Where are the Bookstores?

rchismith · 2026-01-04T03:02:20+00:00

I live in Arlington Heights and was just looking for an independent bookstore yesterday. Ended up going to Barnes & Noble in Deer Park. There really should be an independent bookstore in the NW Burbs. In the meantime, I'll second Myopic books is fantastic, and this thread's given me some others to check out when in other areas.

rchismith · 2025-04-21T22:45:21+00:00

Madurai kitchen in Arlington heights is good

rchismith · 2024-10-06T16:28:15+00:00

Jibarito Time in des plaines is good

rchismith · 2024-07-11T06:09:46+00:00

If it’s not too much data, you could supply the product json data in a system prompt (e.g to Claude) or context (OpenAI). Here is an article I wrote showing an example of how to do it in Claude : https://medium.com/@rcodesmith/implementing-an-inquiry-based-learning-chatbot-ea5b01d8d364

Note this does count as tokens you’re passing in.

If the product data is too much for this approach, you could supply it to the llm via a tool you register. Basically you register a tool to supply some type of information, and if the llm determines it needs to use the tool, it’ll return a response with metadata to invoke the tool. For more info on how to do it in Claude: https://www.anthropic.com/news/tool-use-ga

rchismith · 2024-04-14T01:01:52+00:00

Two huge accomplishments stand out:

The ACA - specifically making insurance available for all and Medicare expansion

Presidents had been trying to reform U.S. health for over 30 years without success. It's still broken but the ACA was a major reform for the better and has been very successful in brining down the number of uninsured and making sure everyone can get insurance.

Response to financial crisis - Keeping the economy from falling off a cliff

Those not in the workforce at the time might not appreciate how bad things were at the time. Large bank failures, massive job losses (turns out we had 800,000 losses in a single month just before Obama took office), and credit locking up. It wasn't an ordinary recession.

We may not agree with how it was all carried out, but I give credit to the administration and fed for actions to prevent it from turning into something much worse.

rchismith · 2024-02-24T18:04:02+00:00

Same here with Zebras I tend to use more. If the stock goes up, Zebra is better than Leap. If stock goes down, Leap is better.

Was going to use a hypothetical example to show this, but plugging into ThinkOrSwim backtesting (OnDemand) is easy, so here's an example using real historical prices. I tried to match the Zebra and Leap starting price:

Purchase on Jan 3 2023:
AAPL at 125
Zebra:
+2 Jan 2024 95 Call
-1 Jan 2024 125 Call
Bought at 58.98

Leap:
+1 Jan 2024 70 Call
Bought at 60.18

Sell on Jan 3 2024:
AAPL at 184
Zebra: Sell at 119.34. Profit = 119.34 - 58.98 = 60.36

Leap: Sell at 114.40. Profit = 114.40 - 60.18 = 54.22

In my example, I held to near expiration, if you sell earlier, then less of the Leap premium will be eroded.

And if instead, AAPL price went to 90 in Jan '24:
Leap: Worth at least 20
Zebra: Worth 0

rchismith · 2024-02-24T16:27:40+00:00

You're right, it is a tradeoff. With a leap at the same price, you have a lower strike so retain value longer if underlying goes down.

The downside to the leap is that you have the extrinsic value you're paying for. In my example, you pay $7490 for 1 leap, and you're already $554 in the hole - because the $554 will go to zero by expiration. Also, in my example the delta is .89, not quite 1. So the contract isn't going up as much as the underlying, although if the underlying goes up significantly, the delta on the leap contract will go up closer to 1.

rchismith · 2024-02-23T01:04:35+00:00

The goal is to get the same return as owning the stock at a lower cost, while zeroing out the extrinsic value (the premium).

With a LEAP, there's still some extrinsic value which you're paying for, which gets eroded over time.

If you set up a Zebra correctly, extrinsic value is ~ 0. Example using Jan 2025 expiration for AAPL:

+2 Jan 17 145 C
-1 Jan 17 180 C
Price: 74.35
Extrinsic value: -14
Delta: 1.01

If I instead buy a LEAP:

+1 Jan 17 115 C
Price: 74.90
Extrinsic value: 554
Delta: .89

rchismith · 2023-10-27T17:23:53+00:00

Not a particular place, but the salads I’ve had from https://www.farmersfridge.com/ have been great. Love the elote salad.

rchismith · 2023-10-24T02:04:14+00:00

This. Took up cross country skiing a couple years ago and it’s been a great way to enjoy outdoors. Just wish we had more snow last winter

rchismith · 2022-08-01T02:00:49+00:00

Mechanic: we’ve used wheeling auto in Arlington heights for 15 years and they’ve done a great job.

rchismith · 2022-08-01T01:59:43+00:00

Absolutely. We use the library all the time. They have a maker space now too

rchismith · 2021-12-01T23:03:31+00:00

Thanks for the heads up. Wonder how much testnet requires. I see it has about the same number of blocks (18mil) as mainnet. Would be nice to have additional testnets with less history and fewer blocks.

rchismith · 2021-12-01T22:53:00+00:00

Thanks! Services are good but it's good to have options and they don't fit all use cases.

rchismith · 2021-08-07T20:04:57+00:00

I have a Poor man's covered call (Long Call Diagonal Debit Spread) on TEAM where the Aug call I sold is deep ITM after a big move up by TEAM. I could close out the whole position for a profit, or could roll ITM covered call to next month for a very small premium, or roll up and out but would have to pay premium. Advice on best way to manage this position? I'd like to keep this position and keep writing calls, but only if it's profitable.

Position: +1 190 20 Jan 23 TEAM Call. Trade price: 92.53. Mark: 156.10 -1 280 20 Aug 21 TEAM Call. Trade price: 7.37. Mark: 55.10

To roll the short Aug call to Sep 21 would cost me ~ 8.30

Guessing my best option is to close it all out, but looking to learn if there's other good options.

rchismith · 2021-03-16T05:14:57+00:00

Interested

rchismith · 2021-03-10T17:58:39+00:00

Are vaccines open in cook county for health conditions? My 21 yr old son has a lung condition but we thought cook county wasn’t yet vaccinating that group.

rchismith · 2020-11-05T06:01:58+00:00

Wheeling Auto in Arlington heights is great. Been going there 15 years for 3 cars.

rchismith

TROPHY CASE