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Comment by OJFord | Hacker News Reader

To be honest I was surprised at the newsworthiness given it was hidden in the lighthouse (not a message in a bottle at sea) and then in that context only 132 years old. If I started lifting floorboards and breaking plaster at home I'm fairly confident I'd find something older.

At school we buried a 'time capsule' for the millennium I think for 50 years thence. That'll be cool for the pupils in 2050, but it won't be news.

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We buried time capsules in 7th grade to dig up when we graduated. They weren't there, but a bus stop shelter was. Also the English teacher lead the project. They switched to the math and science professors thereafter.

This is why it's important to test your backups.

> only 132 years old.

You're in the UK, the article is in the NY Times - 132 years old seems older to an American than it does to you, that combined with the message in bottle in lighthouse and Scotland all together sparked interest.

I read it on the BBC linked elsewhere in comments, since it contained the text of the letter and this thread (with the text in top-level comment) didn't exist at the time.

"132 years old seems older to an American than it does to you"

As an American, I take some small exception here. I have met people who were alive when this letter was written. 132 years was a long time ago, but not that long.

OK I am just going to venture a guess that most people you meet in your day to day think of you as old.

Of course you may be an outlier in that.

Your architectural experiences may also be an outlier, but I think you will probably admit that most Americans have not lived in a 100+ year old house, hey, a good number of them might live in places where you have to drive hours to find a building that old.

This is in contrast to much of the world I believe, it is at any rate definitely in contrast to Europe.

on edit: this is of course not 100% reasoned through, this being HN someone could of course make a map showing how close in the U.S any person is to a building over 100+ years, or they could show that perhaps if you take the major population centers into account it will show that actually a majority of the population does in fact live within walking distance of such an old building, but all that taken into account I'm going to stick to my guns that to most Americans a house of 100+ years old is real old, and to everybody in the area I live in it's just home.

I 55yo. I think any people 40s+ would have meet 90-100 yo family members in their youth. I lived in in a 1870s house in a town in Connecticut and most of the houses on Main St. were of that vintage. It is not so uncommon in New England. Of course percentage wise I imagine most people in the US (and else where) live in structures younger. The house I a in now (my father built) is about 50yo and my grandparents house (that we inherited) is 80yo+.

I spoke with an English engineer once who lived in a 400-500yo house in England and he knew an Egyptian who had lived in a house in the 1000s years old range. I suppose the terms "young" and "old" are fairly relative.

>I imagine most people in the US (and else where) live in structures younger.

my experience living in the U.S is most people live in structures considerably younger, and most places you need to travel to find a house that old (as opposed to a town hall)

places lived in U.S - Midwest and West, traveled through South and East.

My experience living in Europe is most people have lived in a place that is over 100, yes I think the terms young and old are fairly relative, and in much of the U.S a house that is 100+ is old, the house has history and might be preserved as such, whereas in lots of the world that is pretty new stuff and maybe we should tear it down and build something even newer.

I used to know someone who, 25 years ago, bought a house that was built in the 1870's in Minnesota and cleared out large amounts of trash and old newspapers from the basement. A year later, she was in tears, thinking about the amount of history that was probably lost forever.

The age of houses in America is actually covered by census data [0]! Which means we can actually discover a bit more, here. It does vary greatly, state to state. The median house age in Nevada is just 26. Whereas the oldest median (New York) is closer to 63.

That's still rather shy of 132. I'd say from the data, living in a 100yo house is a huge outlier.

[0] https://todayshomeowner.com/home-finances/guides/median-home...

I did not even think to look. Now that I have, there is another link [0] that breaks up the data into numbers of home of by age (I think the number of homes axis is a couple orders of magnitude off but is still representative).

[0] From 2021: https://www.statista.com/statistics/1042458/home-age-usa/

thanks I knew I could count on someone from HN to do the work I was too lazy to do myself!

Reminds me of the adage, I’m not sure by whom, paraphrasing:

> Americans think 100 years is a long time; Brits think 100 miles is a long way.

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