Monthly Archives: October 2019

Nuisance at home

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When you want to buy or build a house, you want to have all the necessary comfort. But it is also useful to think of the nuisances that one can have.

There is a lot of nuisance. For example :

  • Bad orientation of the house compared to the sun
  • Leakage of water, of pipe
  • Bad smells
  • Cracks in the walls
  • Presence of rodents in the attic or walls

But if you do a search on Google, you will find by typing the word “nuisance” that the results mainly concern noise. And it is true that noise is considered by a majority of people as nuisance number 1.
What kinds of noise generate nuisances?

Some of the most common are:

  • Car or truck noises, train noise
  • Neighbors’ noises, above, below or beside
  • Aircraft noise
  • Factory sounds
  • Wind noise
  • School sounds
  • Construction noise
  • Sounds of bar or restaurant

I cited only some noise. If we had to quote them all, this post would not be enough.

In conclusion, and considering that the noise nuisance is the first disadvantage cited by the people, it would be useful if the people who have a project of purchase or construction of house make use of a specialist consultant to avoid this type of problem.

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Methods to make the mice fly away

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The mice are cute but can cause problems in your home.

They can circulate in the insulation of the walls of your house. As they are rather nocturnal, they make noise and can prevent you from sleeping.

They can also enter your home through a crack in a wall or simply by the electrical ducts and move the electrical outlet.

Once inside the house, their goal is to find food. And they are so agile that they can sneak everywhere, in a closet, in a bedside, or climb on furniture. And here, if you left bread, candy or chocolate, it is the feast assured. Do not think that chocolate packaging will withstand them.
How do you find a way to get rid of them without killing them?

Many solutions :

  • Put cat litter on the mouse passages
  • Put repellent plants like mint, bay leaf or sage
  • Put cloth soaked in repellent plant extract
  • Try ultrasound

In conclusion, the idea is not to eliminate mice, which is almost impossible. But to reduce their number. And do not do like this friend who set traps to catch the living mice. He was releasing them just outside the house …

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Technology in architecture

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Technology has always been present in architecture. Of course, we do not talk about electronics or computers.

For example, the pyramids of Giseh or the buildings built by the Incas: huge blocks of stone are sealed together without using mortar. We can think that it took a lot of know-how, and probably technology, to build these buildings.

Much research is being done to understand how the ancients could move such blocks of stone, how they carved them, and how they adjusted them.

Closer to home, we can only be amazed by Gustave Eiffel who built a huge tower with iron bars and bolts.

Nowadays, technology has taken a leading role in architecture.

For example, we can build houses with 3D printers. Thanks to this technique, it is possible to create forms impossible to achieve with bricks or blocks.

Drones can also bring a lot to the architecture, for example by making it possible to carry out controls on buildings already built, with software that allows to ensure quality monitoring.

Home automation has come a long way and makes it possible to have smart homes.

It is also possible to design fully mobile houses that orient themselves in relation to the sun.

In the future, we can imagine that the construction techniques by 3D printing will still progress, the machines will be less and less expensive. Thus, poorer people will be able to access homes at affordable prices.

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Architectural Schools in the United States

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We present in this post the best architectural schools in the United States:

  • Yale, School of Architecture

Website

Phone: +12034322288

    • Harvard Graduate School of Design

Website

Phone: +16174951000

    • University of Pennsylvania, School of Design

Website

Phone:

    • University Cornell, College of Architecture, Art and Planning

Website

Phone: +16072559110

    • University of Cincinnati, Design, Architecture, Art and Planning

Website

Phone: +15135564933

  • Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo, College of Architecture and Environmental Design

Website

Phone:

  • University of Michigan, Taubman College, Architecture and Urban Planning

Website

Phone: +17347641300

  • University of Syracuse, Syracuse (New York), Syracuse University School of Architecture

Website

Phone: +13154432256

  • University of Texas, Austin, School of Architecture

Website

Phone: +15124711922

  • University of Kansas, College of Architecture, Planning and Design

Website

Phone: +17855325047

  • Florida International University, Miami, FIU School of Architecture

Website

Phone: +13053481323

  • University of Columbia, New York, Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation

Website

Phone: +12128543414

Arbitrary?

But this ranking  of the best architectural schools of the United States is necessarily arbitrary because it includes many criteria. Indeed, for a student living in New York, a nearby school but less prestigious will be preferable to a school in Los Angeles more prestigious. The criterion of employability can also be considered essential. Leaving a school with a degree is not enough. You have to be able to find an interesting and well paid job. But it also depends on the reputation of the school, for example internationally. To make a big project in Asia or Europe, we will rely on the reputation of the school in addition to the CV of the candidate.

University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, USA
The best architectural schools, Photo by Fran on Unsplash

 

Important criterion

Finally, the most important criterion is the following: whatever the level of school, it is the motivation of the student that is important. Being first in school, even if it’s average, will sometimes be better than being the last of a prestigious school.

We will return regularly to this post to modify it and take into account the evolution of the reputation of these schools.

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Facebook or Google?

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We present today the list of the most visited websites in the world :

  1. Google.com
  2. YouTube.com
  3. Facebook.com
  4. Baidu
  5. Wikipedia.org
  6. reddit.com
  7. Yahoo.com
  8. QQ.com
  9. Amazon.com
  10. Taobao.com
  11. Twitter.com
  12. tmall.com
  13. vk.com
  14. instagram.com
  15. Live.com
  16. sohu.com
  17. sina.com.cn
  18. jd.com
  19. weibo.com
  20. 360.cn

Unsurprisingly, the most popular site is Google. But be careful, the numbers do not always have the value that is expected of them. For example, in this list, numbers 1 and 2 are Google and Youtube. But these two companies are part of the same company: Google LLC. So, Facebook has to be compared to Youtube and Google together, the first place in the ranking, far ahead of others.

Beware of Wikipedia which is in 5th position, but most of the traffic comes from questions asked on Google.

Interestingly, we can also note that US companies dominate this ranking. But the Chinese are not absent, even if they do not occupy the first places.

The first site is Baidu, a Chinese search engine in 4th position. But we also have QQ in 9th position, and plenty others companies. Note that the second social network after Facebook is Twitter in just 11th position, and the third is Instagram, in just 14th position.

We will regularly resume this article to make it evolve based on news.

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