61–70 of 117 posts
i have one question: why expend some much energy on unearthing obscure stuff that has relevance only to a very small subset of a very small industry and literally nobody else? seems like a waste of effort.
I don't understand why my girlfriend likes to watch Youtube videos of other girls doing their make-up and hair but, then again, she doesn't understand why I need all the computers that I have.
I'm not even remotely involved with the HFT world, but I can't think of any good reason why they'd want to receive "shortwave" signals from Europe in Chicago. Short-haul microwave links for low latency and high bandwidth, yes, but at shortwave frequencies you are literally talking about BITS per second. TFA says "Think dialup speeds" but this is lower than even dialup! They certainly aren't receiving any meaningful a…
So why not listen in the vicinity of the towers and deduce what frequency this is on?
A blast from a 1-watt transmitter parked across the street would overwhelm any signal coming from across an ocean. Try calling the cops about to complain that your antenna reception is being interfered with. The days of cops hunting rogue radio stations are long gone.
I'm not even remotely involved with the HFT world, but I can't think of any good reason why they'd want to receive "shortwave" signals from Europe in Chicago. Short-haul microwave links for low latency and high bandwidth, yes, but at shortwave frequencies you are literally talking about BITS per second. TFA says "Think dialup speeds" but this is lower than even dialup! They certainly aren't receiving any meaningful a…
It's pointing at the top of 10 South Canal, one of downtown Chicago's main tombstones for data communications. The building has 3-6 foot concrete walls, no windows for the first 23 stories and was reportedly designed to withstand an overhead nuclear blast. The standing joke used to be that if Chicago were nuked you'd still get a phone bill because of that place.
There's a lot of underground fiber in that area too. Including 24-count bundles mounted near the ceiling of the old underground tunnel delivery system -- the one that accidentally flooded during the 90's. They were installed by Metropolitan Cable back in the late eighties/early nineties during the "politically connected" fiber gold rush to replace dedicated copper with light.
It would not be speculation to think there's fiber running directly from the MERC to 10 South Canal or that the MERC's location near 10 South is a coincidence.
The line-of-sight out to Aurora is interesting too. There are high spots out there with tower clusters reminiscent of East Texas in the 1930's. I believe there are backup trading centers out there as well built after 9/11.
It seems to be the opposite of this but for the life of me I can't remember the advantage of doing it.
Found it: https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2016/06/iex-app...
I recall seeing I think on 60 Minutes HFT that wanted worse latency but I can't recall why. They have massive spools of fiber optics using them as a "resistor" (my term) to slow down the transmission. It seems to be the opposite of this but for the life of me I can't remember the advantage of doing it. Found it: https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2016/06/iex-app...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IEX Edit: didn't saw your edit.
> It showed a direct link between the West Chicago tower and another tower right by the Chicago Mercantile Exchange! It's pointing at the top of 10 South Canal, one of downtown Chicago's main tombstones for data communications. The building has 3-6 foot concrete walls, no windows for the first 23 stories and was reportedly designed to withstand an overhead nuclear blast. The standing joke used to be that if Chicago w…