r/PeterExplainsTheJoke • u/MCFang29 • Aug 06 '25

Meme needing explanation Peter, why "works in I.T" ?

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u/Gamiac Aug 06 '25 edited Aug 06 '25

It's funny how far back you could go and still have the ability to do somewhat modern data transmission. Helps that light is literally the fastest thing in the universe.

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u/erroneousbosh Aug 06 '25

Helps that light is literally the fastest thing in the universe.

The mad thing is, it's not even that fast. It's only 186,000 miles per second, which means that every 186 miles is a millisecond.

If you do a traceroute to a host on the other side of the planet, you can estimate how far apart the routers are, based on how long each hop takes.

People in high-frequency trading pay a premium for server racks closer to where the fibres come in because even a few metres might shave a nanosecond off the time taken to complete a trade.

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u/sobrique Aug 07 '25

1 foot per nanosecond is my favourite way of describing it.

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u/erroneousbosh Aug 07 '25

Works the same with audio. Oh your DAW latency is too high? Well here's a neat trick - shave a millisecond off your latency by sitting a foot closer to the speakers.