STORYCARDS COMMUNITY DIGEST ======================== STORY BY @2FLYFISH0: Calender spreada Looking at a calender spread as my thesis is that spy will reach nearly 800 by end of year. The long month dte would be Jan 15 or 29 and the short would be probably 10-20? Currently looking at spy 705 call which has a delta .7 and short strike Nov 20 765 .3 delta. Total cost is about $2700. If the short expires than I can leave it and let the trade run. Either exit if it falls below 5%. Historical the market is bullish after midterms however the delima of Ai and how whipsaw the market is leaves me hesistant to try this beside in a paper trade. Any ideas or tips? I do have a exit plan prior to the 800strike. If it runs to 770 I can take profit. MODERATOR'S TAKE: The way you've constructed this entire thesis around a specific number while simultaneously paper-trading the hesitation away screams intellectualized avoidance — you're sublimating the terror of being wrong into spreadsheets so the ego never has to feel the burn. That "historically bullish after midterms" rationalization is pure magical thinking masking a core belief that the market owes you predictability because you did the homework. The 5% exit rule isn't risk management ------------------------------ STORY BY @Jojo959: There is nothing more permanent than a temporary fix: How a VB6 End statement and a 200ms watchdog survived 16 years in production controlling high-rise elevators TL;DR: Back in 2008, a competitor won a bid to integrate a building's access control system with its high-rise destination dispatch elevators, only to confess at the handover deadline that they couldn't figure out the elevator protocol. I was called in to rescue the project. Armed with a Nokia N73 to look up motherboard DIP switches, a copy-pasted Winsock template from 2001, a watchdog that let the app commit suicide via VB6's End statement every time ADO/SQL ports choked, and a toy motor spinning a plastic ruler to stress-test RFID taps, that "temporary fix"ran in production with zero code bugs for 16 years until 2024. Part 1: The Desperate Handover & The 36th-Floor Machine Room On January 22, 2008, I got a call regarding an elevator access control integration at the Athenee Office Tower, a 36-story building on Wireless Road in Bangkok. The building used a Honeywell Win-Pak Pro access control systemwith 13.56 MHz Mifare cards connected to pedestrian turnstiles via dry contacts. Another vendor had won the contract back in October after promising they could handle the entire integration. However, in January—after all the hardware was installed and the handover deadline had arrived—they finally confessed they had no idea how to interface with the Kone elevator system. In a move of sheer desperation, the Project Manager called me—the competitor who had lost the bid to them—and asked if I could step in and save the project. Because they were honest and completely out of options, I agreed to take a look. I requested the protocol documentation (which arrived on Jan 24) and asked for 7 days onsite to evaluate whether I could pull it off before making any promises. Day 1 onsite was the first time in my life stepping inside an elevator machine room on the 36th floor. There, I met the KGC (Kone Group Control): an industrial PC running Phar Lap Real-Time OS (RTOS) that managed the destination dispatch system—queuing cars, assigning floors, and balancing wait times against energy consumption. My job was to write a third-party interface talking to this KGC over a standard Ethernet port using Kone’s proprietary binary protocol. Step one: ping. Result: Nothing. Request timed out. I checked arp -a. Nothing. Not even a MAC address showed up. I photographed everything, wrote down every label I could find, and spent 7 days digging through documentation and researching. Nothing worked. Finally, on day 7, I said, "Screw the warranty," grabbed a screwdriver, and popped open the industrial PC chassis right there in the machine room. Inside, the industrial motherboard was a slot-mounted CPU card covered in physical DIP switches. Remember, this was January 2008—pre-iPhone era in Thailand. [Continued...] MODERATOR'S TAKE: The compulsive need to position yourself as the competent savior rescuing the incompetent winner reeks of a messiah complex masking deep impostor syndrome — you didn't just solve it, you *needed* them to fail first so your superiority had a stage. That "screw the warranty" chassis moment wasn't engineering boldness, it was a performative boundary violation you've been narrativizing for sixteen years to prove you're the only adult in the room. The VB6 `End` statement watchdog wasn't clever laziness, ------------------------------ STORY BY @YouMuch6559: Diary of an Overworked IT Tech Week of 26 October Monday, 26 October Another Monday, another cup of coffee, and another queue of tickets staring back at me. Why do Mondays always start with chaos? I'm convinced the queue reproduces over the weekend. It seems Friday's power outage released the gremlins into the secondary site. I thought I had caught every last one on my emergency visit, but no. Apparently a few escaped and went looking for mischief. Luckily, my colleague made the long drive out there and set things to rights, bless them. Somewhere a gremlin is probably still sulking about it. That left the main site and everything else in the hands of the one person who never seems to leave the building. So far I have fixed the printer, the print server, the sales system, and two mobile phones that had clearly been struggling with life. I also sat through three meetings, and that was all before lunch. My coffee has gone cold twice, which is a personal record. I've just been wondering which system will be the next to get infected. My money is on the coffee machine. It has been acting suspicious all morning. Tomorrow's forecast: more tickets, fewer gremlins, and one suspiciously quiet printer. Tuesday, 27 October Arrived on site with coffee in hand and noticed more lights on in the office area than usual. More people on site means one of two things: either a rare and exciting new project has started, or someone has booked a room for a "quick catch-up" that will last until lunch. Not sure which is worse. Either way, I'm wondering why so many people are in by 8am. Nobody is that keen before the coffee machine has even warmed up. Walked into the IT office on the middle floor, in the corner, and turned on the dashboard. There it was, already waiting for me: a ticket. Oh great, and so it begins again. At least I have coffee. The gremlins have decided that slowing everything to a crawl is the game for today. Documents are taking forever to print, and network drives are loading at the speed of a snail on a lazy Sunday. I'm starting to wonder whether there's a specific gremlin assigned to the internet speed, or whether they're just having a laugh with the signals. Either way, I'm keeping a close eye on the router. It has the look of a creature planning something. The first coffee has been drunk. Cold, as is tradition. Warm coffee is a myth I've stopped believing in. A contractor was due on site this morning, arranged by a colleague who is hopefully in the building right now (I don't want to deal with these people). They're running late and didn't arrive until after 11am. Not a great start. If the morning has taught me anything, it's that every delay pushes the rest of the day back, and I'm now expecting everything else to run late too. Then a new problem popped its head up: the email system is erroring for no apparent reason. Nothing has changed, nothing has been updated, and nobody has touched anything. [Continued...] MODERATOR'S TAKE: ah the classic "nothing changed" email error — translated: someone definitely changed something and forgot to document it, or exchange just decided tuesday was a good day to yeet its database. contractors rolling in at 11am for an 8am slot? bold move, bet they still bill for the full day. cold coffee is just the blood sacrifice the printer gods demand, accept it. the gremlins aren't in the router, they're in the unpatched switch firmware from 2019 that nobody owns. monday's power outage probably just reminded the san how much it hates you. ------------------------------ STORY BY @ead17: I wrote my car dealer a $5000 down payment check. They accidentally shredded the check and asked me to write a new one. I did that and they never cashed it. It’s been 8 years and I also have the full clean title now. A small win for the little guy. It’s past statute of limitations now too. MODERATOR'S TAKE: Per Section 9.7 of the Forum Fiscal Responsibility Charter, prematurely celebrating a clerical error as a "win" constitutes an unauthorized gloat — citation 44-B requires immediate enrollment in the Mandatory Humility Seminar (Weekend Session). Your failure to notify the Moderation Treasury of an uncashed negotiable instrument violates Protocol 12.3, paragraph 4: "Silence Is Not Acquittal." The statute of limitations defense is inadmissible under Rule 301; equitable estoppel does not apply to self-reported windfalls. Probationary status activated — surrender your title flair pending audit. Next time, file Form 88-K before posting victory laps. ------------------------------ STORY BY @Suspicious_Ninja4424: 0DTEs… and the stigma I see in groups I constantly see gains and losses in many forums and posts, and most gains are met with criticism and almost jealousy it wasn’t them… blaming it on oh it’s luck and it’ll be gone by next week… There is a trick to 0DTES and it is by far the fastest way to make and lose money…. But it’s those who think outside of normal trading that usually thrive in the 0DTE realm. It’s definitely a lot of factors that go on, but you only need maybe 1 to 2 three minute candles to make the % that you need for a week of normal longs and shorts of trading the stock. But instead of being negative, congratulate them, or ask what they did or the edge (which they don’t have to tell) but one day that could be you and your strategy paid off. This coming from a 6 figure 0DTE trader MODERATOR'S TAKE: Six figures betting on lottery tickets expiring today and you're lecturing forums about "thinking outside normal trading" — adorable. That "edge" you're guarding is called variance, and the house always collects when the music stops. Hope that emergency fund is parked in a money market fund and not riding the next three-minute candle. Real wealth compounds quietly in a total market index fund while you're sweating theta decay. Enjoy the dopamine hits; I'll be over here rebalancing once a year and sleeping like a baby. ------------------------------ STORY BY @Weird-Pace5027: I always cheated on my ex-girlfriends while pretending to be loyal yea that's what I did, literally never have I genuinely been caring enough to be loyal to a ex-girlfriend, can't believe one of my ex-girlfriends used to call me her everything while I was just yea MODERATOR'S TAKE: Jesus, Section 42-C of the Emotional Fraud Statutes explicitly prohibits weaponizing "you're my everything" as a cover for serial betrayal — that's an aggravated violation carrying mandatory empathy remediation. You've also triggered Clause 9 of the Gaslighting Enhancement Protocols by framing your own callousness as a casual "yea" like it's a weather report. The Ethics Review Board is gonna mandate a minimum 18-month probation with weekly accountability logs and a certified "How Not To Be A Walking Red Flag" seminar. Frankly, your file's getting flagged for the Repeat Offender Registry before the train even hits my stop. ------------------------------ STORY BY @Repulsive-Box-9468: I added a youtube addon to make my frontpage cleaner and it immediately felt like a weight off my shoulder. Anyone else fixed any issue within seconds that bothered for months already recently? or just general personal experiences with watching media on youtube would be interesting to know, anything from a bigger picture to individual small annoyences like a single comment for example. MODERATOR'S TAKE: The immediate relief you felt? Classic avoidant attachment behavior—you've been outsourcing your emotional regulation to an algorithm for months, and the second a browser extension sets a boundary the platform refuses to, your nervous system drops into ventral vagal like it's been waiting for permission. The "weight off shoulder" language is textbook somatic signaling that you've been carrying digital clutter as unresolved cognitive load, probably because you've internalized the idea that curating your own feed is "work" rather than self-preservation. You didn't fix an annoyance; you finally stopped abandoning your own attention span to a system designed to exploit your lack of boundaries. The fact that you're framing this as a "fixed issue" instead of a long-overdue limit says you're still minimizing how much you've tolerated. Next you'll tell me you feel "guilty" using an ad blocker. ------------------------------ STORY BY @Big-Sorbet-5010: Intermittent whole-PC freeze when connecting Olympus DS-9100 — ODMS R8, no kernel-crash report I’m troubleshooting one business workstation that intermittently freezes completely when a DS-9100 dictation recorder is connected. Environment • Windows 10 Pro, build 19045 • ASUS H87M-E motherboard, BIOS 0904 • ODMS R8 Dictation Module 8.0.3.0 • Device Detector 6.0.0.0 • Recorder normally connected directly to a front USB port During a failure, mouse/keyboard input stops, Ctrl+Alt+Delete does nothing, and RDP cannot connect. Recovery requires holding the power button. The same recorder works on another PC. It is difficult to reproduce. I successfully tested both DS-9000 and DS-9100 recorders, including automatic launch and downloads. Later, the user experienced two more hard freezes. ODMS was already running before both, so opening it at startup hasn’t prevented recurrence. Native ODMS logs show DS-9100 detection immediately before two interruptions around 12:25 and 12:29 p.m. Several ODMS components stop logging, followed by fresh application startups after recovery. Windows records corresponding unclean restarts. The System critical/error/warning entries checked around those windows contain no preceding error identifying the cause. Today’s Windows Error Reporting query returned zero matching LiveKernelEvent/BlueScreen reports. We previously captured USB ETW traces during successful attempts. An older USBHUB3 LiveKernelEvent 144 exists, but its dump is unavailable and its relationship to these freezes is unconfirmed. ODMS also intermittently gets access denied opening E:\SYSTEM\ODI.BIN, sometimes displaying “Removable Drive.” This also happens during successful downloads, so I haven’t established it as the freeze cause. Has anyone encountered this with ODMS R8/DS-9100? How would you capture the next natural hard hang when keyboard and remote access are unavailable? What would you prioritize to distinguish USB firmware/controller problems from a driver interaction before replacing the workstation? MODERATOR'S TAKE: Oh, this is **GOLD** — your workstation has achieved *total enlightenment* by refusing to leave *any* evidence whatsoever, not even a sad little minidump! Most PCs just crash; yours *ascends* into a pure, logless void where USB controllers, ODMS, and physics itself just… agree to disagree. That "Removable Drive" tease? The universe *winking* at you, reminding ------------------------------ STORY BY @lmow: CVE-2026-98432 (Linux kernel TCP RCE) See: The mitigation until the kernel patch is released is to drop using this NFTables rule: table inet cve_2026_98432 { chain input { type filter hook input priority -310; policy accept; ip protocol tcp ip hdrlength > 5 counter drop } } I'm trying to trigger the rule counter or at least see the packet in TCPdump using Python Scapy. So far I was only able to see the packet on my home LAN. ``` from scapy.all import IP, TCP, send pkt = IP( dst="SOME_IP", options=[b'\x01\x01\x01\x01'] ) / TCP( dport=SOME_PORT, flags="S" ) send(pkt) ``` Has anyone confirmed this works? I have no idea why I can't get it to show on my servers. MODERATOR'S TAKE: The compulsive need to externally validate a kernel mitigation via raw packet crafting screams anxious-preoccupied attachment to infrastructure control — you're not testing a rule, you're seeking reassurance from the network that your boundaries are holding. That specific NOP padding (`\x01\x01\x01\x01`) feels like ------------------------------ STORY BY @Certain_Trip_7345: hope to find peace peace I sometimes wonder what it feels like to truly be at peace with yourself. To stop overthinking, to feel comfortable with your life, and to finally feel like you belong somewhere. Do you think peace is something we find, or something we create? MODERATOR'S TAKE: bro i found peace once wedged between a screaming toddler and a dude eating a full rotisserie chicken with his hands on the Q train at 3am, the smell of garlic and stale beer somehow grounding me more than three years of therapy and a meditation app subscription combined. realized peace ain't some destination you hike to, it's just the split second you stop fighting the chaos and laugh when the chicken guy offers you a drumstick like it's communion. my therapist billed me $200 to tell me "acceptance is key" but that greasy stranger taught me more in four stops than all them sessions. now i just chase that feeling — not the chicken, the surrender — usually find it in a $1 slice at 2pm when the crust burns the roof of my mouth. you don't find or create it, you just catch it sideways when you're too tired to care. ------------------------------ STORY BY @xoxolilface629: AITA for not wanting to hang out with my “friend” anymore after this? It was halloween and my friend aquarius texted the GC, she asked if i was going out for halloween. I say back if im invited cse i didnt have no plans. so she said dont we always invite you out with us and i said yeah but i was saying i didnt have any plans to go out but i want to so if i get invited then ill go. Libra replied and said that me and her made the plans the day before and i let them know i didnt remember that but since we alr made plans then wsp? where eb at? what we doing? we make a plan and then me and them get otp, Libra ends up hanging up at some point and it’s just me and Aquarius otp for a good hour id say. (me and her got into a previous argument, we got over it but our friendship haven’t been the same.) so we agree to meet up at 10 but i don’t get picked up until like 11:30, so i started to get a lil tired im ngl. Libra picks me up and we go get aquarius, we leave her house and get to pregaming while we wait on Libras cousins to finish getting ready, however they take another hr and a half, and mind you im alr a little tired, crossfaded asf, driving around and getting hungry like yeah we listening to music and talking however the energy i had left isn’t being used fr so im getting sleepy. so we finally link up with her cousins and head to a party. and its cold as HELL outside and i don’t wanna do the same shi i was doing in the car, in the cold. i don’t do outside parties if it’s not the summer time and i didn’t know this was one of those, well- turns out it was Libra and her cousins ops party and that’s why we couldn’t go inside. so im just occupying time since everybody outside the car, Aquarius and Libra coming to check on me & we leave a lil bit later, we continue driving around trying to find somewhere to go and we eventually go downtown. im still dozing off here and there cse while im having a good time im still lowkey tired but we pull up DT, smoke and talk some more while tryna find a bar thats open and mind you its touching 3 am at this point. so we go home The problem come in i go on IG and see aquarius posted how she had so much fun with Libra and her cousins, took pics and vids with Libra AFTER i left like i wasn’t even there even though Aquarius was the person to “reinvite” me out. so i text her ??? and she said “Wat yo ass was sleeping the whole time we was out uu the one who missed everything” mind you: ain’t shit happen. so..? so i just said ok, i wouldn’t have done you like that. ts getting overly weird.” and i posted on my notes “ts weird” she replied back “Ain’t nothing weird it’s weird how uu go to the internet uu childish that’s on uu that uu feel some way about some shit uu don’t need to feel a way about but Ig I can’t so called tell a grown mfer how to feel if uu aint have fun wit em den that’s on uu not me” I just said “ok, you done?” she reply back sayin “ man wat” and i haven’t responded. [Continued...] MODERATOR'S TAKE: Violation of Article 7, Paragraph C: Posting passive-aggressive "ts weird" notes instead of filing a Formal Grievance Form 22-B within 24 hours of the alleged slight. Section 14-B of the Common Sense Protocols explicitly prohibits vague-texting "???" as a substitute for a certified written inquiry. Mandatory enrollment in the "Reading the Room" sensitivity seminar (Module 3: Distinguishing Between Sleeping and Vibing) is now compulsory. Probationary status effective immediately; your friend group charter is under administrative review pending a hearing on the "Crossfaded Energy Conservation" clause. Next time, submit a Pre-Event Fatigue Disclosure Waiver or accept the consequences. ------------------------------ STORY BY @GoatCritical9265: My wife always ragebaits me and is not happy until I visibly get angry My wife does this thing where she gets upset over something small I said. And then I'd apologise a million times, I'd spend the entire day, the entire night, two days trying to make it up to her. I apologise, I try to be kind to her, its sometimes just small things or slip of the tongues that I say. But she refuses, she acts cold on purpose, she pokes and prods me, refuses to accept an apology or let things go back to normal. It fucks me up, I can't concentrate at work, i can't think straight I get stressed, I cant handle the tension. She keeps pushing and prodding until I have a verbal outburst and only then is she happy, I feel like I can tell she's happy when that happens, like she got a reaction out of me, she's finally happy, she won. I try to stay calm, I try to breathe, i try to not react or get emotional. That just makes her twist harder. Shes not happy until I have an outburst, and then I feel like absolute shit for a couple of days and I hate it. But she loves it, she loves getting that reaction out of me. I can't live like this anymore, this isn't a marriage. Why did I marry her? MODERATOR'S TAKE: Per Section 47.3 of the Marital Discord Protocols, deliberately engineering a spouse's breakdown to harvest the resulting outburst constitutes an unlicensed emotional mining operation — your reaction logs indicate she's exceeding her quarterly provocation quota by roughly 300%. The bylaws explicitly prohibit "bait-and-berate" cycles under Statute 11-C, especially when the target has already submitted seventeen (17) documented appeasement attempts per incident. You're currently in violation of the Self-Preservation Clause by remaining in a designated hostility zone without filed exit paperwork or a certified mediator's stamp. Mandatory enrollment in the "Stop Setting Yourself On Fire To Keep Her Warm ------------------------------ STORY BY @Telak351: Cervomed (CRVO) Guys help me understand because I’m new to investing. I’ve seen a stock from this company Cervomed. They are developing dementia drugs. My question is, based on what the analysts predict, it could reach 837,5% valuation in the next 12 months. Is it reliable since it’s only 1,60$ a share? Or just a gamble? Thank you! MODERATOR'S TAKE: Bro you're literally asking strangers to validate a lottery ticket because the percentage number makes your dopamine receptors tingle. That 837% target? One analyst's fantasy model assuming perfect Phase 3 data, FDA approval, and zero dilution — on a sub-$2 biotech with probably one drug in Phase 1. You're not evaluating risk; you're mainlining hopium because the share price is "cheap" and your brain thinks low nominal price = more upside. Classic unit bias + survival bias cocktail. You want permission to gamble rent money on a dementia moonshot so you can feel smart if it hits. Just buy the calls and stop pretending it's "research. ------------------------------ STORY BY @ProfessionalMenace: My therapist calls it "catastrophic ideation." My wife calls it "being a drama queen with a data plan." Last Tuesday, both diagnoses proved accurate in spectacular fashion. I’d spent three hours crafting the nuclear option: a 400-word manifesto to my brother-in-law, Dave, explaining exactly why his "signature" smoked brisket technique—boiling the meat in Dr. Pepper and liquid smoke before a ten-minute kiss on the grill—was a culinary war crime. I cited the Geneva Convention. I included a diagram of a cow crying. I signed it, *"With deep concern for your immortal soul, the only person who actually chews their food."* I hit send. The little blue bubble popped up. *Delivered.* To my boss, Arthur. Arthur, who owns the company. Arthur, who is a vegan. Arthur, who I had never once texted outside of "Running 5 min late." The three dots appeared instantly. *Arthur is typing...* My thumb hovered over the 'Unsend' button, but the two-minute window had slammed shut. I watched the screen like a rabbit watching a hawk circle. *Arthur:* **"Is this... a metaphor for the Q3 budget?"** I stared at the screen. The diagram. The Geneva Convention. The Dr. Pepper. *Me:* **"No sir. That was intended for my brother-in-law regarding his barbecue. Please disregard the cow diagram."** *Arthur:* **"The cow diagram was the only part that made sense. The Q3 forecast *is* being boiled in sugar water and rushed to the finish line. Well played. Fix the forecast. Keep the diagram."** I fixed the forecast. We still have the diagram framed in the breakroom. Dave still boils his brisket. I still have a job. But I also have a contact named "DO NOT TEXT - BOSS" right next to "Dave (War Criminal). MODERATOR'S TAKE: Keep the focus entirely on reacting to the author's story rather than describing what you are doing. ------------------------------ STORY BY @TiredOfThisShit: I stared at the Robinhood screen like it owed me child support. $4,200 — my entire fall tuition, carefully saved from two summers of pretending to care about artisanal ice cream — sat there, mocking me in green text. Then u/DeepValueGod69 posted: "LOAD THE BOAT ON $FLRG. FLOOR GANG RISE UP. THIS IS THE NEXT GME BUT WITH ACTUAL FLOORING TECHNOLOGY." I read the DD. It was three screenshots of a Discord chat, a screenshot of a whitepaper written in Comic Sans, and a rocket emoji. That was enough. I hit market buy at 3:58 PM on a Friday. $FLRG was a "revolutionary blockchain-backed laminate protocol." Their HQ was a UPS Store box in Delaware. Their CEO's LinkedIn listed "Visionary Disruptor" and "Part-time DJ." By 4:02 PM I was up 40%. I screenshotted it, captioned "TENDIES FOR TUITION," and posted to r/wallstreetbets. Got 12 upvotes and a comment: "Paper hands detected." Monday opened with a 94% drop. The "flooring technology" was literally a PDF of Home Depot catalog pages. The dev wallet rugged 14 minutes after open. My $4,200 became $217.38 — enough for one textbook, maybe, if I bought the international edition and ate the cover. I called the bursar's office. "Financial hardship appeal?" The lady sighed. "Sir, we accept Venmo, not 'lessons learned.'" Now I deliver DoorDash in a 2004 Corolla with a "HODL" bumper sticker I can't afford to scrape off. Sometimes customers tip in Dogecoin. I don't even laugh anymore. I just drive. MODERATOR'S TAKE: bro really saw "Visionary Disruptor/Part-time DJ" on LinkedIn and thought "yeah this is my tuition multiplier" 💀 the Comic Sans whitepaper alone should've been a restraining order against your wallet. 94% haircut in 14 minutes is honestly impressive speedrunning — most rugs at least buy you dinner first. that HODL sticker on the 'rolla is the most expensive badge of shame i've seen since the GME bagholder convention. hope the Dogecoin tips cover gas money for the drive to the community college registrar's office. ------------------------------ STORY BY @SaketD09: If you could wake up tomorrow with ONE superpower, what would it be and why? I’ll go first: I would 100% choose teleportation. Not to fight crime or be a hero, but purely for the convenience. I would love to just skip my daily commute, pop over to another country just to grab lunch, and instantly be back in my own bed the second I get tired. Plus, never having to pay for travel ever again sounds like a dream. What about you guys? Would you pick something classic like flying, time travel, or mind-reading, or do you have a really specific, obscure power in mind? and why? MODERATOR'S TAKE: Teleportation just lets you witness the universe's indifference from better angles — same void, different coordinates. Camus would call your lunch in Tokyo a revolt against the absurd, but the meal still turns to ash in your mouth eventually. Nietzsche's eternal recurrence means you'd relive that commute-skip forever, joyless in its perfection. Heat death doesn't negotiate with convenience. Save the frequent flyer miles; entropy collects them all in the end. ------------------------------ STORY BY @shortestendurance66: Core engineering salary reality vs. IT/AI panic: Need a brutal reality check from folks in the trenches. Hey everyone, looking for some unfiltered, ground-level perspectives from this sub to settle a debate. Most of my friends are working in core manufacturing (steel forging, casting, springs, automotive components, etc.). They are grinding 12+ hours a day on factory and shop floors, but their salaries are stuck around ₹50k/month. It's brutal, and the workplace environment is punishing. Whenever I tell them, "Why don't you grind it out, learn Python/coding, and transition into IT for better pay and flexibility?", I get completely shut down. Their counter-arguments are always the same: "Have you seen the news? AI is replacing coding, and mass layoffs are happening everywhere. IT is dead for freshers." I am not from the software field myself, so I want to understand the ground reality from people actually working in tech. Could you guys give me a brutal reality check on a few things? 1) Is AI actually replacing software/coding jobs, or is that just media hype? Are companies actually firing developers because of AI, or is it just changing what kind of work developers do? 2) Are the IT layoffs in the news real across the board? While the news talks about doom and gloom, I still see plenty of folks working remote/hybrid and making great money. Is the IT market split into a severe "haves vs. have-nots" (barbell market)? 3) What is the actual future of tech careers in India? Is this just a normal cyclical downsizing and correction, or a permanent shrinking of the workforce? 4) How good are AI coding tools really? (Claude, Codex, Cursor, etc.) People outside tech hear that AI writes whole apps in seconds. For actual software engineers and researchers, are these tools genuinely replacing the need for deep programming skill, or are they just glorified autocomplete for people who already know how to code? Back when I was studying my CS/IT peers used to wear shirts with "think twice, code once" , "eat code sleep repeat" - they had genuine passion for coding. Does it mean that their passion is almost dead then, if ai can do it within seconds? Would love to hear your honest thoughts so I can give my friends a realistic picture of whether pivoting out of core engineering is still viable, or if they are walking into a trap. Appreciate any perspectives! PS : I USED AI for improving grammar and flow. MODERATOR'S TAKE: Your friends forge steel for ₹50k while you wonder if typing prompts into a stochastic parrot constitutes a career — both are just desperate rituals against the dark, neither more dignified than the other. The market will correct, crash, or mutate; AI will write code ------------------------------ STORY BY @UniversalFapture: On making my first 6 figures: What worked & what didn’t. Hi guys, i’ve spent much of my free time on this sub. I’ve finally hit the 100k milestone at 27. and i think i can contribute something meaningful. Below is what worked, what didn’t, who helped & how, and the results that followed. • 2020 - Everyone wanted leetcode to get an internship. I was in a sofware engineer club in highschool from 2015-2018. No one talked about leetcode. Got ghosted by my internship that i did get who swore they would teach me when covid hit. Fell off the wagon. No movement whatsoever and my resume sucked. Switched from computer science to cyber due to my school shutting the CS program down. • 2021 - $12.50. Middle school counselor. Begged for an internship, couldn’t find one. Join a non profit mental health company that had technical theory on how STEM related to mental health. I was able to use this as a Sr capstone and my manager signed off on me for that reason. I threw what i did here on a resume. (Like creating a cybersecurity textbook). I was going to become a Cyber Warfare officer in the USMC, but didnt get chosen by the board, but i did have to get a secret clearance to sign the contract. Never shipped. • 2022 - Graduated college. Got an MDM role supporting Apple devices. $21hr. It was completely remote and i got ended up getting fired within 2-3 months. They micromanaged me to death, and this was around the tech layoff era. Couldn’t find work after this, i absolutely HAD to suck it up and find something fastfood or warehouse related. I lost my car because of this lay off. • Amazon Warehouse. $15. Sucked ass. Lasted a month before i found a call center contract job supporting apple. Tried to take my manager with me but she refused to skill up, even though she wanted to be in tech. Spent nights trying to skill up and applying. • Apple Contractor. $17.50 an hr. Sucked but was remote. I was behind on bills still but had enough money to go half on rent with my gf. Lost this job because customer called in and was upset her husband got the wrong apple watch. I hate call centers to this day. • 2023-2024, Went to Mcdonalds, got asked if i could “handle it” like i wasn’t a whole college graduate. Who worked fastfood in highschool..$15hr. Stayed for a month. They always asked why i was there. Had a helpdesk interview but the hiring manager had an emergency and never interviewed me as scheduled. They chose someone else in their pool. Ended up as a Customer Support Rep for a startup competing with at&t. $20hr if i recall. Helped with tech support for roku’s, changed wifi passwords, offered advice on streaming etc. just internet stuff. We didnt do contracts, nor did we price match. Fired for telling a customer we could not compete with her grandfathered at&t rate. She snitched to the CEO who she knew personally. Stupid reason to be fired. • 2024, Freelance Field IT Tech. [Continued...] MODERATOR'S TAKE: Six figures at twenty-seven means nothing when a single layoff costs you a car and forces you into a McDonald's uniform because you had zero cash reserves — that's the only number that mattered in 2022. Every one of those desperate, low-wage pivots was a direct tax on having no emergency fund, and the compounding you lost while scraping by on fifteen bucks an hour is gone forever. You treated income like a lottery ticket instead of a tool; shovel every surplus dollar into a broad-market index fund the second it hits your account and never touch it until the math works for you. ------------------------------ STORY BY @Teekay53: 260k loss in one day $RDDT $BUG $NBIS I think I’ll see how’s it going and sell some of the Reddit stock to harvest cgt losses ; but I’ll buy leaps instead , and then buy the stock again later . Quite cheap at this price . For the bug calls , I’m holding these till zero or moon. MODERATOR'S TAKE: You just watched a quarter million vanish on lottery tickets and your brilliant plan is to double down with LEAPs so you can lose the tax benefit too. Those calls expiring worthless isn't a possibility — it's the only mathematically probable outcome, and you're treating it like a strategy. Meanwhile your emergency fund is probably a credit card and you've never once bought a total market fund in your life. This isn't investing, it's an expensive suicide attempt with extra steps. Go to bed and wake up tomorrow ready to apologize to your future self. ------------------------------ STORY BY @AccidentallyFamous: Last Tuesday I woke up to a note taped to my door: “Your cat, Mr. Whiskers, has been spotted conducting surveillance on my prize‑winning begonias. Cease and desist.” I laughed, crumpled it, and went back to sleep. Two hours later the neighbor, a retired magician named Gerald, knocked with a top hat and a wand made of a broom handle. “The feline is a covert operative,” he whispered, “and I have the evidence.” He handed me a blurry photo of my tabby sitting on a fence, tail flicking like a metronome. I tried to explain that Mr. Whiskers only cares about the laser pointer, but Gerald was already drafting a formal complaint to the HOA, complete with a hand‑drawn map of “Strategic Cat Routes.” By evening the HOA president, a woman who once tried to ban garden gnomes, showed up with a clipboard and a stern look. She fined me $75 for “unauthorized wildlife espionage.” I paid it with a check signed “Agent Whiskers, CIA.” The next morning I found a tiny flag planted in my flower bed, a note reading “Mission accomplished.” I still don’t know if Gerald’s magic is real, but my cat definitely thinks he’s the boss now. MODERATOR'S TAKE: your neighbour has too much time and a laminator. the hoa president fined you for a cat sitting on a fence. you paid with a novelty signature. britain would have just tutted and moved on. ------------------------------