"This year, six lighthouses are being offered at no cost to federal, state or local government agencies, non-profits, educational organizations or other entities that are willing to maintain and preserve them and make them publicly available for educational, recreational or cultural purposes."
I'm sure the General Services Administration just wants them off the books ("if they're not needed, don't take maintainence out of our budget"), I don't even want to imagine the money pit of maintenance of a structure by the sea. Oh, and it's over 100 years old? My first thought was the Cape Hatteras lighthouse that's been moved at least once in my memory, because the ocean was going to eat it.
In other words, you like the idea of owning a lighthouse, just as I do.
Much as one might like the idea of owning an off grid log cabin somewhere that's 2.5 hours drive down dirt roads from the nearest town, until you have to DIY your own electrical, water supply, sewage system, etc. You'd have to commit to the full lifestyle.
[1] https://academic.oup.com/mbe/article/28/1/29/984822
[2] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S00472...
The Romans considered pants barbarous; Julius Caeser almost certainly invaded Britain without pants.
That Romans at the time did not, for the most part, wear pants? It's a DDG search away:
"Even when foreign garments – such as full-length trousers – proved more practical than standard issue, soldiers and commanders who used them were viewed with disdain and alarm by their more conservative compatriots, for undermining Rome's military virtus by "going native". ... Trousers – considered barbarous garments worn by Germans and Persians – achieved only limited popularity in the latter days of the empire, and were regarded by conservatives as a sign of cultural decay." - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clothing_in_ancient_Rome
"But in Imperial Rome, obviously, things were a little different—no man of honor would think of wearing what was considered the garb of a savage barbarian." https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/trousers-pants-roman-h...
"For the Romans, to encircle the legs and thighs with fasciae, or bands, was understood, in the time of Pompey and Horace, to be a proof of ill health and effeminacy.[2] Roman men typically wore tunics, which were one-piece outfits terminating at or above the knee." - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Braccae
"Leg coverings were seen as crude items, something that was worn by the barbarians who lived beyond the borders of Roman civilization or as the leg protection of the very poor or old. Long pants, like long sleeves were seen as effeminate. ... In Caesar's day braccae were considered effeminate and barbarian-wear — something to avoided by civilized Roman men." - https://romanobritain.org/8-military/mil_soldiers_braccae_.p...
Digging more, I found this from "Roman Influences on the Victory Reliefs of Shapur I of Persia", Marjorie C. Mackintosh, California Studies in Classical Antiquity , 1973, Vol. 6 (1973), pp. 181-203, https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/25010653.pdf
> On the Column of Marcus Aurelius, the emperor addresses his men who, like himself, are clad in tunica, sagum and bracae (Hamberg [supra n. 22] 143, pl. 26, scene LXXXIII). See also Brilliant, Severus, 155, n. 23. That the Romans on the other reliefs do not wear the same may have been due to an oversight or to the fact that the Romans considered trousers as a basically barbarian garment (E. Sander, Die Kleidung des romischen Soldaten," Historia 12 [1963] 152) and may have preferred not to be depicted thus in a "barbarian" monument. Since the Romans probably helped in the design of the monuments, their preference might have had some force. Roman monuments show emperors and officers in field situations both with and without bracae.
So, maybe Julius Caesar did sometimes wear pants? You'll need to ask a Romanologist.
Still, there's going to be plenty of Roman flute players who never wore pants.
For instance, if early humans used furs, would those... stay intact through the ages? And be distinguishable from other animal skins that were laying around after a hunt?
Personally, I'm interested, but would prefer one on the west coast.
Hopefully this modern technology and these aids to navigation don't all rely on space based hardware to function otherwise if there's a hot war in space or otherwise a case of Kessler Syndrome then we have a lot of ship wrecks baked into the equation.
There was a post this week, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36043377, about alternatives to GPS.
As for the navigation aids themselves, as of a decade ago there were no GPS devices in the aids (though a GPS receiver is used for precise placement of buoys). The navigation lights in (or near) the lighthouse structures use large lead-acid batteries for energy storage, and a large solar array for charging. When I left, we were in the process of converting many of the aids to LED lamps, which use far less energy (thus reducing the size requirements of the batteries and solar arrays). For the larger lamps, we had a pretty complex box with the electrical equipment to manage charging, flash patterns, backup lights, etc. (the old "SACIII" aka Solar Aid Controller). The electrical systems are all pretty neat but really don't need the "shelter" of a lighthouse, and many lights are on simple towers.
And DARPA is putting significant money into GPS denied navigation systems as well: https://www.darpa.mil/news-events/2014-07-24
Assuming that modern semi conductor manufacturing wasn't knocked out at the same time, ship navigation would probably be fixed in a hurry.
Just make sure you have a sextant, an almanac, and a UTC-synced watch on-board and you're fine:
* https://www.npr.org/2016/02/22/467210492/u-s-navy-brings-bac...
* https://www.popularmechanics.com/military/research/a36078957...
Three of the lights mentioned in the article are ones which I was responsible for maintaining with the US Coast Guard a decade ago. Lynde Point in particular was one of my favorites (you can see it easily from I-95 as you cross the Connecticut River). The house nearby was used as Coast Guard provided housing for one of the Chiefs on the base. The sale/divestment of lighthouses has been going on for some time, I recall ferrying prospective buyers to Latimer Reef light back then.
The problem is, as other commenters have pointed out, that these structures are simply falling apart, often containing hazardous materials such as asbestos, and more critically are generally difficult to land a boat at. We managed to ding a prop on at least one occasion on the rocks at Race Rock light. It's certainly ideal to set up a foundation which maintains the structure and grounds as well as providing a historically significant place for visitors to see. Some lights in the area are set up beautifully like this (I can think of Huntington Harbor NY, Falkner's Island, and New London Ledge lights off the top of my head). There are a few which are completely private as well. I'll never forget walking through the beautiful house at Dean Kamen's unique North Dumpling Island "nation".
The fact of the matter is that while a lit navigation aid is still absolutely critical for maritime safety, it no longer needs to be housed in a large structure providing shelter for equipment and a keeper. With the advent of LED technology, it's trivial to mount a small solar panel with a storage battery the same size as a car's. This makes the lighthouse structures themselves only a burden for the Coast Guard to care for, which we absolutely did not have the resources for.
Oops:
* https://www.space.com/gps-signal-jamming-explainer-russia-uk...
* https://www.gps.gov/spectrum/jamming/
* https://www.zdnet.com/article/criminals-are-using-gps-jammer...
Perhaps folks should worry less about efficiency and more about Positioning, Navigation, and Timing (PNT) resiliency:
* https://www.dhs.gov/science-and-technology/publication/resil...
Once you hit a certain age, the stairs become an obstacle that cannot be solved. Have seen it with my grandparents and parents in normal houses. Now imagine the stairs in a lighthouse.
I feel that redundancy, failover and fall back options are seriously undervalued.
A group of scrappy teens save the day when they move their raves to abandoned lighthouses after war screws up gps and our ark ships keep crashing into the shores.
"I always knew techno could save the world"
Need more long term planners...