Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The Disappearance of the Ashtray

clivethompson.medium.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

591–600 of 668 posts

Re: The Disappearance of the Ashtray

#591

Post by Ancapistani »

LargoLasskhyfv wrote: post #571
bruce511 wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's hard to imagine flying passengers as being a "startup", but it really only dates from around the 60s. Today I know of people who can't fly at all (because they can't stop smoking long enough.) even short flights of a couple hours are out of reach. (I was once on a 2 hour flight that took 6 hours for reasons, and some of the passengers fairly sprinted in the destination airport to get to a smoking area at 1am) So…

Can't they get their 'fix' by applying a nicotine patch to their neck, or something?

I'm actually not aware of any studies that separate nasal and oral snuff usage that show that nasal snuff is correlated with cancers.

I mean... intuitively, it seems like it should be, as the membranes there aren't substantially different - but it's odd that it's not been studied in particular.

Re: The Disappearance of the Ashtray

#592

Post by Marsymars »

telesilla wrote: post #504
Sander_Marechal wrote: post #398

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I always describe quitting smoking as both the easiest and the hardest thing I have ever done. I wanted to quit for so long and suffered many, many failed attempts. I tried all kings of methods, acupuncture, gum, etc. All to no avail. In hindsight I didn't really want to quit. I wanted to quit for my health, for my morning cough, for my wife, for all kinds of reasons. But not really for me . I liked it, and quitting…

Carr's book is underrated by smokers who haven't read it and loved by ex-smokers who have.

Is it worth reading for non-smokers?

Re: The Disappearance of the Ashtray

#593

Post by Marsymars »

mjg59 wrote: post #323
quickthrower2 wrote: post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Admirial Cloudberg covered at least one crash caused by fire caused by a cigarette. The response from the industry: smoke alarms. Banning smoking too was unthinkable!

Brand new aircraft still include fixtures to stub out cigarettes in the bathrooms, because it doesn't matter if you declare that something's forbidden, people will do it anyway and you need to do what you can to minimise harm.

Won’t smoking in an airplane bathroom set off an alarm?

Re: The Disappearance of the Ashtray

#594

Post by WaitWaitWha »

Levitz wrote: post #542
WaitWaitWha wrote: post #534

A more meta thought about ashtrays - I just want to point out that we can do things if we want to. In the last few years I have heard many young people depressed, lethargic, and only see doom and gloom because of some self-destructive behaviors. I want to remind them that there is not only possibility but likely probability that we can and will correct ourselves. Think about when we started smoking cigarettes. I dist…

I hate to be that guy, but to me these two don't connect. Yes we as a society corrected our mistake, but the transition from "Everyone smoking" to "Barely anyone smoking" consisted of most smokers dying and the rest not repeating their mistakes. Me or my brothers most probably will never be smokers. I have absolutely no doubt my parents, uncle and aunt will smoke their way to the grave, same as my grandparents did.

> [...] and the rest not repeating their mistakes. [...]

That is a win in my eyes! :D

Re: The Disappearance of the Ashtray

#595

Post by water-data-dude »

donatj wrote: post #525
comboy wrote: post #471

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn't stand it right now, but it was everywhere so it wasn't annoying. I think smell adjusts to certain things not just temporarily but also on some longer periods. As a kid I wouldn't notice which friends parents smoked at home and which didn't, even though I came from a non-smoking home. And most of them lived in small apartments, so it must have been reeking.

I don’t smoke, but my mom smokes heavily. Whenever my wife (whose parents did not smoke) and I visit my parents, she always remarks afterwards on how terrible the smell was but I never really notice it at all despite having lived on my own for 15+ years now. I really think it’s just something your brain blocks out, it doesn’t smell like much to me.

I grew up in a town with a lot of feedlots, and I still don’t notice the smell when I visit. I definitely think your brain will block out background smells you grow up with. I wonder if that’s how people were able to live in medieval towns without sewers.

Re: The Disappearance of the Ashtray

#596

Post by dkarl »

j_m_b wrote: post #7

It's tough to portray just how ubiquitous smoking was to a modern audience. You would go to a restaurant and the first thing your hostess would ask is "smoking or non"? I remember standing in a checkout line in the 80s as a child and being fascinated with the billowing clouds of smoke an old lady blew. I remember coming home from bars reeking of smoke, even though I didn't. Even teachers had their own lounges that re…

Even twenty years ago, if you went to a bar, you couldn't wear the same jeans to work the next day, because they reeked of smoke.

My city passed an indoor public smoking ban in 2005. At first, when I got a little bit drunk, I'd get nostalgic for the smell of cigarettes. The majority of people didn't smoke, including my friends, but before the ban, you couldn't be in a bar and not be surrounded by the smell of cigarettes. I missed it a little bit.

That nostalgia was outweighed by the benefit of not having a pile of nauseatingly smelly clothes the next day.

Re: The Disappearance of the Ashtray

#597

Post by Someone »

riceart wrote: post #555
Someone wrote: post #511

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was better. About ⅔ survived. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hindenburg_disaster : “The accident caused 35 fatalities (13 passengers and 22 crewmen) from the 97 people on board (36 passengers and 61 crewmen), and an additional fatality on the ground.” That’s still worse than modern airplanes, though. https://www.euronews.com/travel/2022/06/15/how-to-survive-a-... : “According to a study by the European Transport Sa…

How frequent are plane crashes compared to hydrogen filled dirigibles?

Data on hydrogen filled dirigibles is hard to come by, but I think modern commercial airliners crash less often than them.

Certainly, the 1930s ones do not look good. The first Graf Zeppelin made 590 flights before being scrapped, the second 30, and Hindenburg crashed on its 63th flight. That’s a crash in less than 1000 flights.

For comparison, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_747 says “The 747SR had an economic design life objective of 52,000 flights during 20 years of operation, compared to 24,600 flights in 20 years for the standard 747.”, so I assume Boeing thinks there’s a good chance those airplanes will live that long.

Re: The Disappearance of the Ashtray

#598

Post by mancerayder »

dkarl wrote: post #596
j_m_b wrote: post #7

It's tough to portray just how ubiquitous smoking was to a modern audience. You would go to a restaurant and the first thing your hostess would ask is "smoking or non"? I remember standing in a checkout line in the 80s as a child and being fascinated with the billowing clouds of smoke an old lady blew. I remember coming home from bars reeking of smoke, even though I didn't. Even teachers had their own lounges that re…

Even twenty years ago, if you went to a bar, you couldn't wear the same jeans to work the next day, because they reeked of smoke. My city passed an indoor public smoking ban in 2005. At first, when I got a little bit drunk, I'd get nostalgic for the smell of cigarettes. The majority of people didn't smoke, including my friends, but before the ban, you couldn't be in a bar and not be surrounded by the smell of cigaret…

>That nostalgia was outweighed by the benefit of not having a pile of nauseatingly smelly clothes the next day.

That was a nightmare for wool sweaters and jackets, which absorb the smell well and aren't cheap to clean.

Re: The Disappearance of the Ashtray

#599

Post by BizarroLand »

riceart wrote: post #555
Someone wrote: post #511

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was better. About ⅔ survived. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hindenburg_disaster : “The accident caused 35 fatalities (13 passengers and 22 crewmen) from the 97 people on board (36 passengers and 61 crewmen), and an additional fatality on the ground.” That’s still worse than modern airplanes, though. https://www.euronews.com/travel/2022/06/15/how-to-survive-a-... : “According to a study by the European Transport Sa…

How frequent are plane crashes compared to hydrogen filled dirigibles?

Thats a good questions for a statistician.

# of airships vs # of Airplanes, over various time periods, various safety improvements (hydrogen to helium for airships, plastics instead of steel vs self-flying & landing planes and propellers to jet engines, things like that)

The one thing planes have over airships is speed. The faster airships topped out at 80-90mph at the same time planes were pulling 200mph.

Now planes can be supersonic while I can't really imagine dirigibles going more than 150-200 mph max.

Re: The Disappearance of the Ashtray

#600

Post by BizarroLand »

gooooooore wrote: post #535
noduerme wrote: post #530

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I switched to rolling my own smokes with hemp paper and filters almost 20 years ago. I can't stand the taste or smell of chemicals from packaged cigarettes (even the "organic" ones that still have all kinds of accelerants and flame retardants in the paper). A single Marlboro will give me a headache the next day. It's actually just really sad that smokers have been force-fed that deadly shit, because while the poster…

Wtf did I just read

You just read some extremely refined copium in text form.

This person has some major cognitive dissonance about the health and safety of smoking cigarettes and is dissociating from the dissonance with poetic drivel.

Tobacco is unhealthy to consume. It's okay in small, occasional doses, your body can probably shrug off a few draws from a ceremonial peace pipe like it was nothing.

But smoking every day or multiple times a day is unhealthy and will hasten your demise, and there is no working around that, not even by using organic free range gluten free fair trade halal tobacco grown by vestal virgins in the Himalayas.

Post reply on HN