Chris Ortman

Lives in Iowa; makes web applications; trains super heroes; eats too much cake. .NET/Ruby/Clojure

[Chris Ortman @chriso]

Verifying myself: I am chriso on Keybase.io. MPa0XtGLYVtL45XMF-I7uzXabacTfK3zn13p / https://t.co/xchAoJNjml

[Chris Ortman @chriso]

@bradgessler Mine used to do that…also sending each other YouTube videos in messages or saving videos tithe photos app.

[Glenn Greenwald @ggreenwald]

I can't think of a more glaring and revealing political irony than a politician who called his ideology "America First" proudly *boasting* that he's far more popular in Israel than in his own country: in fact, so popular there that he could be elected Prime Minister of Israel.

[Acyn @Acyn]

Massie: I would have come out sooner but I had to call my opponent to concede and it took a while to find him in Tel Aviv

[Greg Molnar @GregMolnar]

Just use ruby.

[daz @MetamateDaz]

Most people don't realize but Americans only pay Social Security taxes on income under $184,500. What that means is anyone that makes over that stops paying Social Security at $184,501.

If the Social Security earnings cap were removed they would have enough money for universal health care.

[Mitchell Hashimoto @mitchellh]

@SergiiShymko As the famous saying goes, culture is who you hire, who you fire, and who you promote. And product is equal parts what you choose to build and what you refuse to build. Without the power to unilaterally control all of that, you cannot succeed.

[Aakash Gupta @aakashgupta]

Warren Buffett, in his first sit-down since stepping down as Berkshire CEO, gave the cleanest indictment of legalized gambling in a decade. He called it a tax cut for the wealthy. The math proves him exactly right.

Americans wagered $165 billion at legal sportsbooks in 2025. They lost $16 billion of that. FanDuel pulled $6 billion of the losses. DraftKings pulled $5.3 billion. Every state with legal mobile sports betting collected a tax on the bettor side. New York alone took in over $1.2 billion in 2025 sports betting tax revenue.

Layer the lottery on top. State lotteries generate over $90 billion a year. The bottom half of income earners account for roughly 70% of total spend. The average lottery player makes $38,000. A household earning $20,000 spends three times more on tickets than one earning $30,000. The implicit tax rate, meaning whatever the state keeps after prizes, runs 30 to 50% depending on the game. No other revenue source in America has that base and that rate.

The structural design is the engine. A single straight sports bet carries a hold of 4 to 5%. A four-leg parlay carries a hold above 30%. FanDuel and DraftKings spent five years rebuilding their apps to make parlays the default product. FanDuel's blended hold rate hit 11.4% in 2025, up from roughly 7% in 2022. The product got worse for the customer and the customer wagered more anyway.

Now look at the substitution. Nine US states have no state income tax. Seven of those nine run state lotteries. Seven of those nine have legalized sports betting. The states most committed to never taxing wealth are the same states running the largest extraction machines on people who cannot afford to lose. Read it as policy.

Here is what Buffett is actually pointing at. The state needs revenue. It can raise income tax on the top decile, or it can run a lottery plus a sports betting tax. The second option raises the money from the people who can least afford it. The first option becomes politically optional. New York's $1.2 billion in 2025 sports betting tax is $1.2 billion the state did not have to ask of someone earning $5 million.

DraftKings and FanDuel sell a privatized collection mechanism for a regressive tax that the state never has to defend at the ballot box again. Voters approve legalization once. Collection runs forever. The state takes a cut. The wealthy get a quieter top bracket. The bettor's cut shrinks every quarter as the parlay menu gets pushed harder.

The function of a government, Buffett said, is not to play its people for suckers.

Thirty-nine state governments now do.

[Chris Ortman @chriso]

@MediaKing How did fsd do with South Dakota winter?

[Acyn @Acyn]

Clip 1: RFK JR cites a study.
Clip 2: RFK JR cites another study.
Clip 3: Cassidy finds the first study and suggests the study contradicts RFK JR’s claim.
Clip 4: Cassidy finds the second study and points out the study was published before the vaccine came out.

[Chris Ortman @chriso]

@headius I haven’t measured anything. But when I tried some 8 years or so ago, the boot time was what got me. Doing something like run a single test in rails was just so much slower than C Ruby

[Chris Ortman @chriso]

@obie How are you feeling about Nexus after a quarter of use? Has the knowledge capture been useful? Did you create ruby bindings for Oxigraph?

[Nature Vid @naturevid2]

Trump in 2008: Anyone who invades the Middle East under false pretenses should be impeached.

Let’s make sure it goes viral here.

[CJ Moore @CJMooreHoops]

Ben McCollum is at his best in the final 24 hours before tip-off, when he crams for the test and usually finds the answers.

An inside look at what that looks like for @IowaHoops (free for all to read): https://t.co/eeFSuID71H

[ThePatrioticBlonde™🇺🇸 @ImBreckWorsham]

I gotta hand it to Trump.

Destroying the stock market, obliterating his own political party and launching nuclear war is a bold alternative to just disclosing whatever in the fuck he did in those Epstein files.

[Gergely Orosz @GergelyOrosz]

If you use GitHub (especially if you pay for it!!) consider doing this *immediately*

Settings -> Privacy -> Disallow GitHub to train their models on your code.

GitHub opted *everyone* into training. No matter if you pay for the service (like I do). WTH

https://t.co/vcSkhM5yLV

[kepano @kepano]

@figma GitHub opted everyone into AI training for Copilot. You have until April 24 to opt out.

https://t.co/CpHSZaUXKp

[Maine @TheMaineWonk]

Friday 03/27/2026:

-Dow drops 800 & enters correction
-Nasdaq falls 460 after correction
-S&P: 5th straight losing week
-Oil closes: highest level since 2022
-House GOP rejects Senate DHS Bill

-Hormuz still closed
-Tomorrow = 1 month since Iran War began

Meanwhile at WH Today:

[The New York Times @nytimes]

From @TheAthletic: Iowa's Bennett Stirtz is college basketball's Cinderella story.

“In 20 years,” coach Ben McCollum said, “it will be an insane story.” It already is. Here's how Stirtz went from mowing lawns to the Elite Eight. https://t.co/Sbv0HsTtyG

[Abby Finkenauer @Abby4Iowa]

When I lost in 2020, GOP ran ads claiming I’d close rural hospitals because I supported a public option. It was bullshit.

Since then, under GOP control, we’ve seen endless stories of hospitals & L&D units across Iowa closing. Time to wake up & support change like @BohannanIowa

[Point Made Joshua @pointmadejosh]

Angel Reese helping up Caitlin Clark

Hope this goes viral, too