came across as the real thoughts of a real dentist,
in the sort of conversation one might have during an office visit. Dave's
affection for the guy was obvious - and you can see that in this interview
with Grace Hopper, too. He shows genuine interest in her, and enjoys her
qualities as a person, so he lets her talk. So many talk show hosts obstruct
and interrupt and make themselves the center of attention. Dave was different
from the start and it was refreshing.

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dougmwne
Just for fun, a picosecond is about 1/3 of a mm. I like that the distance is
still easily visible by the naked eye even at a trillionth of a second.

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wiredfool
When she came to my high school, she gave away nanoseconds, then mentioned
that she had a packet of picoseconds. And held up a little packet of ground
pepper.

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WhitneyLand
tldr - Grace Hopper explains nanoseconds in a beautiful and intuitive way.

She was an American computer scientist and Navy Rear Admiral. She was one of
the first programmers of the Harvard Mark I computer in 1944 and invented the
first compiler for a computer programming language.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grace_Hopper](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grace_Hopper)

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rdrey
I would like to order nano & microseconds online somewhere.

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robotmlg
Just buy a spool of wire, a ruler, and some wire cutters and cut your own!

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rdrey
OK, nanoseconds are easy to make. :P

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bumbledraven
Nice way to explain it. Yeah, one light-nanosecond is about a foot. For
comparison, one light-second is approximately the mean distance from Earth to
Moon.

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kijiki
1 light-nanosecond is about a foot. 1 sound (at sea level)-millisecond is also
about a foot.

Meaningless coincidence, but still handy for back-of-the-envelope
calculations.

Suck it metric system! =)

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harry8
Some numbers in physics would have come out really nicely if they'd
standarised a meter at the length of a foot instead of the length it is. Using
imperial units though, ugh, just say no. Unless you're too polite in which
case you should say no thank you.

