Valencia, is the capital of the autonomous community of Valencia and the third-largest city in Spain after Madrid and Barcelona, surpassing 800,000 inhabitants in the municipality. The wider urban area also comprising the neighboring municipalities has a population of around 1.6 million. Valencia is Spain’s third-largest metropolitan area, with a population ranging from 1.7 to 2.5 million depending on how the metropolitan area is defined. The Port of Valencia is the 5th-busiest container port in Europe and the busiest container port on the Mediterranean Sea. The city is ranked as a Gamma-level global city by the Globalization and World Cities Research Network.
Valencia was founded as a Roman colony by the consul Decimus Junius Brutus Callaicus in 138 BC and called Valentia Edetanorum. In 714, Moroccan and Arab Moors occupied the city, introducing their language, religion, and customs; they implemented improved irrigation systems and the cultivation of new crops as well. Valencia was the capital of the Taifa of Valencia. In 1238 the Christian king James I of Aragon conquered the city and divided the land among the nobles who helped him conquer it, as witnessed in the Llibre del Repartiment. He also created the new Kingdom of Valencia, which had its own laws (Furs), with Valencia as its main city and capital. In the 18th century, Philip V of Spain abolished the privileges as punishment to the kingdom of Valencia for aligning with the Habsburg side in the War of the Spanish Succession. Valencia was the capital of Spain when Joseph Bonaparte moved the Court there in the summer of 1812. It also served as the capital between 1936 and 1937, during the Second Spanish Republic. Wikipedia
It’s a good time to look up. One of the year’s most spectacular skywatching shows, the annual Perseid meteor shower, is back to light up the night sky.
The Perseid meteor shower peaks in mid-August, when up to 100 meteors can be seen per hour, but the celestial event will be active beginning Wednesday, which means shooting stars may be visible on clear nights starting this week. The Perseids are considered “the best meteor shower of the year,” according to NASA.
In the Northern Hemisphere, the best way to view the Perseids is to head out in the predawn hours, though some meteors may be visible earlier, from 10 p.m. onward, according to NASA. Meteor showers are best viewed from places that are away from city lights, as light pollution can drown out the shooting stars.
The Perseid meteor shower is called that because the shooting stars appear to stream from a point in the sky where the constellation of Perseus is located. While the constellation is not the source of the meteors, it can help skywatchers figure out where to look.
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A meteor streaks across the sky above Mount Fuji in Fujinomiya in Shizuoka prefecture in Japan during the annual Perseid meteor shower Aug. 13. Yasushi Kanno / The Yomiuri Shimbun via AP file
My first school bus conversion (skoolie) was an escape. I was living under the dual thumbs of my student loans and mortgage, and working two jobs to pay for a life I didn’t have time to enjoy. After a crash course in converting a 16-seat school bus into a dwelling, I had both an outlet for adventure and an income source I loved (West Virginia’s top-rated Airbnb since 2015).
Why on Earth did I convert a retired school bus into a mobile tiny home? Simple: Big yellow buses are cheap and durable. A used bus at auction goes for around $2,000 to $5,000—about 10 percent of the cost of a used RV. And where RVs are designed to be lightweight, buses are designed to work. That gets you a steel-framed body and steel paneling on top of a heavy-duty commercial truck frame. And under the hood, most school buses feature commercial-grade diesel engines that fleet mechanics have reliably maintained for years.
My book, Skoolie!: How to Convert a School Bus or Van into a Tiny Home or Recreational Vehicle, covers every step of the process, along with time-, sweat-, and money-saving insights I’ve picked up along the way. But to show (and hopefully inspire) anyone who can hold an angle grinder that they’re capable of building a home on wheels, I’m sharing the basic process for converting a school bus into a clean, well-insulated room to outfit as you please.
A mangrove is a shrub or small tree that grows in coastal saline or brackish water. The term is also used for tropical coastal vegetation consisting of such species. Mangroves occur worldwide in the tropics and subtropics, mainly between latitudes 30° N and 30° S, with the greatest mangrove area within 5° of the equator The total mangrove forest area of the world in 2000 was 137,800 km2 (53,200 sq mi), spanning 118 countries and territories.
Mangroves are salt-tolerant trees, also called halophytes, and are adapted to live in harsh coastal conditions. They contain a complex salt filtration system and complex root system to cope with salt water immersion and wave action. They are adapted to the low-oxygen conditions of waterlogged mud.
The word “mangrove” is used in at least three senses: (1) most broadly to refer to the habitat and entire plant assemblage or mangal, for which the terms mangrove forest biome, and mangrove swamp are also used, (2) to refer to all trees and large shrubs in a mangrove swamp, and (3) narrowly to refer just to “true” mangrove trees of the genus Rhizophora of the family Rhizophoraceae.
The mangrove biome, or mangal, is a distinct saline woodland or shrubland habitat characterized by depositional coastal environments, where fine sediments (often with high organic content) collect in areas protected from high-energy wave action. The saline conditions tolerated by various mangrove species range from brackish water, through pure seawater (3 to 4% salinity), to water concentrated by evaporation to over twice the salinity of ocean seawater (up to 9% salinity). Wikipedia
A suburban playground on a cold winter’s day. A man in his early 30s, wearing a beanie, leather jacket, and scarf, pushes a toddler on a swing, a dead look in his eyes. On the climbing frame, twins are jostling each other. Their mother stands underneath, hopping from foot to foot, her eyes darting from one girl to the next, issuing warnings, instructions; her voice rises anxiously in pitch. Looking around, I see only one adult smiling, but then she’s talking to her friend; their children are some way off, fighting each other with sticks.
There’s nothing particularly striking here. It could be any day of the week, in any town. And there’s nothing revelatory about the thought of parents secretly wishing they were anywhere else but the local playground, perhaps envying their childless friends; even wondering, during the sleepless nights, or in the aftermath of a fight with a recalcitrant teenager, why they had children at all. What is distinctive of our times is how few parents — still, even in our post-Freudian age — will openly admit to feelings of ambivalence towards their children. In an age where very little — from sex to money — is left a mystery, parental ambivalence remains one of the last taboos.
And yet the fact of parental ambivalence is a truth as old as mythology itself. Think how many fairytales begin with children being cast out by parents, either, as in the Brothers Grimm story ‘Brother and Sister’, being forced to leave on their own; or, like Hansel and Gretel, abandoned in a place from where they cannot find their way back. The fate reserved for older children, often adolescents, is usually more severe: the jealous queen in ‘Snow White’ orders her stepdaughter to be killed; and, in ‘The Three Languages’ by the Brothers Grimm, the king, frustrated by an adolescent son who persists in going against his wishes, eventually casts him out and orders his servants to do away with him. The narrative use of the wicked stepmother is worth noting here: it’s as if the child intuitively understands that his mother (and indeed father) can sometimes harbor hostile feelings towards him, but it’s safer to locate this cruelty in the figure of the stepmother, who can then be dispatched to a bloody end.
I was at a party for Bastille Day in Paris a few years back, and we were leaning over the balcony to watch the fireworks. A cute French girl sat next to me, but after a few flirty glances the moment was entirely ruined with the most basic of interactions: “What’s your name?” she asked in French. “Cody,” I said.
That was it. We were done. “Co-zee?” she said, sounding out the entirely foreign name, looking more disgruntled with each try. “Col-bee?” “Cot-ee?”
I tried a quick correction, but I probably should’ve just lied, said my name was Thomas or Pierre like I did whenever I ordered takeaway or made restaurant reservations. Not being able to pronounce a name spells a death sentence for relationships. That’s because the ability to pronounce someone’s name is directly related to how close you feel to that person. Our brains tend to believe that if something is difficult to understand, it must also be high-risk.
The province of Udine was a province in the autonomous region Friuli-Venezia Giulia of Italy, bordering Austria and Slovenia. Its capital was the city of Udine, which has a population of 99,242 inhabitants. It had a total population of 530,849 inhabitants over an area of 4,907.24 square kilometers (1,894.70 sq mi). The province was abolished on 30 September 2017.
Not much information is known about Udine prior to its ownership by the episcopal see the Patriarchate of Aquileia in 983. The Patriarchate of Aquileia did not reside in Udine until after the 13th century, when they began by living in the castle of Udine, followed by its archiepiscopal palace. In 1350, Austria intervened in the region and caused a number of factional problems for residents. It was annexed by Venice in 1420 and control over Udine was granted to Tristano Savorgnan, the leader of a family in the city. His family had mostly been executed for opposing the Austrians and were allied with Venice.
Under the rule of Venice and the family of Savorgnan, Udine fell into decline due to neglect, although it continued to be ruled by Venice until the French forces of Napoleon conquered the region. Following this, Austria gained control over Udine in 1814 but this was not received well by residents; they announced independence from Austria in 1848 that resulted in the Austrians bombarding the city with its artillery. The unification of Italy in 1866 prevented any further Austrian rule. In World War I, Udine was the main base for the forces of Italy until Austria occupied the city in October 1917; it was liberated by Italy in November 1918. Wikipedia
Birth order, according to conventional wisdom, molds personality: Firstborn children, secure with their place in the family and expected to be the mature ones, grow up to be intellectual, responsible, and conformist. Younger siblings work harder to get their parents’ attention, take more risks and become creative rebels.
That’s the central idea in psychologist Frank J. Sulloway’s Born to Rebel, an influential book on birth order that burst, like a water balloon lobbed by an attention-seeking third-born, onto the pop psychology scene two decades ago. Sulloway’s account of the nuclear family claimed that firstborn children command their parents’ attention and resources, so later-borns must struggle to carve out their niche. Sibling behaviors then crystallize into adult personalities.
“I thought — and I still think — it’s very plausible and intuitive,” said Ralph Hertwig, a psychologist at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development in Berlin, who published a study on unequal parental investment with Sulloway in 2002.
The trouble is the growing pile of evidence, Hertwig’s included, that’s tilted against it.
Film and Writing Festival for Comedy. Showcasing best of comedy short films at the FEEDBACK Film Festival. Plus, showcasing best of comedy novels, short stories, poems, screenplays (TV, short, feature) at the festival performed by professional actors.
An image from Valencia, Spain
James' World 2 