The short straddle mentioned by the OP is selling a call and a put at the same strike at the same expiration. The concept behind it is to take advantage of a "perceived expensive" situation in premiums which is expected to correct (i.e: market volatility subsides, option premiums drop, and you can by back the straddle at a profit). A common practice is to purchase "garbage" wings (long a put and call with out-of-the-money strikes...in other words, a long straddle) as a hedge. This has the effect of transforming the short straddle (unlimited risk) into a short iron condor (limited risk, but lower maximum profit). In this case, due to the low cost of KODK, it is not unreasonable to forgo the long put as you are capped at 0 to the downside. Also, in many cases, you can't actually short naked calls (i.e: IRA), so you have to add the long call in order to be able to execute the trade.
It is regulatory. It used to be every 30 days, then they changed it to 15. I think these guys are pretty accurate. http://shortsqueeze.com/?symbol=kodk&submit=Short+Quote™
Goony gave a good explanation, but basically by shorting the call, you are the option writer. You are selling a call option. The same for a put. If you short a put, you are writing the option. In both cases you get whatever the bid is. Or something in between if its a wide spread.
It may help you keep things straight at first if you use the terms "Sell to Open" (short), or "Sell to Close" (you were long), etc.
I trade only simple puts and calls and risk literally 0.0005% or my portfolio. So actually no risk what so ever when I trade options.
What's odd is that TOS is showing 10, 12.5, and 15 strikes in all months with actual volume in some. IB is showing nothing beyond 7.5. I don't see any other classes listed in the option page for IB. Any idea where the TOS stuff is coming from?