IEEE Spectrum, The Microsecond Market, here.

Since money first came into existence, some people have made gobs of it by having particularly timely access to important news. Perhaps the most notorious examples of this phenomenon took place during the first half of the last century in many U.S. cities. Here it was organized crime that profited immensely, and the news of interest was about horse races.

Hey, High Frequency Trading Public Relations Team WTF, organized crime and horse races are the value add stories for fast communication? You guys are worse than Team Firm Risk. You need to find positive examples of fast communication/signaling, preferably with lightwaves.

A. You guys ever hear that song that goes “Oh, say can you see by the dawn’s early light”?

B. How about  Montjoy’s message to Henry V after Agincourt  ”The day is yours”?

KING HENRY V

How now! what means this, herald? know’st thou not
That I have fined these bones of mine for ransom?
Comest thou again for ransom?

MONTJOY

No, great king:
I come to thee for charitable licence,
That we may wander o’er this bloody field
To look our dead, and then to bury them;
To sort our nobles from our common men.
For many of our princes–woe the while!–
Lie drown’d and soak’d in mercenary blood;
So do our vulgar drench their peasant limbs
In blood of princes; and their wounded steeds
Fret fetlock deep in gore and with wild rage
Yerk out their armed heels at their dead masters,
Killing them twice. O, give us leave, great king,
To view the field in safety and dispose
Of their dead bodies!

KING HENRY V

I tell thee truly, herald,
I know not if the day be ours or no;
For yet a many of your horsemen peer
And gallop o’er the field.

MONTJOY

The day is yours.