alt Hacker NewsHindenburg’s Smoking Room
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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.
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 offended enough to stop visiting.
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.
This story reminds me of the game Oxygen Not Included.
> The smoking room was kept at a higher pressure than the rest of the ship so that no leaking hydrogen could enter the room
I haven't yet played any other game where air pressure in a room relative to the rooms surrounding it could mean the difference between life and death. Without really meaning to I gained an intuitive understanding of physics by just trying not to asphyxiate my dupes. Gold standard for edutainment.
Last paragraph:
>The smoking room was perhaps the most popular room on the ship, which is not surprising at a time when so many people smoked, but its popularity was no doubt enhanced because it was also the location of the [Hindenburg’s bar](link).
That’s how you keep a reader on the site!
Truly a better time - today we worry about using Rust 'unsafe' too often. They had a smoking room on a hydrogen airship!
/j
Back in the 50's tonsillectomies were a regular rite of passage for kids, especially in colder places where kids spent more time indoors exposed to smoke. A couple years after moving from Maiibu to Toronto, I had the surgery.
For those who are interested: a very recent Stuff You Should Know podcast episode was about the Hindenburg disaster: https://stuffyoushouldknow.com/episode/the-hindenburg-disast...
I remember years ago movie theaters in Hong Kong allowed smoking. If I remember right, it wasn't in the back, like on planes, but the seats to the one side of the center aisle.
Hindenburg was originally designed to use helium, but The US banned the export of helium. Helium was rare and expensive to manufacture and only the US made it in sufficient quantities.
I will use this as a metaphor of humanity!
That sweet sweet nicotine.
> The real danger of allowing smoking on a hydrogen airship — and the reason it was strictly confined to the closely monitored smoking room — was the risk of a fire;
I'd say... contrary, allowing smoking in a dedicated controlled place was the safer option. The real danger was not allowing smoking because if you ban smoking, people will smoke no matter if it's banned - and back then, there were a looooot more smokers, so a loooooot more opportunities for someone to behave utterly braindead.
That's also why every modern airplane to this day has ashtrays in the lavatory. There WILL be someone smoking at some point, and better provide them with a safe option to discard the butt than risk having the person throw the butt in the trash bin where it can set the waste ablaze.
Is there any truth of Nicotine being a nootropic?
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 few days on it, so it was set up more like a boat, with a place to stay, lounge, and eat; than a plane where you don't stay on it for an extended time.
We sometimes see this in new technologies where someone holds onto assumptions of the past.