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Poll: Do you smoke?
I'm not ordinarily a big fan of polls, but I was intrigued by my own curiosity. I wondered how prevelant smoking is among hackers.
On one hand, I would think that Hackers would smoke less because they might be more realistic about avoiding the long term effects of smoking than a non-hacker would be. On the other hand, all Hackers are indeed human and there are a lot of them that do make choices that aren't that great for their physical health (e.g. sitting in front of a computer for 18 hours a day!)
Do you smoke (cigarettes)?
- bestes 18y agoCigars, ocassionally.
- pookleblinky 18y agoI'm interesting in finding out too. I regard nicotine and caffeine, along with emacs, to be essential for a hacking session. Yet of the people I know, smokers vs. nonsmokers seems to be half-and-half.
- magoghm 18y agoAnd glucose. I smoke & drink Coke (Mexican Coke, the US coke is useless). Emacs: of course!
- teej 18y agoHave you tried Red Bull Cola or Pepsi Throwback?
- magoghm 18y agoI live in Mexico City, so I have no problem in getting Mexican Coke.
- falien 18y agoRed Bull Cola is god awful. It tastes like cough syrup. I couldn't bring myself to drink more than the first even when it was free.
- jrockway 18y agoI find it delicious, although massively overpriced.
- tvon 18y agoIt's more enjoyable once your brain connects the taste with the effects. On a tangental note, while listening to the BOS/NYY game last night one of the announcers mentioned that Joba Chamberlain goes through 6-8 Red Bulls in the dugout during every game. Nasty if true (they were BOS announcers so who knows).
- yan 18y agoI'm a massive red bull addict. I guess it's an acquired taste but I love absolutely everything about it. If they only released a caffeine-free version and hopefully a little less expensive, I'd be buying cases a lot more often
- PostOnce 18y agoYou smoke coke?
- magoghm 18y agoI smoke cigarrettes & drink coke :)
- niels_olson 18y agoYou should quit smoking. If you are ready to quit, http://www.smokefree.gov/ http://www.smokefree.gov/
- deleted 18y ago[deleted]
- niels_olson 18y agoYou should quit smoking. If you are ready to quit, http://www.smokefree.gov/ http://www.smokefree.gov/
- kilowatt 18y agoPot, socially
- deleted 18y ago[deleted]
- andreyf 18y agoPot, to help me think/write, never socially.
- vaksel 18y agoAnother thing you need to take into consideration is the person's age. The younger people grew up during the anti-smoking health scare, so they aren't as likely to be smoking
- edw519 18y agoWarning messages have been on cigarette packs since 1966.
- buugs 18y agoYes but cancer education and the costs of smoking are more recent. Now smoking is shown as a very deadly habit and many commericials (mostly from philip morris and their new requirements) on quiting and destruction caused by cigs.
- tptacek 18y agoEver seen a Canadian cigarette label? "THESE THINGS WILL KILL YOU AND GIVE YOUR CHILDREN FEET FOR EARS". I don't think the cancer education is working. If anything, advances in treatment (which probably don't do much for lung cancer) are probably dulling the effect you're talking about.
- buugs 18y agoI don't know about that ,but there are so many laws where I live in the U.S. preventing smoking such as: close to buildings, in restaurants, in many bars, within 200 ft of health based buildings (hospitals and the like), at parks/public places I hardly ever meet someone who smokes and that reduces the amount of teens smoking as well. In high school very few teens smoked cigarettes it seems to have moved to pharmaceuticals and the like which are cheaper and easier obtained.
- asciilifeform 18y agoI think it might be more due to the younger generation(s) being the first to see a large number of older smokers live long enough en masse to get lung cancer.
- bdittmer 18y agoUgh, not to be nit picky but it drives me crazy when people use i.e. incorrectly. What you actually wanted to use here is e.g. Here is a link that discusses the differences and how to use them both correctly: http://ancienthistory.about.com/od/abbreviations/f/ievseg.htm http://ancienthistory.about.com/od/abbreviations/f/ievseg.ht...
- brandon272 18y agoOh heavens... I know the difference, it was just an honest mistake. Simmer, bro! :)
- dasil003 18y ago+1 for sandwiching that sentence between "Oh heavens" and "Simmer, bro".
- bdittmer 18y agoI don't think I was being hostile, just trying to inform. Down mod away though...
- deleted 18y ago[deleted]
- zitterbewegung 18y agoIt would be very detrimental for me to smoke because of the fact that I have asthma.
- jackowayed 18y agoI second that! but I probably wouldn't do it anyway. I hate being around people smoking, and not just because it sometimes makes it hard for me to breath. It smells so bad.
- markessien 18y agoActually, if you smoked for 3 months steady, depending on the asthma type you have, your symptoms will get better. Coating your lungs in ash makes them less sensitive to the usual allergens.
- zitterbewegung 18y agoHrm. My asthma isn't bad enough to probably justify smoking but ehh.
- randallsquared 18y agoYeah, my roommate smokes, but used to have asthma. It seemed quite bizarre.
- eugenejen 18y agoInteresting observation. I start suffering from hay fever after quit smoking.
- menloparkbum 18y agoInteresting observation. I start suffering from hay fever after quit smoking. same here.
- mediamaker 18y agoyes but not cigs and I prefer the vaporizer
- mrinterweb 18y agoYou're talking about those "e-cigarettes" right? How do they compare to the real deal in your opinion? I've been meaning to try one, but many e-cigarette are costly.
- ashishk 18y agono...what he's talking about is essentially a smoke-less pipe/bong.
- IsaacSchlueter 18y agoA vaporizer is not a pipe or bong, and it is certainly not smokeless. You put your combustible material in a machine that heats it up until it smolders, and collects the resulting vapors in an airtight plastic balloon. Then you remove the balloon from the machine, put it to your mouth, and inhale the contents. With a pipe or bong, you burn the material with a fire, and suck the smoke directly into your lungs. The difference with a bong is that the smoke passes through water first, which cools it and removes some of the heavier debris.
- humbledrone 18y agoA real vaporizer is certainly smokeless. It vaporizes the oils in the marijuana bud; the marijuana is not supposed to burn. If you've used a vaporizer and it was producing smoke, that means that you had the heat turned up way too high. vapor != smoke
- Alex3917 18y ago"A real vaporizer is certainly smokeless." There is some research that shows there is still tar in the vapor, albeit less.
- Zak 18y agoI have never been able to figure out what would possess a person to put something that smells like cigarette smoke in their mouth. Beyond that, most people I know who have tried smoking found the initial experience physically unpleasant (smoke burns the throat and lungs). The only explanation I'm aware of for people continuing to smoke after the first time is social pressure. From what I've observed, hackers tend to resist social pressure more than most people.
- dpifke 18y agoI smoked for about two weeks during high school, after a friend of mine sold me that bumming a smoke was a great way to talk to girls. The smoking itself didn't do that much for me, so I pretty quickly gave it up.
- sil3ntmac 18y agoSmoking cigarettes gives you a buzz...
- cstejerean 18y agoin the beginning
- eru 18y agoLater not smoking cigarettes gives you cravings.
- staunch 18y agoCauses cravings might be more accurate way to put it. It always gave me a buzz though (I quit 6 months ago), not just in the beginning.
- IsaacSchlueter 18y agoWhen you don't smoke for a year or so, that first one when you un-quit is unparalleled pleasure. It's worth starting and enduring the pain of quitting just to be able to come back and feel that glorious mind blowing forbidden pleasure of the first one back. The power trip in not starting again is also delightful. I like having a cigarette about every year or so. A few times I quit, I was lured back, but I've only had one full cigarette since June of 2008. Smoking is definitely not a good lifestyle for the long term. But as very occasional guilty pleasures go, it's truly top-notch.
- brianmckenzie 18y agoI smoke on and off - tend to quit for awhile then start again. Back when I was doing full-time office-style programming gigs, I found it a good excuse to go outside and walk around if I was stuck on some particular problem, and it always worked wonders in that regard. That being said, It's a nasty/expensive habit and I don't recommend it to anyone. Anecdotal evidence: of the 600 or so people at the last startup school, I saw maybe 4 people light up, so it can't be very prevalent among good hackers.
- derwiki 18y agoWhen I worked tech support in high school at a company where almost everyone was a smoker, I used to take hacky-sack breaks. Ah, high school.
- staunch 18y agoI was working at a well respected hacker company for a brief period. Out of something like 200 people in the office I was the only smoker as far as I could tell. Ever since I've considered it a reasonable way to judge a company. Maybe a good interview question: "So, how many of your programmers smoke?"
- randallsquared 18y agoYou smoke, and you consider having few smokers as a good metric of company worth? Hm.
- coffeeaddicted 18y agoThat chance to just walk out for a few minutes (or simply just to walk...) was probably the main reason I didn't want to stop smoking when I still worked for companies. I just find it hard solving some problems while sitting at a desk - can't help it. Once I started working from home it was suddenly no longer such a problem to stop smoking. Now when I feel like it I just stand up and walk around the room. No more need for excuses. I wonder if one of the desks where you can stand would also have helped - I never had the chance to work at one of those.
- simplegeek 18y agoUnfortunately, yes! I've been doing that for some time now. Though I personally don't like this habit but I've come to a point where I do this for pleasure. I don't smoke heavily, 5--6 ciggs/day. But that said, I wouldn't recommend this to any one. At one point, you really want to quit but it becomes harder and harder.
- sho 18y agoSure do. Drink, too. To be perfectly honest, I have difficulty relating to anyone who does not. It's like they're from a whole different world. That said, I'm eagerly awaiting someone curing that whole "lung cancer" thing ...
- dkarl 18y agoAm I so different because I don't smoke? I believe in pleasure, and I judge every drug on an individual basis. I drink alcohol and coffee and occasionally smoke pot when it's offered to me, and I suppose I'll try mushrooms if the right circumstances present themselves. I can't think of any other drugs that make a good case. (I'm rather conservative when it comes to risks, especially because most of the available information comes from people with knee-jerk pro or con attitudes towards recreational drugs.) According to my priorities and what I know about it, tobacco is not tempting. It's apparently highly addictive, it's intrusive on other people (though I sometimes enjoy fresh tobacco smoke when I'm drunk,) it leaves a terrible stale smell in rooms, carpets, clothing, hair, and upholstery, and it makes a person's mouth taste disgusting to anyone who kisses them. I'm sure some of that is just individual taste that other people might disagree with. Does that make me seem like I'm from whole different world?
- jacoblyles 18y agoPeople that are righteously proud of not smoking and indignant at others who do seem like they're from a different world to me, unless they are allergic to the smoke or something. It's an individual decision based on individual taste. As long as people can keep that live-and-let-live mindset, I'm fine with them whatever they do.
- sho 18y agoNo. Not you, because you're coming at it from the same angle. You smoke pot, and do other drugs, when they make sense to you. You just don't particularly like tobacco. That is cool. I don't particularly like pot. You hit the nail on the head when you said "knee-jerk pro or con attitudes towards recreational drugs". That is what alienates me. Unfortunately, for every enlighted fellow-self-medicating person like you, there's 1000 idiots who just want an excuse to be holier-than-thou. Extra points if the person telling you off is clinically obese! I don't know .. the thing with tobacco is it's just so fucking useful. It's the thing to do next, anytime, anywhere. Smoking is what you can do while you pace around, dreaming of world domination. It's what you can do together with a cute girl you just met. It's what you do after sex. It's what you do while drinking. While driving. After you arrive. After closing a deal. It's just .. the universal activity. How do you replace it?
- martythemaniak 18y agoEverything except cigarettes actually - pot, sheesha/hookah, cigars, etc.
- godDLL 18y agoA pipe here. And pot too.
- octane 18y agoI smoke when I drink, and I try not to drink that much because I like getting shitfaced.
- Batsu 18y agoI'm much more partial to killing my liver than my lungs :) No smoke for me.
- sho 18y agoBe egalitarian. Kill them both at once!
- tdavis 18y agoI smoked for 6 years; quit cold turkey on a whim earlier this year. Edit: For those looking to quit, the first 3 weeks are pretty shitty, but after that not so bad. I still get the rare craving and occasional dream about smoking, but that's about it. So far the only noticeable plus for me has been that I don't need to feel like a leper in public since for whatever reason most people are horribly offended by cigarettes these days. I was sort of hoping to develop super powers, though.
- niels_olson 18y agogood job. Keep it up.
- asimone 18y agoBut I only smoke in the evenings and never at work and it is anywhere between 0-5.
- deleted 18y ago[deleted]
- geuis 18y agoHow is this pertinent to Hacker News?
- Zak 18y agoIt's a survey of hacker habits. It's fairly low-value compared to the sort of content that usually makes it to #1 though.
- brandon272 18y agoUnder "What to Submit", the HN guidelines read "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 intellectual curiosity.". I think that this certainly qualifies as something that gratifies community curiosity given the activity on the submission.
- raluxgaza 18y agoNo
- deleted 18y ago[deleted]
- mahmud 18y agoObsessive chain smoker here. 1.5 packs a day. But it's the last of my vices; before that I have tried everything from Opium to Salvia. P.S. Though I'm Arab, I can't stand sheesha, way too heavy.
- tptacek 18y agoWhat's sheesha?
- jawngee 18y agohash.
- kyro 18y agoRight, short for hasheesh or hasheesha. It's also another way of referring to hookah.
- mahmud 18y agoHash is clean, specially in oil form (if you can ignore the "junkie" appearance of carrying a hot burning knife and a plastic water bottle ;-) Sheesha is hooka, tobacco smoked out of a water pipe.
- aaronblohowiak 18y agoYou may be self-medicating for an undiagnosed problem, if you're interested in being without vice/self-medication, see your doctor about alternatives.
- talleyrand 18y agoI think we had this question recently. Anyway, same answer: yes, a pipe. The thinking man's smoke.
- mitechka 18y agoIf I smoke a cigarette about once a month, does that count?
- chanux 18y agoYeah! There's only 1 or 0. Nothing between.
- rg 18y agoOne day as I lit a cigarette someone said to me, "I used to smoke, and then I realized that I was the smartest person I knew who still smoked, so I quit." Later I thought about this and realized that I was the smartest person I knew who still smoked, so I quit too. Actually thinking about the smokers you know can be an eye-opening comparison.
- tptacek 18y agoI don't smoke, but several people I know who are smarter than me do. Does that mean I should start?
- lacker 18y agoNo, only if everyone you know who's smarter than you smokes.
- drhowarddrfine 18y agoIf you ever noticed, almost all restaurant workers smoke. I notice because I own five.
- tralfam 18y agoJust curious, how much does it cost to purchase a restaurant worker these days?
- wyclif 18y agoWhen your job is almost entirely about providing immediate gratification for other people, smoking is something you do entirely for yourself and your friends. Even if it involves huddling in the cold.
- wkdown 18y agoI've found it strange how so many chefs smoke. Smoking affects your sense of taste, which you would think is important. For evidence, watch "Hell's Kitchen" or "Top Chef" ... or the service door of restaurants/diners/pubs.
- lionheart 18y agoI would never smoke cigarettes. Its an expensive and kind of a smelly habit. I do like the occasional hookah or cigar though. That's something you don't do every day so I think its not bad on the expenses and health fronts.
- nailer 18y agoYou can smoke cigarettes and not do it every day. I enjoy the twice-a-month Silk Cut or YSL after a restaurant meal.
- zackattack 18y agoI smoke a lot of weed, but I find that smoking while coding disrupts my working memory, which makes coding difficult. Working memory = the memory you use to keep a lot of stuff in mind at once = "the stack". Having to keep referring to the code to figure out my variable names/whatever, instead of just knowing them off the top of my head, slows me down.
- scotth 18y agoSounds like reason enough to give it up. If you're a coder anyway.
- novum 18y agoI smoke a lot too and this is spot on about weed making coding much more difficult. The funny thing is, at work we have a code word for weed - "code". We've been joking about coding for months now...
- magoghm 18y agoI don't know about coding & smoking weed, but coding on an LSD trip is very hard. With a huge effort you can barely manage to do it. I tried it as an experiment, but I'll never do it again. It takes out the fun from both coding & LSD.
- chops 18y agoI'm completely clean. No smoking, no drugs, no alcohol. I never have, and I have no intentions or desire to start. It's a lifestyle choice, and not a religious thing or anything like that. Caffeine doesn't seem to have much if an effect on me, but occasionally, if I need to hit a deadline in coding, I'll try in vain to generate extra energy with caffeine, but that's about it as far as drugs go for me.
- whatusername 18y agowow. I've never done drugs or smoking, but 100% no alcohol is pretty rare to find.. I'm impressed. On Caffeine - I assume you've seen this pic before: Still amuses me though: http://www.coffee.co.uk/images/spider.jpg http://www.coffee.co.uk/images/spider.jpg
- patio11 18y ago100% no alcohol is pretty rare to find Well, now there are two of us. My cover story for friends and coworkers is that I have a lethal allergy to alcohol. (I live in Japan -- it is easier, and more socially acceptable, to lie on this question than tell the truth.) When I was younger, I did not want to end up a drunk. These days, even assuming that I would probably not end up a drunk, there does not seem to be anything missing in my life that could get conveniently replaced by alcohol.
- rjprins 18y agoOut my 10 closest friends, 3 will not drink a sip of alcohol. And none do it out of religious grounds.
- gcheong 18y agoUsed to smoke several packs a day since junior year in high school until a couple years in college then gave it up cold turkey.
- jokermatt999 18y agoYes, but only 1 or 2 cigarettes a day. I find it helps with stress and a bad temper. It's certainly not the best way, but it's worked fairly well. Since I don't smoke much, 1 cigarette alters my mood a good deal, and I don't really feel too much of an adverse effect if I don't smoke.
- JereCoh 18y agoNo, and as I say to hot guys who do smoke, "There's only one fag you should be putting into your mouth and I don't contain nicotine."
- J_McQuade 18y agoI do not smoke, but have in the past. I'll try and explain my reasons here, in case anyone might be interested. The first thing I'd like to mention here is that, no matter what you say, smoking is goddamn cool. A lot of senselessly dangerous things are, so just live with it. If I see someone sat with a glass of wine and a cigarette, I think 'cool'. You probably do, to (at least if you've ever spent time in Europe). This is not really relevant, but I just wanted to get it off my (still functioning!) chest. See, I actually took up smoking a short while ago (definitely old enough to 'know better') and then quit almost a year afterwards - and I did it mainly as an experiment. An experiment, that is, to ease the curiosity of never having known what it is like to be genuinely addicted to something. Properly "I need this" addicted. I mean, I thought I liked chocolate, but I'd never found myself counting the minutes until I grabbed my next mars bar. But yes, it was interesting in many ways. First of all, nicotine is definitely great stuff - everything smokers tell you about being more alert, awake, on-the ball and in control is absolutely true. If I were to try and describe the effect, I would say that it makes it much easier to be happy. It doesn't make you happy, or alter your state of mind in any really noticeable way, but you'll just find yourself being more contented in what you are doing. You'll be more ready to be pleased with yourself, if you will. And that's nice. However, I did stop. Smoking is, really, quite naff. Everything anti-smokers tell you about it stinking, making you feel dreadful in between every spark-up, and effecting your general health is also absolutely true. But the strange thing is, I didn't actually care at the time. I only decided to stop because I realised that it had become a habit. I had started to do it less for the positives and more to placate the negatives. It had become irrational, and I didn't like the thought of that. So yes, I quit. And it was hard. Really hard, actually. I'd probably still be at it now if it wasn't for a Scandinavian friend of mine introducing me to Swedish 'Snus' - a moist ground oral tobacco (debatably) reckoned to be nigh-on carcinogen free. It seems to have none of the drawbacks of smoking, yet all of the benefits (apart from the 'cool' factor - in fact, a wad of sticky brown mud in your top lip is the opposite of cool). It also leaves your hands free for more important things; I mean, try using emacs with a lit ciggy in your hand! I'd say everyone should use the stuff, but it's hard to get a hold of in the EU (senseless blanket ban) and, well, you can imagine how inelegant it is. Certainly helped to wean me off the fags. All in all, I'd say that it was worth doing. I can now very happily play devil's advocate to any smoking-related rant and have learned to disassociate the practice from any notion of a person's awareness, intelligence or background. Smoking is cool, smoking is pleasurable and, and this is far from unimportant, it is something to do, other than working, studying or idling. And, although this post turned into what seems like a rather off-topic essay (and has perhaps added to the shame I feel at not keeping a blog), I'd like to think that, while the opinions expressed here may not be particularly enlightened (or even interesting), they should, at least, be well researched. ... I think I might need to spark one up. (NO!)
- Diakronik 18y agoI smoked about a pack a day from ages 17 to 30 (started out of a combination of peer pressure and curiosity). Tried half-heartedly to quit a few times (N.B. quitting for a girl typically will NOT work). I ended up quitting for good because of a minor health scare (I was lugging some heavy stuff up a LONG hill and wasn't doing such a great job oxygenating...I more or less passed out). I didn't have a terrible time quitting. Had one cigarette about two months after at a party, and that was it. Stopped having cravings after a few more months. Nonetheless, I MISS smoking terribly, and still identify as a smoker. Not only, or even mainly, the social aspect. My favorite smokes were usually walking down the street alone thinking about stuff, or else coding at night (yes, my room got to smelling pretty gross...a side "benefit" of smoking is that it wastes your olfaction pretty badly). I loved the ritual of taking out a smoke, digging for a light, the first deep draw & exhale. The current vilification of smokers makes me pretty mad. I get that it affects other people, but probably not as badly as alcohol, on a widespread social level. I've also smoked pot and hash a bunch over the years, although I quit those as well a few years ago. The paranoia, as they say, will destroy ya. So yeah..."I'm Diakronik, and I'm a smoker."
- menloparkbum 18y agoa side "benefit" of smoking is that it wastes your olfaction pretty badly I didn't realize that lower manhattan and union square / SOMA in SF both smell like pee until after I quit smoking...
- tvon 18y agoQuit ~2.5 years ago after ~15 years as a relatively heavy smoker (pack a day at least). I'll sometimes swipe a cig towards the end of an evening of a drinking though.
- niels_olson 18y agogood job.
- grandalf 18y agoSmoking involves taking a break from your routine, stretching, deep breathing, and watching wisps of smoke float delicately into the air. One can get the same benefit with a bit of yoga and a conscious effort to do breathing exercises throughout the day. I think many smokers mistakenly credit some of the good feelings they get to the smoke rather than the breathing. Om.
- chanux 18y agoTried it just for once when I was schooling. And I didn't find it cool.
- ninjaa 18y agoBasically if you are a programmer who smokes (and I was until a few weeks ago) it's easy to quit smoking. You already know how grossly inefficient and wasteful smoking is. You just have to trick your mind into instinctively realizing smoking is fundamentally stupid, the same instinct that kicks in when you see a code segment that goes "if (x = y) { ...". Instead of trying to control the craving or stop thinking about cigarettes, you have your brain evaluate the "should I smoke right now?" question with the answer _no_. Once I did that, I found quitting smoking surprisingly easy. I still think about it quite a bit, but so far I haven't strayed from the correct answer even a little bit. Regular exercise right at the beginning will help you ride out the initial physical cravings. Within a week your lungs feel much better and you're way more alert etc etc so the virtuous loop is in place and that's where I am and so far it feels pretty good.
- glompix 18y agoNicotine is great for coding. I used to smoke, but now use Swedish snus instead. I get all the benefits I did with smoking, but with very little detriment.
- reuel 18y agoi smoke rollies here in australia. decks/packs are overpriced and the way a hand rolled cigarette smokes is just way better! +1 for the rollie crew (if were out there..)
- cosmo7 18y agoI've given up smoking several times, the last time, successfully, about 3 years ago. The previous attempt was pretty much doomed - it was mid-August 2001 and I was living in lower Manhattan. The thing that is most difficult about nicotine is that it is intimately connected with the way your brain processes novelty. If you're a smoker and you're learning (say) a new language or API, your body automatically makes you light cigarettes and smoke them; you only become aware that you have been smoking when you're stubbing them out.
- deleted 18y ago[deleted]
- nailer 18y agoI enjoy tobacco, and drink alcohol and caffeine. I have about 30 cigarettes or cigars a year, and about 40-500 shots of espresso. I'm not sure about the wine / ale. I do all these things because I enjoy the flavors and sensations of them. It seems even on HN people can't quite grasp the idea of enjoying good tobacco but not being addicted to cigarettes. I also think the caffeine is probably doing me more damage than the cigarettes. I also find it harder to not have coffee.
- mistermann 18y agoI wish it wasn't so hard to quit. When I try, I feel like I've lost a friend.