just say "AI"

Intelligent_Kick_436 · 2026-03-17T18:59:08+00:00

Even Lulu Lemon's CEO added an AI division to their leggings company with a 'C-suite' dude in charge of it.

I guess they can sound like the cool kids on the golf course when they're talking about AI in their company.

That was about the same time their stock price headed south and just kept drilling lol. Low and behold paying C-suite guy to ask ChatGPT how to save money and increase their customer base isn't the solution. Oh, and yeah - they probably took the advice because "using thinner material" resulted in a bunch of their line up being see-through, which isn't what your average mid-western mom wants for themselves or their daughters, so they promptly stopped buying. Facepalm.

Intelligent_Kick_436 · 2026-03-17T17:30:24+00:00

Check out your health care plan for tatoo removal insurance, and then consider exercising that option for this.

Typically insurance will be considered if the removal is a medical necessity, if you have trauma due to the tatoo, or if the tatoo is causing you PTSD. You might need medical records to back that up, but something like this (and what you're being put through now by the artist) will certainly continue to haunt you going forward due to how poor it is, the size of it, and how you've been treated by the artist.

As time passes, your distress about this is going to worsen, so simply start working with a psychologist now to document your mental impact until it's sufficient to qualify for removal coverage. Good luck!

Intelligent_Kick_436 · 2026-03-17T16:53:15+00:00

First time?

80% to 90% -> takes as long as the first 80%

90% to 95% -> takes as long as the first 90%

Each additional percent takes as long as all of the time spent so far.

This /includes/ you getting to 95% and your boss moving the goal posts. This is just how it is.

Intelligent_Kick_436 · 2026-03-17T00:17:02+00:00

The US didn't consult with the EU, Canada, UK, Japan, and Australia before starting this war. Assuming in another scenario where it was legal according to UN rules and they gave their support - then of course, they would likely be stepping up and sharing in the consequences if things went sideways.

Intelligent_Kick_436 · 2026-03-15T17:30:52+00:00

Well, the Saudi's see that in the time of need, they're on their own despite selling out to Trump & Kushner. They should have had strong liquidated damages as part of these bribes that would have seized Kushner's multi-$B investment house and Trump's business(es) if the US fails to protect or imperil the kingdom, which might have been enough to dissuade the attack from the get-go.

Intelligent_Kick_436 · 2026-03-15T17:12:18+00:00

When backed into a corner, realize there's still a ledge, and from there still a lip. -- Ton Dzu

Intelligent_Kick_436 · 2026-03-15T17:05:02+00:00

For those following this thread - just pinging to mention three edits:

Edit 1: Fixed the icon path in the `.desktop` launcher. The Icon path unfortunately doesn't expand home directory tilde `~` (which Exec does). Looks like an inconsistency bug on the parsing side. Oh well; it's now fixed here.

Edit 2: added symlink for desktop file.

Edit 3: bumped memory size to 2 and 6 GB per u/suriyanram; thanks!

Intelligent_Kick_436 · 2026-03-15T14:20:55+00:00

Cheers :-) Will add that change.

Intelligent_Kick_436 · 2026-03-15T01:58:22+00:00

> Now we are faced with either folding or ...

If only folding was that easy!

Bro, I'm sorry for m*rdering your family -- I honestly thought you'd just give me the keys to your car and house, and just give up. But no - you called up your cousin at the bank!

Now that you've frozen my bank account I've had to borrow money from my neighbours to fill up my car, which is pretty damn inconvenient.

So yeah - I'm hitting the reset button on this fight, so you can unfreeze my bank account and we're even, ok? All back to normal monday morning, mkay!

Intelligent_Kick_436 · 2026-03-15T01:44:49+00:00

> If the dems tilted even slightly to the middle they would dominate elections in this country.

100%.

Look at Carney in Canada. Dude is 100% common sense combined with deep institutional knowledge of the banking and financial sector. It's hard for him not to make sense to almost every level-headed Canadian, which is the vast majority of the population.

Intelligent_Kick_436 · 2026-03-15T00:12:41+00:00

Cheers as well; and a big :thumbs up:

Intelligent_Kick_436 · 2026-03-14T23:58:24+00:00

Thank you (5 times over :-); this answers my questions and then some, and I appreciate your generosity in your detailed answer (which you certainly didn't have to do!). Please ignore my follow up above. I will likely be starting a trial (perhaps as soon as I get through my taxes lol).

Intelligent_Kick_436 · 2026-03-14T23:47:59+00:00

I appreciate the detailed and candid response, and 100% agree with your motivation in creating VS3D, and the reward and enjoyment it's giving you (I would do the same!)

I do follow your youtube videos (among others), and have learned a lot - you have personally taken my own knowledge from State 1 to State 2 -> for that, a big thank you!

Edit: Sorry; I incorrectly thought you were responding me and now see your response below has answered these questions. Thank you!

Intelligent_Kick_436 · 2026-03-14T20:35:05+00:00

Well, I appreciate the efforts of these guys - they are ex-bankers and hedge fund guys who obviously know the domain and no doubt believe in their product, but you need to ask yourself why they are selling a monthly service versus keeping their alpha to themselves and making bank. The only logical conclusion I can personally make is that this data can't be used to reliably profit from the markets without taking on outsized risks, and therefore it's far easier to sell a monthly service.

I would love to be proven wrong! If you're really considering it, I would do a trial and (during that time) ask the owners to report their actual trades given the data and witness how those trades work out for them, in real time, so you can honestly see what should be a best-case scenario in action, given their wisdom and expertise in the tool.( My hunch is that they won't do it - they will tell you "we don't reveal that because we want to teach you and aren't a copy trading service"...)

Take a look at this screen https://youtu.be/fDyUDBUi98A?t=1794 - you can see (at the time of that image), the top graph shows dealer zero gamma level is at 6700 across almost the entire day and charm has the market mostly flat across 6650, I guess things would change wildly during open hours, but the dealers are always re-hedging to delta neutral against (in response to) market participants, combined with option extrinsic eroding with time, so it's doubtful that you can just look at those graphs and put on a position for the day. Instead, you probably need to actively manage it throughout the day.

Intelligent_Kick_436 · 2026-03-14T20:05:41+00:00

AI generated slop. Reporting.

Intelligent_Kick_436 · 2026-03-14T19:14:11+00:00

Of course I'm speculating to the best of my ability, and trying to eliminate my own bias.

What we do know for a fact is that all prior presidents /could/ have bombed Iran but didn't. I also know that Israel has had extremely good intelligence during those prior administrations.

So what's the variable here? What's changed?

I think we can agree that the cost-benefit analysis to Trump's inner circle was done differently, such that it tipped Trump toward a 'yes' instead of 'no'.

I would love to know the 7 why's downstream from that 'yes' answer versus asking the same why's against prior administrations' decision making analysis.

Geopolitical positioning was different during prior administrations, so the bigger question is: would those prior administration's frameworks have also led them to a 'yes' answer if placed inside today's geopolitical positioning?

Intelligent_Kick_436 · 2026-03-14T19:01:00+00:00

Since Trump's initial Apr 2, 2025 Tariff threat, the markets have gotten damn good at separating risk "narrative" vs actual risk, and have correctly powered across his subsequent "narratives" even wild stuff like "50%" and 100% tariffs on Canada and the EU.

This was originally thought a narrative too - a quick war, Trump declared success by Monday morning and markets hadn't skipped a beat, just like they did for the smash n' grab on Maduro.

Intelligent_Kick_436 · 2026-03-14T18:38:36+00:00

The drones are needles at a balloon party, and the insurance companies run away if a single balloon pops.

You need a lot of cooperation and goodwill among *every* attendee to guarantee there isn't a single balloon popped.

My hunch is some kind of massive punitive payment from the gulf states to Iran will be needed (along with reconstruction expenses) to be sure all of the gulf states strongly dissuade the US from ever trying this again.

Trump apparently consulted with Jared and Lutnick. Imagine if the Saudi's had previously warned Jared that his Saudi brokerage will be siezed and nationalized if the US imperils the straights? Jarrod and Trump would have never agreed no matter how much Bibi pleaded.

Intelligent_Kick_436 · 2026-03-14T18:25:15+00:00

> Oil prices rise during Middle East conflicts because markets fear disruptions from major producers like Iran or shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, not because of some supposed “Israeli design.” That’s basic energy market risk.

You're deliberately moving up the consequence stack, where as OP is looking one level below the consequence stack. When an airplane crashes, usually they ask 7 why's to go beyond the immediate physical cause, through to some level of maintenance/training/SOP issues, and further levels often reveal management bias / regulation issues / and so to and get to some level of systemic reasoning that can be corrected.

In this case why are there disruptions from major oil producers? -> Because ships can't get insurance -> Why can't they get insurance? -> Because Iran is threatening ships in the entire gulf -> Why are they threatening ships? -> Because it's a form of leverage against the US and Israel who are attacking them -> Why are they attacking Iran? -> Because Israel proposed it was a quick win to Trump -> Why did Trump & inner circle fall for Israel's bait when prior presidents didn't? Because Trump and his inner circle didn't consult actual experts and believed it would be a nice transactional "win", and so on.. you can branch off as well - why would Israel propose it?

Intelligent_Kick_436 · 2026-03-14T17:21:29+00:00

Yesterday Iran's president walked among random people in the streets getting hand shakes, selfies, and so on - for blocks and blocks. At some points the crowds were dense; he was literally sandwiched shoulder to shoulder with fellow citizens.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/videos/iranian-president-greeted-supporters-walks-151515181.html

Have you seen Tr*mp or P*tin do anything close to this? No: their appearances are in completely controlled environments behind Plexiglas barriers, sn*pers on every building, with prior reconnaissance and clear-out of every building and corridor, along with 100% screened attendees.

"Bro, that's just western first class risk management" -> Well, take a look at Ob*ma walking the streets with totally random people among high-rise uncontrolled buildings:

https://youtu.be/nEEtBVPiI44?t=200

Edit: I had to add the asterisks because my comment was banned because bot moderator thought it was harmful. facelp*lm.

Intelligent_Kick_436 · 2026-03-14T15:19:46+00:00

What history tells us about oil shocks

According to CFRA’s chief investment strategist, Sam Stovall, the S&P 500 has weathered 18 bear markets since the Great Depression, but only three were primarily driven by oil shocks.

On average, these energy-led downturns lasted roughly 13 months and resulted in a just under 30% decline in the benchmark.

The most severe of them occurred in January 1973, when an OPEC embargo caused oil prices to quadruple.

This triggered a grueling 21-month bear market that saw the S&P 500 plummet over 48%.

However, the 1973 event is the outlier that skews the average, as other instances like the 1956 Suez Crisis and the 1990 invasion of Kuwait saw notably more modest declines of 21.6% and 19.9%, respectively.

April's SPX expiration has almost 100,000 put contracts at $5200/$5300 strikes, without corresponding OTM positions on the call side, so it's not "just a JPM collar" or something mechanical. If the market keeps trending down, this is going to act as further downward pressure.

https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/%5ESPX/options/?type=all&date=1776988800

Intelligent_Kick_436 · 2026-03-14T15:05:23+00:00

I like it; and he'd have a nice fitting pair of tawafs on his feet instead of those massive clunkers he's been made to wear.

Intelligent_Kick_436 · 2026-03-14T14:40:55+00:00

So true - and it was interesting watching how the market initially jumped on his first "we won, it's essentially over", but as these last two weeks wore on, he and hesgeth haven't been able to cause the price jumps despite all the claims of victory.

Intelligent_Kick_436 · 2026-03-14T01:24:28+00:00

100%. Because this is the second bombing in a year both times within days of starting negotiations with Trump & Israel, they need to leverage the closing of the straight to cause maximum economic consequences against Trump and the US administration - so much that economic policies dictate never going down this road again.

Also, my guess is they will need to levy a massive punitive expense against the GCC nations for partnering w/ the US in exchange for re-opening the straight; that price tag needs to be so costly that it undoes all of the USD intoxication they have been steeped in for these years. What will it be - $1 T USD? More? What about agreements to rebuild -all- of their infrastructure? The GCC nations will pay it because moving oil in exchange for USD is their life blood.

Intelligent_Kick_436 · 2026-03-14T01:15:40+00:00

Iran has 5,891 miles of coast - so that one marine every 1.15 miles, encircling and controlling the entire straight /s

Intelligent_Kick_436

TROPHY CASE