Slashdot Mirror
Making a House That Will Last for Centuries?
tcyun asks: "The intro text from kaisyain's review brought up a thought that has been floating around in my head as I am a new home-owner. If one wanted to design a home that would last for hundreds of years, what would one have to do? I, and many of my friends, have recently/ purchased homes. As with all homes, some things are in good shape, others are not. Many items are the fault of initial design, many are due to poor upkeep and repairs. Looking around, it is possible to have a home last for hundreds of years (my family's ancestral home is about 400 years old and there are castles in Europe that are older). If one wanted to build/modify a home, what would one need to do to make sure that the home would still be standing, and usable, hundreds of years from now?" M : Wired suggests going underground.
"A few elements come to mind: structural integrity, usability, reparability, ease of upkeep, physical location (geology and neighborhood), technology, and aesthetics.
- Structural integrity: Rock lasts a long time, but has a variety of draw backs. Concrete (poured or cinder block) foundations are common where I live but wood is still the material used for most of the structure. Should steel cross-beams be considered for parts of the structure? I have heard good things about laminated/engineered wood.
- Technology: Folks on Slashdot have talked about wiring homes with cat-5/7/x and installing empty conduit 'just in case.' Is this really useful with the proliferation of wireless? Would it be more useful if a crawlspace was made available between the ceiling and the attic so that any type of ducting/wiring could be run into a room? Should all rooms have access to a central column through which wiring, plumbing and ducting were run?
- Usability: I have a small house with a small, combined living-family-dining room. I am fairly sure that 50 years ago the designers were not laying out the space to take into account book shelves, a large television, stereo cabinet, gaming consoles, and more in addition to a couch, chair and dining table. Simply making the room larger is one option, but cavernous space is not necessarily good for usability. What would be a good floor plan and how might different sized rooms be distributed to be useful over time for multiple purposes? Would it need a bathroom? (joke)
- Reparability: the previous homeowners made a number of DIY 'improvements' which are nice, until one needs to make a repair. Many items are installed in ways where the only option is to remove entire installations. What types of modular improvements can be made that allow for easy repair/replacement over time as needs change?
- Location: How would one choose where to build a home that would last for hundreds of years? Do you pick an existing neighborhood, space that is at the edge of a town/city or somewhere further out? Does one pick a neighborhood that has been economically/geologically/stable/safe over the longer term even if it is not in great shape at the moment. At first glance, cities in the United States like San Francisco, Detroit, Chicago, Pittsburgh have all gone through 10-20 years spells of nastiness, but have been fairly stable cities at the macro level for a hundred years.
- Aesthetics: Does one simply design/architect and deal with the fact that it will variously become attractive/unattractive over time?
And to complicate matters, how different are the options if one imposes a budget for initial construction (depending on your own idea of what a realistic budget is)."
Generally a castration fantasy (generally of a sexual nature) is the primary reason. A eunuch I interviewed adds, "I've been to see a local psychiatrist, by the way, just to settle my own curiosity about whether I'm tightly wrapped or not, and he thinks I'm just fine, except for this one strange but not uncommon fixation. This seems to be the case with most eunuchs I know, that they are all great guys and mostly very intelligent, successful, artistic, sports minded and fun-loving but have this strange fixation. Each, by the way, has his own personal reasons for getting castrated (neutered, nutted, de-balled, and other terms we use with each other) and no two of these reasons are the same for any two eunuchs, except for the one about feeling out of control (being fanatical about having sex all the time without the ability to control one's sexual activities). They certainly solved that one. Both of the guys are 'calm' (without sex hormones and loving it)." "Oh, what kind of guys become eunuchs? I know truck drivers, college professors, computer consultants, bankers, and a graphic artist. The truck drivers, by the way, are both body builders and their reasons included the fact their balls were shrinking any way because of the steroids, and now they are going to have a legal reason to take hormones." One common thread is the fact that the desire for castration is deep-set, and usually dates back to pre-pubescence.
"Removal of the penis is desired by some gay males, usually those already made eunuchs. Some eunuchs later desire penis removal only after having been eunuchs for several years. Removal of the penis is involved and requires significantly greater skill than removal of the testes. Use of elastrator bands is recommended to prevent loss of blood. Advanced techniques of nullification include severing the suspensory ligaments to drop the penis before amputating it, to produce a urinary outlet lower down for convenience. A new urinary opening may be made between the root of the penis and the anus, but this involves advanced incision and suturing skills. Such an opening reduces the need to remove more of the penis itself to lower the urinary opening for convenience. Preservation of the penis in formalin results in a leathery gray rod and retention of the thickness and volume of the original organ is usually not satisfactory as a display keepsake. Few accounts exist on the eating of the amputated penis and no reliable data exists as to its texture or taste."
I'm a karma whore! Please mod me up Interesting! Do it or I'll keeel you. HAND!
Am lonely hermaphrodite seeking two people to fill both my holes simultaneously.
True. The Nazi rockets that rained down on London in WW2 were exclusively built by jews, gay people and Jehova's Witnesses. Worked great.
To hear a democrat tell, there was no slave labor in Egypt. They were happy, enlightened negro artisans.
Anything to discredit a Jew or Christian. Not that anyone claimed the Jews built the pyramids. It's just that most liberals' knowledge of ancient history comes exclusively from Soylent Green.