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Comment by cgh | Hacker News Reader

The lack of smoking is something to ponder. It's always so glaring to me when TV shows that take place in the '80s and '90s show almost no one smoking, when in fact if you went into any public place, probably 30-50% (or more, if it's eg a pub) would be smoking, including in people's homes, offices and so forth. I wonder if the huge and realistic amounts of smoking seen in shows like Mad Men will be edited out one day.

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I grew up when there was a smoking section on the plane (BTW, why do modern aircraft still have ashtrays? Are there any airlines that allow smoking?). I miss All in the Family. Is it even available anymore?

The ashtray is actually mandatory even in new planes per FAA rules.

Modern aircraft still have ashtrays in the washrooms because they’d much prefer that somebody choosing to sneak a smoke puts their cigarette somewhere other than the washroom trash bin where there’s a history of them starting fires.

The ashtray in the washrooms makes sense, but I was just on a newer plane with ashtrays at each passenger seat armrest. It was Saudia.

Rail travel is one of the last places that you still see this in the US.

I took a cross-country Amtrak trip right before the pandemic, and most of the conductor's announcements were just to tell us when the next smoke break would be.

When the train got stuck waiting for cross traffic at a freight yard in rural North Dakota, an incipient passenger mutiny forced them to break the rules and let everyone pop out for some light trespassing and nicotine consumption.

It felt strange in a similar, but opposite way to what you're describing.

It’s close but not quite. If it were truly ‘80s, there would be no need for stops because everyone would be smoking in the train. Probably the worst example of this was when I travelled through Turkey in the ‘90s, mostly by bus and train. The air was so thick you could cut it with a knife.

Growing up in CA in the 90s I didn't see that much smoking. It was even banned in 1998, which means probably it wasn't that popular by then.

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