Cipres Biggs

Wife,mom,RN,loves books,like to travel.

[Crazy Moments @Crazymoments01]

Someone shared this incredible story online: their security camera caught their dog awake at 2:47 AM while both owners were asleep. No one had trained him to do what he did... he simply knew something was wrong.

[Antonio Amorós @nToniDoctor]

Mi hermana dejó vivir gratis a una amiga en su casa durante 6 meses. Pasaron 11 y seguía allí. Cuando finalmente le pidió que se marchara, la amiga se enfadó y le dijo que aquella casa ya era también su hogar. Mi hermana le recordó que nunca le había cobrado alquiler, solo la mitad de la luz, el agua y el gas, y que desde el principio sabía que era algo temporal. Aun así, le dio dos meses más para encontrar otro sitio. Su amiga dijo que con los alquileres actuales era imposible ahorrar suficiente y que echarla después de todo lo que había hecho por ella era bastante injusto. Mi hermana pensó que se estaba aprovechando de su confianza. Hasta que su amiga le recordó algo que llevaba haciendo prácticamente todos los días desde que llegó:

[maf @therealmaf_]

My wife asked me to fold one load of laundry while she was at a work dinner.
Simple enough. Just take it out of the dryer and fold it.
I took it out. Then I intentionally bleached a white sweater with a red sock, shrank her favorite silk blouse on high heat, and left the rest in a damp pile in the bottom of the basket for three hours so it smelled like mildew.
When she got home at 10 PM, she didn't yell.

[The Shallow State @OurShallowState]

Before we move on from the Eric Schmitt humiliation to the next Trumpian GOP humiliation, I wanted to point out a few things for context:
1. Schmitt smirked - visibly - when he asked Jack Smith if he attended a Hawks game in Atlanta and Smith said "no." He was playing gotcha, and this was the entire purpose of the Smith hearing - garnering sound bites that may help reverse a GOP polling slide.
2. Seconds after the smirk, Schmitt - unable to contain his ill-conceived glee - mentioned perjury - twice. He couldn't control himself.
3. Smith remained unflappable throughout. He wasn't emotional nor indignant. In fact, he was respectful and thoughtful, and it was his respect and reasoned thought that led to the uncovering of the mix-up, as he himself recalled attending a different basketball game in a different city, because he was thinking and not feeling.
4. Klobuchar played the detective and she did her part with class. She didn't call Schmitt an idiot, a dirtbag, a presumptive partisan hack, or any name. She calmly pointed out the Hawks/Hawkeyes error.
5. Schmitt, who IS an idiot, a dirtbag, and a presumptive partisan hack, attacked Klobuchar and claimed she didn't have the floor to speak. Then, someone must have whispered something to him, and he shut up.
6. In the few minutes between Schmitt's questioning and Klobuchar's explanation, the RW media machine, like the rabid dogs they are, were out in force amplifying the "gotcha" on social media. Hannity and Benny Johnson and others later deleted their tweets, and numerous Community Notes were posted - that's my favorite feature on X, btw.
7. Even after the embarrassment, Schmitt went on the Charlie Kirk podcast and was complimented for his questioning, and he went with it, not putting any truth our there with any context, let alone any contrition. Add scumbag to my epithets for him.
8. And of course, GOP lawmakers STILL spin the hearing falsely - even now; Hawley in particular (like Schmitt - also from Missouri).

OK. Take this whole thing in its entirety, to see it for what it is. Look at the sordid intent, the lack of shame, the gaslighting, the lack of contrition - today it was Eric Schmitt, tomorrow it will be someone else, and they keep throwing false narratives out there - for three reasons: first, they're desperate and losing; second, their followers are tribal, frothing, and addicted to dopamine; and third, they play to an audience of one, whose entire rise to power was based on false narratives - a malignantly narcissistic audience of one.
It's the same malignantly narcissistic audience that - as Jack Smith knows and can prove - took classified documents with nefarious intent.
And it's the same malignantly narcissistic audience - that we ALL know - engineered and inflamed a shameful insurrection to thwart the peaceful transfer of power after LOSING an election.
And ... it's the same malignantly narcissistic audience that we need to neuter as a lame duck - and that neutering needs to be Party wide.
We need to return to truth and doing the job - like Jack Smith, to fairness and decorum - like Amy Klobuchar, and to empathy, contrition, non-disordered brains, and an electorate capable of reasoned thought.
The entire incident is proof that the entire GOP needs to be voted out.

[DulceBiatch @BiatchDulce]

From a friend…

If anyone wonders why you or I are liberal Democrats show them this post.

Women: "Can I have birth control?"
Republican Controlled Congress: "No."

Women: "I couldn't get birth control so I got pregnant.
Can I have an abortion?"
Republican Controlled Congress: "No."

Women: "You prevented me from having an abortion so I'm carrying the fetus, but my employer won't provide reasonable accommodations and is threatening to fire me.
Would you please pass the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act?"
Republican Controlled Congress: "No"

Women: "I had the baby, but I'm out of work.
Can I have WIC and food stamps until I get back on my feet?"
Republican Controlled Congress: "No."

Women: "I found a job, but it doesn't offer me insurance.
Can I have government guaranteed insurance?"
Republican Controlled Congress: "No."

Women: "My kid got sick and I got fired because I missed time caring for him/her.
Can I get unemployment?"
Republican Controlled Congress: "No."

Women: "I'm having a hard time getting my kid from school consistently.
Can we fund after-school programs?"
Republican Controlled Congress: "No."

Women: "I'm prepared to work to support my family.
Can you make sure that a full-time job's minimum wage is enough to do that?"
Republican Controlled Congress: "No.

But what's the matter with you and your family, that working two jobs can't lift you out of poverty?

And what kind of a mother are you, letting someone else watch your child while you work?

If your child doesn't do well in school or gets in trouble, it's entirely your fault.
You shouldn't have had a child if you weren't prepared to take care of him/her."
~Via Claudia Powell

[Theron @theron_chase]

Disney World hosts roughly 58 million visitors a year.

Disney is betting that almost none of them will ever understand how the park is designed to move their money.

One guy did. He spent 6 years as a guest services cast member at a Disney park. He personally handled more than 12,000 guest complaints, refunds, and "how did this cost so much?" conversations at the desk.

Last week he told me something that should change how you plan your next trip:

"Every single spending complaint I heard for 6 years came from the same 8 mistakes. Not the tickets. Not the hotel. Not the food prices. Mistakes Disney designs you to make, and then sells you the fix for."

I asked him to walk me through every one.

Here's what he said. 🧵

[Not your average grandpa 🇬🇧 @Jasonlh1967]

JUST HAD TO BE SHARED ☕️

Buying a fucking coffee has become unnecessarily complicated.

There was a time when you walked into a café and asked for a coffee.

That was it.

"Coffee please."

Somebody put coffee in a cup, you gave them some money, and everybody got on with their fucking day.

Not anymore.

Now you walk into somewhere like Costa and ordering a coffee feels like you're filling out a mortgage application.

"What would you like?"

Coffee.

"Americano, latte, cappuccino, flat white, cortado, mocha, macchiato, espresso, double espresso, iced latte, iced Americano, frappe?"

Fucking hell.

I don't know.

The brown one that wakes me up.

Then comes the size.

Small, medium, large, regular, tall, grande, massive, fucking oil drum.

I'll have a large.

Excellent.

Surely we're finished.

Oh no.

"What milk would you like?"

Milk.

"Whole, semi skimmed, skimmed, oat, almond, coconut, soya?"

Cow.

Just whatever normally comes out of a fucking cow.

Then they start offering you syrups.

Vanilla, caramel, hazelnut, salted caramel, gingerbread, cinnamon, chocolate, white chocolate, pumpkin spice, sugar free vanilla, sugar free caramel.

No.

I wanted a coffee.

I didn't come in to design a fucking Yankee Candle.

But we're still nowhere near finished.

Would I like an extra shot?

Decaf?

Half caf?

An extra hot one?

Skinny?

Whipped cream?

Cold foam?

Chocolate sprinkles?

Cinnamon dust?

Caramel drizzle?

Chocolate drizzle?

Ice?

Crushed ice?

Less ice?

More ice?

At this point I'm expecting them to ask whether I'd like fucking underfloor heating installed.

And there's always somebody in front of you who knows this system intimately.

"Can I have a large iced skinny oat milk caramel latte, half sweet, extra hot, two pumps of vanilla, one pump of hazelnut, no foam, extra shot, light ice, whipped cream, caramel drizzle?"

Fucking hell, Barbara.

You're not ordering a drink.

You're giving the launch sequence for a fucking nuclear submarine.

Meanwhile I'm standing behind her thinking, "Coffee. Milk. Two sugars. Please let me go home."

Then comes the price.

"That'll be five pounds eighty please."

FIVE POUNDS EIGHTY?

For a fucking coffee?

For that money I want to keep the mug.

In fact, I want shares in the fucking building.

And because you've already stood there answering twenty seven questions about milk and syrup, you just tap your card like you've developed Stockholm syndrome.

Then they finally hand it over.

And I've ordered the biggest fucking size they've got because, naturally, I'm thinking bigger cup means more coffee.

Silly me.

The cup's the size of a fucking paint tin, but about fourteen percent of it appears to be coffee.

The rest is milk, foam, whipped cream, syrup, ice, chocolate dust, caramel drizzle and whatever other fucking building materials they've used to construct it.

You've basically ordered a coffee and they've built a fucking extension on top of it.

If you've gone for one of the cold ones it's even worse.

You pick up this enormous plastic cup thinking you've got enough caffeine to see you through until Thursday, then realise three quarters of the bastard is ice.

Six quid for twelve ice cubes, a splash of milk and a frightened little espresso hiding at the bottom.

Take the ice out and your "large" coffee would fit in a fucking egg cup.

And then there's the whipped cream.

Fucking mountains of it.

You've got to eat your way through half of the Alps before you even reach the beverage you actually ordered.

By the time you finally locate the coffee, you've consumed eight hundred calories and you've got cream on your nose.

At that point it's not a drink anymore.

It's a fucking dessert with a caffeine problem.

And somehow we've all just accepted this.

We've gone from putting the kettle on and spooning Nescafé into a mug to standing in a queue while somebody called Tyler asks what fucking personality we'd like our milk to have.

I don't need my coffee to be an experience.

I don't need it handcrafted.

I don't need it drizzled.

I don't need it dusted.

I don't need it topped with something that looks like insulation foam.

I just want it hot, strong and capable of making me slightly less likely to tell everyone to fuck off before nine o'clock in the morning.

It's coffee.

Put it in a cup.

Give it to me.

And stop making me take a fucking GCSE before I'm allowed to drink it.

[Viora Tech @Viora_Tech_Ai]

A woman has flown 2.1 million miles on Delta. She's never paid for an upgrade.

She told me: "Airlines have 8 levers that determine who gets bumped to first class for free. Most passengers trigger zero of them. I trigger all 8 before I even board."

"Twenty years ago, 90% of first class seats on Delta were filled by complimentary upgrades. Today it's roughly 13%. Delta now sells 75% of its premium cabin at retail price. That leaves a quarter of first class seats for free upgrades and an algorithm decides who gets them."

"The algorithm isn't random. It's a scoring system. Eight factors. Fixed order. Two passengers reach factor 3 only if factors 1 and 2 are already identical. The person who understands the hierarchy gets upgraded. The person who doesn't sits in 34B and wonders why the guy in 3A got the same flight for the same price."

"I've been upgraded to first class on over 500 flights. Not because I'm lucky. Because I set up 8 things once and the system scores me higher than every other passenger on the upgrade list."

"Most people buy a ticket, show up, and hope. Hope is not a strategy. The upgrade list is a formula. And the formula rewards the people who know the inputs."

Here's her exact system the 8 levers, in order, and how to pull every one of them:🧵

[😱 Scary Larry 😱 🇺🇦✊🏻🇺🇸🗽 @aintscarylarry]

The oligarchs, the rapists, the pedophiles, the Nazis, the enemies of democracy, the enemies of humanity. So many packed into one horrifying image. If future generations ever ask what happened, how everything got destroyed and there’s nothing left for them, show them this photo.

[Gualter @brezhneviano]

Me cuesta mucho la existencia de las Filipinas. Son chinos con nombre en español que hablan en inglés y viven en una dimensión paralela de América Latina en el medio de Asia.

[Determinante Mente @H_Determinante]

❌ NO pierdas el tiempo visitando estos MUSEOS:

・Louvre 🇫🇷 (fábrica de selfies)
・Vaticanos 🇻🇦 (3 horas de cola por un techo)
・Uffizi 🇮🇹 (reserva y corre)
・British Museum 🇬🇧 (almacén colonial)
・Van Gogh Museum 🇳🇱 (girasoles y tienda)

✅ 5 museos que SÍ merecen la pena ↓↓

[Determinante Mente @H_Determinante]

⑤ Mauritshuis 🇳🇱

→ La Joven de la perla sin el circo. Casa pequeña, colección letal: Vermeer, Rembrandt, Fabritius. En 90 minutos has visto más pintura holandesa memorable que en tres plantas del Rijksmuseum peleando por un hueco.

[Determinante Mente @H_Determinante]

② Musée d’Orsay 🇫🇷

→ El siglo XIX metido en una estación de tren. La luz de los impresionistas aquí no compite con un pasillo de 40.000 personas. Es el atajo elegante a París: sales entendiendo a Manet, Degas y Courbet en dos horas, no en un día perdido.

[Better Man @BeBetterMan_]

7. They'll sacrifice their principles to get ahead.

They flatter the right people, abandon their standards, and change their personality depending on who has power.

They'll sacrifice their character for money, status, or a promotion.

That's not ambition.

That's having no principles strong enough to cost you something.

[Cooking with Chris @coookwithchris]

You need to be soup-maxxing

-Making soup with bone broth is the easiest way to get collagen & gelatin
-Balances amino acids
-One pot meal, so less clean up
-Amazing for meal prep; freezes very well
-Can disguise any organ meats or vegetables in it

Here's how to make one of my favorites:

Ingredients:

2 lb ground meat of choice (I used venison organ blend, can also use chuck)
2-3 cups diced potatoes
1 cup onions, chopped
1 cup carrots, chopped
1 cup celery, chopped
3 cloves garlic, minced 1
28oz can of diced or crushed tomatoes
3 cups beef or chicken bone broth
1 tsp Italian seasoning
1 tsp Worcestershire sauce
1 bay leaf
Salt and pepper to taste

In a large pot, cook the ground meat with a pinch of salt over medium-high heat until it is fully cooked. Discard the fat, then remove the meat from the pan.

Reduce the heat to medium. Add a dash of oil, then add the garlic and cook for 30 seconds. Add the carrots, celery and onion, and a pinch of salt and saute until they start to soften, about 7-8 minutes.

Add the meat back in; also add the broth, tomatoes, potatoes, Worcestershire, bay leaf and Italian seasoning. Bring to a boil.

Simmer until the potatoes are cooked through and the vegetables are your desired texture, about 30-45 minutes.

Taste for salt and enjoy!

This is so easy, enjoyable and nutritious, especially if using an organ blend and bone broth! You can use any meat or vegetable you like as well.

[🎼🌺Music Love♥️ @ThoNg676733]

This is probably as close to the original as I've heard. Phenomenal!😍🔥

[Ihtesham Ali @ihteshamali]

A school in Illinois made students exercise before class and accidentally discovered one of the most powerful learning drugs on earth.

They made the kids run.

The school was Naperville Central High School.

Every morning, students would show up before their first class, put on heart rate monitors, and exercise hard enough to push their heart rates into a specific zone.

Then they went straight to class.

The results caught the attention of a Harvard psychiatrist named John Ratey.

Because something strange was happening to these kids.

They weren't just getting fitter.

They were becoming better students.

When Naperville students later took TIMSS, an international test used to compare math and science performance across countries, they scored among the highest in the world.

Ratey spent years studying why.

And the answer completely changed how I think about exercise.

When you exercise, your brain releases a protein called BDNF.

Ratey calls it "Miracle-Gro for the brain."

It helps brain cells grow, strengthens the connections between them, and makes it easier for your brain to absorb new information.

Exercise also increases dopamine, serotonin, and norepinephrine.

The exact chemicals your brain uses for attention, motivation, and learning.

Which means those students weren't exercising instead of learning.

They were exercising so their brains could learn.

I think most of us have this completely backwards.

We treat exercise as the thing we do when the important work is finished like:

> I'll work out after I study.

> After I write.

> After I finish this project.

> After I get through my inbox.

And when life gets busy, exercise is the first thing we remove because it feels like we're buying ourselves another hour.

But Ratey's work suggests you're making a terrible trade.

You're gaining an hour of time while making the brain that has to use those hours worse at learning.

I've started thinking about exercise less like fitness and more like preparation.

If I have something difficult to learn, write, or solve, movement shouldn't come after it.

It should come before it.

You're probably not too busy to exercise.

You're too busy to learn slowly.

[Give A Shit About Nature @giveashitnature]

The "ladybugs" swarming your window frames this month aren't the good guy ladybugs you want in your garden. They're actually a part of why your native ladybugs are disappearing.

They're called multicolored Asian lady beetles. The USDA released them repeatedly for aphid control, and they're now one of the most common lady beetles in the country.

They've pushed out natives as they spread. The nine-spotted ladybug was once one of the most common lady beetles in North America. It vanished from much of the East for decades.

To check yours, look behind the head. Most Asian lady beetles have a dark "M" or "W" on the white patch.

The swarming is the other tell. Native ladybugs spend winter outside in leaf litter and under bark. Asian lady beetles evolved to overwinter on cliff faces, and a sunny south-facing wall looks like a cliff. So they pile onto your siding in October and squeeze inside through every gap.

Indoors they don't breed or eat anything. They do stink, stain when crushed, and occasionally nip.

And yes, it's fine to get rid of them.

A lady beetle crawling around inside your house in October is almost certainly this one. Native lady beetles don't move into houses. So you're not accidentally killing the good guys, and there's no reason to feel bad about dumping a vacuum bag of invasive beetles into a bucket of soapy water.

What not to do is spray insecticide on your siding. It won't keep them out, and it kills everything else that lands there.

[Rasel Hosen @details_with_ai]

Netflix has 260 million subscribers. Netflix is betting that 250 million of them never open the settings menu.

One guy did. He worked Netflix customer support for 3 years. Handled 15,000 complaints. He told me something that should change the way you watch tonight:

"Every single complaint I got for 3 years was caused by the same 10 settings. Not bugs. Not content. Settings."

"'Why is my picture blurry?' Because Netflix set your streaming quality to Auto — which doesn't mean best quality. It means lowest quality Netflix can get away with before you notice."

"'Why are my recommendations terrible?' Because 3 people are watching on your profile and the algorithm thinks you're one person who loves true crime, kids cartoons, and Korean dramas at the same time."

"'Why does every movie look like a soap opera?' Because a motion smoothing setting you've never seen is turned on — making a $200 million film look like it was shot on a phone."

"'Why do I scroll for 45 minutes and give up?' Because autoplay previews are feeding the algorithm false data every single time you pause on a thumbnail. Netflix thinks you're interested. You were just reading the description."

"I spent 3 years answering the same 10 complaints. Every single time the fix was the same: 'Let me walk you through your settings.' Every single time the customer said: 'Why didn't Netflix tell me this?'"

"Because Netflix makes more money when you scroll. Not when you find something."

Here are 10 Netflix settings that are ruining your experience right now — and exactly how to fix each one in under 5 minutes:
🧵

[Evon @_evon3929]

The iPhone 18 Pro Max went on sale 3 days ago. $1,199.

Millions of people bought it this weekend. Most of them upgraded from an iPhone 15 or 16. Some upgraded from last year's 17 Pro Max.

A tech reviewer who's tested every iPhone since the original spent 72 hours with the 18 Pro Max. He told me something Apple would never say at a keynote:

"This is the most impressive iPhone ever built — and most people who bought it this weekend didn't need to."

"The variable aperture camera is genuinely revolutionary. The battery life is absurd. The A20 Pro chip is a monster. But Apple spent 90 minutes on stage telling you what's new — and 0 minutes telling you what actually matters to the person holding it."

"They didn't tell you the 3 situations where this phone is a life-changing upgrade. They didn't tell you the 4 situations where your iPhone 16 does the same job. They didn't tell you the one spec they buried that changes how long this phone lasts. And they definitely didn't tell you the 10 features already on this phone that you'll never open — because they'd rather sell you the iPhone 19 next year than teach you the 18 you just bought."

Here are 10 things about the iPhone 18 Pro Max that Apple didn't say on stage — the honest truth about who should buy it, who shouldn't, and how to actually use the phone you just paid $1,199 for:🧵