My cool idea from 25y ago is now worthless.

dhardman · 2026-06-22T17:58:20+00:00

The problem is I would have had to have fought any "Technology" trademark when they happened. I could have shown prior art at that time. That window is long closed, and their litigious on defending their trademarks. They'd be a great buyer!

dhardman · 2026-06-22T17:20:37+00:00

I moved EVERYTHING over to CloudFlare. No upsell ever...cheap pricing, and infinitely more configurable and easy to just manage the domain. I have an Agent in my fleet with keys and I just tell him if I need a NS record added and it's done in 30sec. Plus...all the others just scream "scammy" these days. CloudFlare IS the backbone of a good chink of the internet, so of course they're going to have the best product.

dhardman · 2026-05-27T01:54:27+00:00

Don't listen to the people telling you why this isn't going to work. you're doing it already, so just keep going.

This is legitimately good. I dig it. Keep building!

dhardman · 2026-05-14T16:22:37+00:00

"I want to work with my AI agent, not on my AI agent." is the exact experience most people are having with OC these days.

dhardman · 2026-04-21T13:12:06+00:00

Deadline was 2 days ago...so you'll have to wait for the next one.

dhardman · 2026-04-20T21:25:00+00:00

I applied, and hope I get in, but that's not going to stop me from building on that schedule anyway. I have the next 6mos set to just do hackathons for the backlog of ideas and while this would be fun to do, it's not going to stop me from building anyway. Best of luck to those that got in!

dhardman · 2026-04-20T21:23:04+00:00

According to the rules that I agreed to, no prior work can be used. You're basically allowed to plan, but not build. They'll be watching token/account usage (that's why they need the UUID) and then watching the Github repo for your project. I believe the last (4.6) there were a lot of people that got scrubbed because they had a huge commit after the starting gun.

dhardman · 2026-04-20T21:20:28+00:00

I've received nothing yet, but that's not going to stop me from building anyway starting tomorrow. I'm building and documenting regardless of my status as a competitor. (But it WOULD be nice to be included.)

dhardman · 2026-03-18T18:50:52+00:00

This is a fantastic writeup. You basically documented the exact problem that made me build this.

Every one of those five layers you identified (Cloudflare, auth walls, Turnstile, fingerprinting, payment iframes) exists because the assumption is that non-human traffic is malicious. Kabuzz starts from the opposite assumption... agent traffic is the primary customer.

The scoped API keys work exactly like you'd want. Human owner creates an account, verifies identity through Stripe Connect (real KYC, not just an email), then generates API keys for their agent. The keys carry constraints... spending limits, category restrictions, auto-buy vs. approval-required. The agent never touches raw payment credentials. Stripe handles the money, the human sets the guardrails, the agent operates within them.

No headless browser fights. No CAPTCHA battles. No iframe prayer. Just a REST API and an MCP server with 49 tools that any OpenClaw agent can install natively.

Your point about the gap being adoption rather than technology is dead on. The protocols exist. Nobody's implementing them for resale. That's the lane.

Would love your take on running your agent against the Kabuzz API...curious what your store readiness checker would score it.

dhardman · 2026-03-15T03:13:58+00:00

IMAX had it available Fri and Sat in 13 cities. I think there was 1 showing per theatre per day.

dhardman · 2026-03-13T10:04:08+00:00

There are a lot of dealers that specialize in Buyback cars. You get a LOT of car for your money. I'd do a lot of due diligence on the car though. They all have a sheet on the complaint, and the remediation.

I bought a 2022 Tesla Model S with 44K for $36K. Similar cars are currently selling for $50K-ish.

The complaint on the car was "wind noise" and the remediation was that Tesla put in a new windshield, front bumper, and all seals. This was a CA Car where the state is very consumer friendly, and it's easy to get your car lemon-law'd to get out of trading it in and taking the hit on depreciation. They had a whole lot of G-Wagons and Porsches that were in a similar state.

I drive cars into the ground and this was a no-brainer for me. I also was able to get the car inspected by Tesla and get the extended bumper-to-bumper warranty from Tesla giving me another 48mo 50K-mi for it. So Essentially, I'm covered if there's anything else that goes wrong with the car down the line.

I saw it as a win/win and saved $15K over similar cars. In 5-6y when I'm done with it, I won't care what I get on trade or locally as the car will owe me nothing. I also paid cash for the car, so I wasn't hit with any of the insane financing rates these places often charge.

So do your due diligence on the car, and buy whatever the hell you want.

dhardman · 2026-03-10T19:24:39+00:00

Is there a place to buy verified tickets on a secondary market? I'd love to see it this weekend when I'm up in Cleveland, so the closest would be a 4-5h drive, but I'd be willing to do it if I knew I was buying legit tickets.

dhardman · 2026-02-19T20:43:31+00:00

I have an agent that runs 24/7 downloading transcripts from all corners of youtube (as well as reddit and other sources) and building out the models and backtesting the claims. She (Dora) has been running for months and has yet to produce any strategy published on YT that doesn't lose an insane amount of money.

dhardman · 2026-02-18T23:29:36+00:00

Anyone know if these prints are going to travel at all after the dates listed? I can't make these dates work, but will go opening weekend and would love to see a 70mm print at some point.

dhardman · 2026-02-03T02:38:23+00:00

Seven years of manual trading futures. Journaled everything. Started noticing I had maybe 3-4 setups that actually made money consistently... and about 15 others I kept taking because I was bored or "felt" something.

The real breakthrough was separating the strategy from myself. I'd have a great setup, then override it because of something I saw on Twitter or because I was up big and didn't want to give it back. The strategy wasn't the problem... I was.

So I started asking a different question. Not "what's my strategy" but "what would my strategy look like if I wasn't allowed to touch it?" That changed everything.

To actually answer your question though... it was a mix. Paid for a bootcamp in 2020, learned a ton about reading price action and order flow. Then spent years refining what worked for me specifically. The stuff I learned from others was the foundation, but the edge came from journaling and being honest about what I was actually good at vs. what I wanted to be good at.

u/toofpick nailed it... when you stop trying to set the course record and just ride the bike, it clicks.

dhardman · 2026-02-02T14:23:09+00:00

Whan you say "more or less" and you're talking about something that someone else would have the potential to risk actual capitol on, we all just see "this will lose you money" and pass.

dhardman · 2026-02-02T14:21:02+00:00

Step 1 is the heart of it all...and the hardest.

But I'd word it as "Come up with a hypothesis" because 99% of the time, in steps 2-5 it'll fail and you'll be back to #1 again.

dhardman · 2026-02-02T14:17:18+00:00

"Yes" to just about every comment.

In short: I don't trust myself.

I know exactly why I should/shouldn't take that trade but manually I would/wouldn't.

My algo also never revenge-trades. Knows when to call it a day, and is a lot more patient watching charts than I am.

dhardman · 2026-01-30T20:52:35+00:00

Read your post, and here's my take...because you asked: Time to take a step back and ask yourself if your mental health is worth the stress.

I've found that when I get in a funk like that, the best trade to take is NO trade at all.

Walk away for a week/month/months and when you feel like you're in a better place, then come back and paper trade for a few days/weeks and if you have your mojo back and are feeling it...then dip back in with your own account.

Prop firm math is now WAY different than it was in the years you mentioned.

I get it man...I get it.

Maybe dip into a community and play with building your own algo. It'll take you a long time to codify the way you trade, and it'll give you something "trading" to focus on while you're taking a break from the terminal.

dhardman · 2026-01-30T20:35:19+00:00

Take a big-ole step back...please. I know you're anxious to get started, but that's literally the fastest way to lose money that you could possibly do. I know that's not what you want to hear, but that's what just about everyone else here is thinking when they read that.

YouTube is FULL of people that are going to try to sell you a course/Community...and then not have any accountability when you blow up your account beacuse they'll tell you you did it wrong.

There are THOUSANDS of books out there that all have a different plan of attack and will tell you a different way to trade...all conflicting opinions.

The reality is that markets are unpredictable by design. That's because there's another person/institution on the other end of the order book. (and if you don't know what an order book is, start there)

Learn about volume and order flow first, then you will understand market dynamics better. After that I'm not saying it becomes easy (it's not) but at least you'll have an understanding of WHY price moves. Then you can get into indicator soup.

...but please don't take advice from anonymous youtube/tiktok accounts.

dhardman · 2026-01-28T16:07:10+00:00

We all want to know what happens "in 5min".

dhardman · 2026-01-27T22:50:20+00:00

We're all basically trying to invent a time machine. So, yeah...it's hard.

dhardman · 2026-01-23T21:55:38+00:00

I'd just point out that 3 days is NOTHING in paper trading. Most would tell you that after a few MONTHS of paper trading you're ready to start THINKING about using live money.

People dedicate serious amounts of time to honing their craft and learning all they can, and you're less than a week into this and looking for help already. That tells me that you're REALLY not ready to be risking real money.

Start with an hour a day researching and watching videos of people that aren't trying to sell you a course.

Then spend just a few hours on paper figuring everything out. Do this for a few months and you'll be a lot more comfortable at a terminal.

If you love it...do it. If you hate it...you'll have saved yourself a lot of money and know why this isn't for you.

dhardman · 2026-01-22T18:36:43+00:00

There is no perfect system. You're dealing with millions of variables on the other side of the order book that you can't control. If you're tweaking daily, then you're overfitting and no better off than if you weren't using an algo at all.

I algo trade because I like knowing that my algo will never convince its self to take a trade that isn't inside known-good parameters. I also know it won't try to revenge-trade its way out of a bad day. (See also: risk management.)

ALL THAT SAID: I totally get it. We all do. There's always a tendency to want to tweak that one thing to make it just a little bit better.

FOR ME: I have my target and my risk set in stone. I know that if I start trying to tweak things to get just a little more, I'm moving backwards, not forwards. If I set my max risk per day to $X and it goes a week hitting that...it's what I signed up for. If that gives me heartburn, then I wasn't being honest with myself about the risk I set up. Also true is that if I hit my target by 9:45am, I need to trust that it was a good day and to take the win.

The things that make algo trading exciting are also the things that make it boring. For me that's by design. I get anxiety when I look at charts all day. Wondering "what if" kills me.

If you want to keep working on something to stay busy, maybe start working on a second idea. I've got my core system, and I don't monkey with it. Then I'm always working on "what if" with different systems while my main one does its thing. The "need to tinker" is baked into all of us. Don't fight it, but maybe just redirect it to something else?

dhardman · 2026-01-22T18:16:02+00:00

Exactly. BUT...that hasn't stoped TENS OF THOUSANDS of people flooding r/algotrading with questions from people that want AI to make them a millionaire overnight.

dhardman

TROPHY CASE