101–110 of 131 posts
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One very interesting idea I read about long ago was the use of low-power microwave emitters to make rooms feel much warmer - the author of the piece described the feeling as "like stepping into sunlight" when the emitters turned on. Makes the 2.4 GHz spectrum pretty unusable, though.
Warmth from the inside out, to be honest I'm a little scared
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> was once referred to as the Paris of America Interesting. I heard that Detroit was known as the Paris of the West. Looking it up, it seems this was a fairly common phrase applied to many cities over the years. [0] Detroit also has had $1 homes, but as with everywhere else, that isn’t the end of the story. [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris_of_the_West
I've seen "Paris of the X" and "Venice of the X" applied to many (often not particularly attractive) cities worldwide...
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He did say that the city is badly regulated…
It's poorly managed, but not due to over-regulation IMO as the other commenter implied (not to say that there aren't some areas where deregulation could improve things). The core issue today is that the population of Baltimore consumes significantly more resources than they produce because the city managed to drive away a significant portion of the middle class and the government is so inefficent, leaving too many pe…
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Ha, yes. I found dozens of articles about castle renovations gone awry https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/no-way-back-1-15m-120000548.... https://www.csmonitor.com/1991/1212/12121.html
so how do you make it right, just bull doze it?
(Pretty sure there have been other HN threads about this, but I couldn't find them. Anyone?) Edit: thanks everybody! I bought one of Sicily's famous $1 homes and spent $446K renovating it - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42371806 - Dec 2024 (2 comments) Italian town is struggling to sell off its empty homes for one euro - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39812671 - March 2024 (28 comments) Old towns eager f…
The article headline on the $446k renovation cost is very misleading. They did not spend that much on the $1 (which they actually payed 6,000 euro for). They ALSO bought the property next door for 22k euro and combine the two into a literal mansion with four bedrooms, two terraces, sauna, library etc etc etc. $446k for all that is super cheap. edit: the last link is also a lie. They did not buy a 1 euro house, they b…
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It's poorly managed, but not due to over-regulation IMO as the other commenter implied (not to say that there aren't some areas where deregulation could improve things). The core issue today is that the population of Baltimore consumes significantly more resources than they produce because the city managed to drive away a significant portion of the middle class and the government is so inefficent, leaving too many pe…
If poor economic choices, inept management, and inefficient government don't qualify as “badly regulated”, then you are using a stricter definition of regulation than we are.
The original commenter clearly was stating that overregulation was the issue. You're the one who keeps bringing up that it's "badly regulated", which is both an odd term and not what was originally stated.
I agree it's "badly regulated", aka mismanaged.
I come from a small rural place in Norway, at the lowest point the municipalities started selling old houses for next to nothing, as in equivalent to $100. No strings attached. But of course, the person living there would have to pay (equivalent to) $1000-$1500 / year on fees related to water, waste management, cleaning of chimney, etc. And you'd probably like to have the house insured. And these weren't nice new hou…
It's such a huge social problem that people choose not to accept the inheritance if it involves old properties in rural areas.
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Do you have any idea of the thermal inertia of a castle? How are you going to heat it to an acceptable living temperature?
One very interesting idea I read about long ago was the use of low-power microwave emitters to make rooms feel much warmer - the author of the piece described the feeling as "like stepping into sunlight" when the emitters turned on. Makes the 2.4 GHz spectrum pretty unusable, though.
They quickly found out it doesn't work well. Microwaves heats up liquid water so the people got nice and warm, but not any of the furniture and such.
So the floor would be cold to walk on, the sofa would be cold to sit down in and so on.
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Do you have any idea of the thermal inertia of a castle? How are you going to heat it to an acceptable living temperature?
1. Accept lower temperature in the stonework/bricks/concrete 2. Use heatpumps, wood furnaces, accumulator tanks 3. Only heat the rooms you use when you use them. It's very doable, especially in Italy.
It will cost you a lot anyway, can't escape entropy.
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This might still be appealing to young people, especially those who do not like the noise/pollution of big cities and can't afford them?
Do you have any idea of the thermal inertia of a castle? How are you going to heat it to an acceptable living temperature?