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Hindenburg’s Smoking Room

airships.net

171–180 of 223 posts

Re: Hindenburg’s Smoking Room

#171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 i…

Kids today may think they're smarter than boomers because they don't smoke. But instead they smoke marijuana. There's nothing smart about that.

Combusted cannabis doesn’t have the cancer outcomes associated with combusting with nicotine. Same for second hand smoke.

Cannabis is not laced with perfumes and additives as a rule, as commercial cigarettes are. Cannabis has properties that pair well with physical and cardiovascular activity, unlike cigarettes, even when smoked.

Cannabis habits in youth are also displacing booze and associated lifestyle risks and lifelong impacts (early and unplanned kids from intoxicated hookups, drunk driving, among others).

There is a spectrum of outcomes, moving towards outcomes that are less harmful and provocative of third parties symptoms is better for everyone involved (hospitals & taxpayers too). That’s about being more informed and empowered not smarter. Perfect is nigh impossible, harm mitigation and outcome maximization is what we’re doing, refining the window over time.

Re: Hindenburg’s Smoking Room

#172
post #105
post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Story time. Last summer I flew from ATL to SFO on a brand new Airbus. Pretty cool plane! Halfway across the count I had the obligatory restroom break. In the head, I noticed an ashtray. I was confused -- "smoking has been banned in planes doe decades. Why is there an ashtray here?" I flagged down a flight attendant and asked them. Their answer was that yes smoking is banned, and it's a $250 fine. But EVERY SINGLE TRI…

The ashtrays are there, even today, because it is suspected that this flight [0] went down when someone disposed a cigarette butt in the lavatory trash, causing a fire. A reminder that aviation regulations are written in blood. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Varig_Flight_820

Obligatory Admiral Cloudberg blog link (they're strangely hard to google): https://admiralcloudberg.medium.com/the-crash-of-varig-fligh...

Re: Hindenburg’s Smoking Room

#173
post #89
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…

> Here in Japan, some remote islands, you can travel overnight boat.

I'm sure there are many overnight ferries all over the world and I can't say I have traveled with many, but one I can recommend is the overnight ferry from Ziguinchor/Senegal to Dakar – it's reasonably priced (for a foreigner), and the cabins are very comfortable and even include a shower!

Meanwhile, the 3-day ferry from Puerto Montt (central Chile) to Puerto Natales (Patagonia) is very expensive (> 500 USD per person for the most basic cabin) and very unreliable (expect last-minute cancelations).

Re: Hindenburg’s Smoking Room

#174
post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Story time. Last summer I flew from ATL to SFO on a brand new Airbus. Pretty cool plane! Halfway across the count I had the obligatory restroom break. In the head, I noticed an ashtray. I was confused -- "smoking has been banned in planes doe decades. Why is there an ashtray here?" I flagged down a flight attendant and asked them. Their answer was that yes smoking is banned, and it's a $250 fine. But EVERY SINGLE TRI…

Amazing that lighters are allowed in the cabin

They're hardly more dangerous than a lithium battery!

Re: Hindenburg’s Smoking Room

#175

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.

The alternative is/was of course to be stuck in a small space for several days with smokers showing withdrawal symptoms. Not sure I'd want to experience that in something like a submarine...

Re: Hindenburg’s Smoking Room

#176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 i…

Kids today may think they're smarter than boomers because they don't smoke. But instead they smoke marijuana. There's nothing smart about that.

It’s a little bit smarter because cannabis smoke airs out in a relatively short period of time, compared to tar from cigarette smoke permanently ruining basically everything it touches.

If cannabis smoking also offsets alcohol or other drug use, that seems like a win. I have never seen a person get violent after smoking cannabis, much the opposite.

Re: Hindenburg’s Smoking Room

#177
If you wait until age 60 before you start smoking, you'll get all the benefits of nicotine--weight loss, more energy, appetite suppression--and you won't live long enough to develop tobacco-related disease.

Re: Hindenburg’s Smoking Room

#178
post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Collapsing trunks have been a thing since the 90s.

There's no regulatory requirement for crumple zones. There's regulatory requirements for performance. The cheapest/easiest way to meet these is crumple zones.

Your luggage and golf clubs aren't gonna do squat in a collision. The regulators don't care that about the one in a million chance that someone gets into an accident a) where crumple zones matter b) while hauling objects so solid they don't just round to "no effect" because they have bigger fish to fry and if you create a "standard loading" for the test the OEMs will simply design to that and basically create a bunch of work and expense for marginal benefit.

Re: Hindenburg’s Smoking Room

#179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 you really find you can reliably sustain your full attention that long?

My EV can do 3 – 5 hours on the motorway between charges (depending on weather conditions and speed), but to avoid fatigue I always want a break within 3 hours or so.

And by the time I've parked, gone inside, queued up for and drunk a tea or coffee, used the facilities, and checked the next leg of my trip, that's half an hour and the car is ready to go again.

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