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

In 1962, a college student answers an ad: “Mortuary Assistant required”

laphamsquarterly.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 98 posts

Re: In 1962, a college student answers an ad: “Mortuary Assistant required”

#41

Post by xtrumanx »

DanBC wrote: post #36
xtrumanx wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't have to come to HN exclusively. I like the idea of HN or any other website being focused on single-theme. If I want to read about startups and tech I come to HN. If I want to read about something else, I go else where. I enjoyed this post very much but I would be very sad if posts like these became more frequent over here as I wouldn't have a good source of startups and tech anymore.

Techcrunch would be a source of tech and startups? HN has since almost forever been about more than Tech and startups. Here's the guidelines from 2008: https://web.archive.org/web/20080616133301/http://ycombinato... > On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intel…

I never thought of Techcrunch to be about tech and I don't think it covers the aspects of startups I care about. When I say tech and startups, I mean programming languages, software and great hacks a startups use to scale and build their business. Not Series A rounds and acquisitions.

You're right when you say there has always been more to HN than tech and startups but I would says they are the defining aspects of HN.

Regarding that line on the guideline you quote, I really wish it would be changed. It is literally used to justify the admission of anything since how could you argue with someone that something is not interesting. It's a completely subjective and useless method to define what's on-topic. But that's just my opinion.

Re: In 1962, a college student answers an ad: “Mortuary Assistant required”

#42

Post by niels_olson »

I just finished my rotation at the medical examiner's office. The "couple of pounds" of tar in the lungs was probably more mucus than anything. Also, they may well have been washing out the congestion caused by respiratory depression. But it's quite unlikely that it was "tar", though I'm sure plenty of black carbon, or "anthracotic pigment" came out too.

I say this because a smoker who dies of, say, a sudden massive heart attack, doesn't have especially heavy lungs. The heaviness comes from other, secondary issues.

Also, I had never heard of this before. We mainly just weighed the lungs and then examined them under the microscope.

Re: In 1962, a college student answers an ad: “Mortuary Assistant required”

#43

Post by riffraff »

DanBC wrote: post #23
wwweston wrote: post #2

>"The black lungs of heavy smokers I would weigh once, then squeeze under cold running water for fifteen minutes until they became baby pink and tripelike, and then weigh again: the difference in the two figures, often a couple of pounds or more, was the weight of the tar and nicotine that quite possibly was the killer." A few pounds ? If you'd asked me, I would have guessed the weight of lung-accumulated smoking gun…

I've seen estimates that say one pack of cigarretes per day over a year equals about one cup of tar in the lungs. Here's a video showing extraction of tar from 400 cigarettes. https://youtube.com/watch?v=_csz2dPjyAw Not all of that tar stays in the lungs - some is breathed out; some is worked out by cillia (and sometimes swallowed, increasing the risk of cancer of the kidney, bladder, and penis). Modern London pollut…

> I've seen estimates that say one pack of cigarretes per day equals about one cup of tar in the lungs.

over what period?

Re: In 1962, a college student answers an ad: “Mortuary Assistant required”

#44

Post by riffraff »

wwweston wrote: post #2

>"The black lungs of heavy smokers I would weigh once, then squeeze under cold running water for fifteen minutes until they became baby pink and tripelike, and then weigh again: the difference in the two figures, often a couple of pounds or more, was the weight of the tar and nicotine that quite possibly was the killer." A few pounds ? If you'd asked me, I would have guessed the weight of lung-accumulated smoking gun…

if it's normal for you to drive around without worrying about smog limiting your visibility, than probably it's not as bad as old London[0]

[0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Smog

Re: In 1962, a college student answers an ad: “Mortuary Assistant required”

#45

Post by DanBC »

riffraff wrote: post #43
DanBC wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've seen estimates that say one pack of cigarretes per day over a year equals about one cup of tar in the lungs. Here's a video showing extraction of tar from 400 cigarettes. https://youtube.com/watch?v=_csz2dPjyAw Not all of that tar stays in the lungs - some is breathed out; some is worked out by cillia (and sometimes swallowed, increasing the risk of cancer of the kidney, bladder, and penis). Modern London pollut…

> I've seen estimates that say one pack of cigarretes per day equals about one cup of tar in the lungs. over what period?

Over a year. Thanks for pointing that out! I edited my post.

Re: In 1962, a college student answers an ad: “Mortuary Assistant required”

#46

Post by aaronbrethorst »

dang wrote: post #30
DiabloD3 wrote: post #8

Its stories like this why I come to HN. HN may have started as interesting stuff for the Silicon Valley VC circuit, but you can't survive on a diet of just high risk investing weirdness.

> HN may have started as interesting stuff for the Silicon Valley VC circuit Oh, no no no. It started as a way for pg to read more interesting things, literally about anything. Byzantine coins and cat prints in medieval manuscripts are two that I recall from years past. The site has always been for intellectual diversity above all else. Keeping that going is the thing we care about most. In other words this article i…

And Erlang. You mustn't forget about Erlang. Lots and lots of Erlang.

Re: In 1962, a college student answers an ad: “Mortuary Assistant required”

#47

Post by keithpeter »

InclinedPlane wrote: post #35
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hmmm. Wonder how long I should continue to live in Beijing? :( (today is a clean air day, but my wife and I had this argument already once this week)

I posted a link to this in another post, but here's a chart showing how bad the pollution in London during the great smog of 1952 was: http://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/~dib2/atmos/london.jpeg Notice that SO2 and smoke particles are measured in units of milligrams per m^3 (today such measurements are in micrograms per m^3). To put Beijing's air in the context of this graph, the smoke particles in Beijing on a bad air day w…

Liverpool area, early 60s: we had those thick yellow fogs less often than in London, but with added ingredients from the chemical works up the estuary.

My grandfather would be hospitalised in the winter months with bronchitis - on one occasion spending time in an oxygen tent to aid his breathing. Our teacher at school suggested we breathe through handkerchiefs on the way to school if there was a fog. Impressive quantities of tar.

Much better now.

Re: In 1962, a college student answers an ad: “Mortuary Assistant required”

#48

Post by chrissyb »

lifeisstillgood wrote: post #14
11thEarlOfMar wrote: post #4

The worst job I've had was called 'putting up hay'. It amounted to climbing into the loft of a very dust-laden barn with 3 or 4 of my college buddies, catching hay bales as they spat out of the hay elevator, and running them over to stack in uniform 3-d arrays. After a couple of hours, our employer called us down for rejuvenation with Coke-a-cola and glazed donuts, and we'd blow what seemed like pounds of dusty mucou…

Whilst a mask seems a good idea, I presume that the organic material that built up in your lungs would be broken down and washed out by the lungs natural processes within a few days or weeks? Perhaps a doctor could clarify?

Not a doctor but.. You're falling for a bit of a naturalistic fallacy here. Just as Asbestos is a naturally occurring mineral however inhaling its dust can come with very serious health problems, so can hay contain mould which can also cause serious lung disease. http://www.ccohs.ca/oshanswers/diseases/farmers_lung.html

Re: In 1962, a college student answers an ad: “Mortuary Assistant required”

#49

Post by hessenwolf »

michaelgrafl wrote: post #17

German native speaker here. Fleischhacker actually does mean butcher. It's just that most Germans would call a butcher a "Metzger" I guess. Us Austrians tend to call it a "Fleischhauer". To be honest though, I think the term Fleischhacker is used more often to describe a foul playing soccer player than a butcher.

And really just flesh-hacker in an engineering accent.

Re: In 1962, a college student answers an ad: “Mortuary Assistant required”

#50

Post by hessenwolf »

aaronbrethorst wrote: post #46
dang wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> HN may have started as interesting stuff for the Silicon Valley VC circuit Oh, no no no. It started as a way for pg to read more interesting things, literally about anything. Byzantine coins and cat prints in medieval manuscripts are two that I recall from years past. The site has always been for intellectual diversity above all else. Keeping that going is the thing we care about most. In other words this article i…

And Erlang. You mustn't forget about Erlang. Lots and lots of Erlang.

How is Erlang these days? It is on my to do list (Kanban board) to check up on whether I need to check up on it.
Post reply on HN