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Hindenburg’s Smoking Room

airships.net

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Re: Hindenburg’s Smoking Room

#121

Post by WalterBright »

roysting wrote: post #45
Waterluvian wrote: post #5

It’s really amazing just what extent people went to in order to smoke. Apparently people smoked on submarines for a while. And planes. And everywhere else. Smoking is just such a disease and it feels like only now are we kind of getting a handle on it.

It was one of my first thoughts too, but related to that somewhat is that it also amazes me how people used to be a lot more “daring” or “pragmatic” (the quotes indicating that I’m not quite sure what to call it) in a way that did not scare them to consider and weigh the risks and conclude that it was not only feasible and possible, but that it was also worth adding a smoking room to a hydrogen filled balloon. There…

> adding a smoking room to a hydrogen filled balloon

Is it really all that different from an airplane filled with aviation gas? There are plenty of terrible crashes from planes that caught fire in the air, and just about every crash into the ground results in a terrific fire.

Re: Hindenburg’s Smoking Room

#122

Post by gwbas1c »

canpan wrote: post #89
gwbas1c wrote: post #42

One interesting lesson from airships is about disruption and how people take old assumptions into new paradigms. Today we're used to being on plans for short periods of time. We get on, sit down, wait, and then arrive at our destination. Airships came about when long distance travel meant you were spending multiple days in a vehicle, either a train or boat. An airship was a place that was set up for you to spend a fe…

These places still exist, but you need to look for them. Here in Japan, some remote islands, you can travel overnight boat. I love those. There might be a speed boat or plane, but I love boarding the boat in the evening, everyone feels like having a party, sleeping in a bed and arriving fresh in the morning. (If you are in Tokyo, the nearest is Oshima Island). There is also slow rail travel, with pretty trains, sleep…

I think you miss the point. Think of the movie Titanic, where people were on the boat for a very long time, as opposed to merely an overnight trip.

Re: Hindenburg’s Smoking Room

#123

Post by WalterBright »

TacticalCoder wrote: post #96
Waterluvian wrote: post #5

It’s really amazing just what extent people went to in order to smoke. Apparently people smoked on submarines for a while. And planes. And everywhere else. Smoking is just such a disease and it feels like only now are we kind of getting a handle on it.

> It’s really amazing just what extent people went to in order to smoke. My parents' generation, the boomers, weren't really aware that smoking was bad. Even if some knew, I feel like it was mostly hidden from them. Look at any movie they'd watch in the west when they were young, people would be smoking everywhere: inside offices, inside cars, public servants at the town hall, etc. Smokers everywhere. Once the studie…

> My parents' generation, the boomers, weren't really aware that smoking was bad.

As a boomer, I say "baloney".

For starters, my dad grew up in the Depression. His schoolmates called them "coffin nails". Doctors routinely prescribed "stop smoking, you fool".

In 7th grade, one of my teachers (incidentally, a Holocaust survivor), smoked constantly. He'd also spend half of class time coughing up a lung. My best friend in high school smoked constantly, and told him his doctor told him his lungs were damaged and he better quit. He kept smoking.

But the worst was when I was 8, and toured an agricultural museum at K State. There were two jars with lungs in them, one from a non-smoker, and the other a smoker. The non-smoker lungs were pink and looked healthy. The smokers - black! All black! It was horrific.

Besides, anyone who cut open a dead body knew instantly if the deceased was a smoker. No sane person would conclude the black, scarred lung was healthy.

All the boomers knew the bad effects of smoking. They just thought they were invulnerable.

Re: Hindenburg’s Smoking Room

#124

Post by WalterBright »

TacticalCoder wrote: post #96
Waterluvian wrote: post #5

It’s really amazing just what extent people went to in order to smoke. Apparently people smoked on submarines for a while. And planes. And everywhere else. Smoking is just such a disease and it feels like only now are we kind of getting a handle on it.

> It’s really amazing just what extent people went to in order to smoke. My parents' generation, the boomers, weren't really aware that smoking was bad. Even if some knew, I feel like it was mostly hidden from them. Look at any movie they'd watch in the west when they were young, people would be smoking everywhere: inside offices, inside cars, public servants at the town hall, etc. Smokers everywhere. Once the studie…

A fun smoking story.

My dad, as navigator, flew 32 missions in B-17s over Germany. Many of his buddies were chain smokers. The problem was, you could not keep a cigarette lit at 30,000 feet. The crew all wore oxygen masks, as they'd die without one.

So what the smokers would do is, take a deep breath and unhook the mask. Then blow on the cigarette while lighting it. The cigarette would burn like a torch. Then take a deep puff on the cigarette. Put the mask back on and take another deep breath, while the cigarette sputtered and threatened to go out. Take the mask off and then blow on the cigarette to get it going again (like a torch).

My dad would laugh and laugh while he relayed this desperate dance to smoke.

I've never seen this story in books/movies about B-17s. So here it is for posterity!

Re: Hindenburg’s Smoking Room

#125

Post by devilbunny »

gwbas1c wrote: post #120
c7b wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I felt a bit similar about electric cars with a trunk in the front where the engine would sit in an ICE car. But that's more about esthetic expectations, like the first cars looked similar to horse carriages.

I've lost count of the number of people who I've had to explain that, on long trips, you don't "stop to charge." You charge where you stop to poop.

I don’t dislike electric cars, but I don’t poop every 3 hours, and it doesn’t take 30 minutes to do so.

When EVs can reliably (including charging infrastructure) do charging as fast as ICE refuels, with 300 miles/500 km between 20-80%, they will win with most people in the US and Canada. Otherwise, we just drive too far, too often. It’s not far off. But until then, it’s not truly a replacement for ICE. Yes, I really do drive for 4-5 hours without stopping, several times a year.

Re: Hindenburg’s Smoking Room

#126

Post by WalterBright »

CapitalistCartr wrote: post #6

When I was a kid, back eons ago, smoking was everywhere . People who didn't smoke had ashtrays for guests. Telling people to not smoke was simply not a thing. When I was about 16, some family friends put a small sign on their front door requesting people not smoke inside their house. I was shocked. I liked the idea, but I'd never seen that before, never even considered it. I recall wondering how many people would be…

So true. My parents would bring out ashtrays when we had guests.

Re: Hindenburg’s Smoking Room

#127

Post by WalterBright »

gwbas1c wrote: post #39
keiferski wrote: post #30

I don’t know if it would help anyone else, but personally, watching the movie The Insider kind of permanently put me off from smoking. Jeffrey Wigand is/was an incredibly inspiring figure and I think of him every time I see cigarettes. https://youtu.be/MGOb29aePyc?is=CKyo1UM-dkiRHdWa https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeffrey_Wigand

Even though may parents didn't smoke, and there was a lot of anti-smoking education around me, I grew up around a lot of smokers. What did it for me was watching my uncle have a rather painful death in his 50s because he couldn't stop drinking and smoking. (He went into alcohol withdrawal in the hospital after lung surgery.) That being said, I did smoke a few when I was in my early 30s. Something about nicotine just…

I never smoked because I knew I'd like it.

But there are a couple photos of me "smoking" as I was trying to look cool.

Re: Hindenburg’s Smoking Room

#128

Post by CarVac »

elzbardico wrote: post #111
c7b wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I felt a bit similar about electric cars with a trunk in the front where the engine would sit in an ICE car. But that's more about esthetic expectations, like the first cars looked similar to horse carriages.

But here the space also have the role of serving as a crumple zone in case of frontal collisions

If you can put something in it it doesn't count as crumple zone and the car has to be engineered with a separate crumple zone anyway.

Re: Hindenburg’s Smoking Room

#130

Post by canpan »

gwbas1c wrote: post #122
canpan wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These places still exist, but you need to look for them. Here in Japan, some remote islands, you can travel overnight boat. I love those. There might be a speed boat or plane, but I love boarding the boat in the evening, everyone feels like having a party, sleeping in a bed and arriving fresh in the morning. (If you are in Tokyo, the nearest is Oshima Island). There is also slow rail travel, with pretty trains, sleep…

I think you miss the point. Think of the movie Titanic, where people were on the boat for a very long time, as opposed to merely an overnight trip.

That is similar to how some of these boats look like, just more modern. Here is an example with pictures https://www.ferry-sunflower.co.jp/en/ (disclaimer, I never went that route, the ones I went with were less glamorous, more modern, but still nice) But yeah, it is mostly one night, because the distance is within Japan.
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