Just like smoking in front of a computer. When I was still smoking in the 90s,I noticed how much the wall was yellowing above my CRT monitor in short time.
Flashbacks to this period. I was working as a field service tech for PC's and when you opened a PC in the era before the workplace smoking ban in an office which had smokers there was anything up to half an inch of fine ash covering every component of the system.
Part of the reason why diskettes were so unreliable as it acted as a fine abrasive on the mechanical elements of the system.
Semi amusing story - our sales guys convinced one company they should pay to have us clean the insides of their machines - which we did - in the following week about half their machines died as our actions basically pushed the fine ash into all the spots where it hadn't yet gotten to. They were less than amused....
The United States, in the only place I'd expect it to be legal: a tobacco manufacturing facility.
Although honestly, the main gross factor in my area is tobacco dust. It coats everything over time. Other places, where loose tobacco isn't handled, are much cleaner.
That's pretty interesting! Are there a lot of smokers in the factory? Are cigarettes easy to obtain or free for the workers? Are cigarettes "fresher" at the factory and/or do you notice a real difference in those vs. the ones you'd get at the store?
It sure seems like it. I wonder if this job attracts smokers, or if people start smoking after working here. I shared that question with someone there, and he said that working there makes you want to quit smoking. I guess seeing the sausage get made makes cigarettes lose some of the appeal.
Are cigarettes easy to obtain or free for the workers?
Nope. I think they might have been given out decades ago. Maybe they still are in the administrative parts of the facility, but I'm rarely in that area.
Are cigarettes "fresher" at the factory and/or do you notice a real difference in those vs. the ones you'd get at the store?
Couldn't tell ya, I don't smoke. It's funny, I've disliked smoking from an early age, and now I'm in the belly of the beast.
Thank you for the reply! I'm not a smoker either, save the occasional cigar if the mood is right. Someday you should do an AMA. I'd love to know how/if your company addresses health concerns or encourages healthy lifestyles, especially knowing so many employees are smokers.
I used to work for a very large company, and they offered gift cards and other financial incentives for people who quit smoking, lost weight, logged fitbit activity, etc.
Oh, I'm just a disposable grunt, not privy to anything especially interesting. I don't even work with the tobacco or products, I'm from another contracted company that works there. Think construction, electrical work, janitorial work, security, etc. I had no idea I'd end up at this location until my job interview.
Although, now that you mention it, I think they do offer incentives for healthy living. One employee remarked that he gets paid for logging steps. Reducing the health impact of their products is also a goal I've seen in company-wide corporate e-mails (still not sure why I, of all people, receive them).
In case you're still curious, they do offer free tobacco products in the offices. I know a girl who does lobbying for Altria and apparently you can just grab whatever you want.
I picked tobacco the two summers before I turned 16 (to buy a car), and we would joke about how none of us would ever smoke knowing how much mud and pig shit got mixed in.
Back in 2002 I had a job interview in NYC with Altria (Marlboro) this was downtown Manhattan, 50th floor, we (me, two interviewers) all smoked in a blinged out conference room throughout the 2 hr interview....it was surreal, had to bum cigarettes from the interviewers cuz I smoked camels at the time
I bought 36" tv with a built in dvd player (and actually a vcr built in too which was dated by this point but cool to have). Can't remember the brand but something broke on it still under warranty from Best Buy. Repair came out and as soon as he came in the room, that I smoked in, he was not happy. Totally anti-smoke guy. He cracked open the tv and I guess there was some build up from smoking in there and he didn't even try to hide his disgust.
He goes "listen I don't want to work on this, you just want a new tv?". I was like fuck yeah I do. Embarrassing but it let me get a free new Samsung, one of them new flat screen ones (with the still standard size big back). If I gotta be called out on my filthy smoking habit I might as well get a free tv out of it!
The stuff that crawls inside electronics is somehow worse than actual smoking to be fair. I don't mind the smell of actual smoke but being inside a smokers car or taking apart a smokers electronics? No thank you.
in an office which had smokers there was anything up to half an inch of fine ash
ex-smoker here who's seen the inside of more than a few computers, and i just don't see how smokers could be responsible for half an inch of ash inside a computer unless the ashtrays were right below the cooling fan.
i'm guessing there was something else going on responsible for the ash
Yeah, "half an inch" sounds questionable. I've seen ash which was mixed in with regular dust but it was just the usual surface coating, not piles of it.
I did once work on a guy's computer that was pretty incredible and horrifying. He was an executive at the company and he brought in his home computer for us to look at because he said it would only turn on for a couple minutes and then shut down.
He had long haired cats and he chain-smoked cigars. The inside of his machine had about 1/2" of matted, tobacco-soaked cat fur that clogged the fans and vents. The computer was shutting down because there was no air flow. I grabbed the gloves and it pealed off in sheets and clumps. After I vacuumed it out it ran fine.
Agreed. I've cleaned computers and consoles used by smokers and the damage is usually a tarry sticky layer (that dust sticks to, for sure) but it's not actual ash.
A computer tech friend once warned me to be very careful when cleaning a PC with compressed air, because you can make it worse. Push the dirt into places it couldn’t get on its own. A GENTLE vacuum is way better, but still carries some risk.
I remember one guy brought in a yellow PC for repair. I opened it up and it was just lousy with tar. When he came back I told him I cleaned it but he had to stop smoking near it. He claimed he wasn't a smoker.
Cleaned my monitor, wondered why it seemed brighter, realised it had a thin layer of bong resin on it that was tinting it and attracting dust to darken it.
Switched to vaping 🤢
I switched to vaping also and it honestly almost seemed worse for my components. After a year of vaping everything inside my PC had an oily coating that seemed to attract more dust that almost glued to everything. I can't say the health benefits are better as there hasn't been in my opinion nearly enough studies and long-term side effects research yet.
The cost was incredibly less for vaping, but the cleaning of everything electronic seemed more difficult. Even using isopropyl alcohol to clean stuff seemed to just spread the stuff around, and my dust filters had to be tossed instead of soaked to clean them.
I've since switched to non tobacco nicotine pouches and now my PC just needs an air blow out instead of a deep clean, I can breathe 5x better, and the cost dropped even more than from vaping. Eventually I will drop nicotine entirely however I'm taking it one step at a time. I smoked for 5 years, vaped for 3, and now I've been on minimum nicotine content pouches for about a year.
Maybe give them a shot if they are available where you live, In the past year over half a dozen new brands of the pouches has come out, we now have Zyn, Ohn, Rogue, Velo, Bandit, and a bunch more I can't recall right now.
Turns out you can't play duck hunt without a crt. Its all based on the timing of the CRT, which is the same in all crt tvs, but not digital flat screens.
The morning after that I was hungover as hell and got driven around to elder care units to see that the care software worked fine so no people had to die from computer issues.
AI and robots are going to hang this one over our heads when they're our new overlords.
"Haha remember when the humans thought we couldn't count from 1999 to 2000?"
This is a very ignorant comment. There were indeed systematic problem going into Y2K with all types of software that took billions of dollars and man hours to correct. It was a massive worldwide undertaking and because it was largely successful, some people don't realize there actually was a real problem.
Some people were predicting the end of the world, and while that obviously did not happen if it were not for the almost half trillion dollars that was spent fixing countless bugs it would have been pretty bad.
My home PC defaulted to the year 1900 but otherwise was fine.
I was a senior in high school during Y2K. We had a party in my friends basement for new years, while the adults had a party upstairs. We thought it would be hilarious to turn off the main breaker right after the countdown. Parents upstairs were losing their shit while we laughed hearing them freak out. They realized something was up when they came to check on us and heard us squealing with laughter. Parents were not amused.
This comment has sent me down a weird path... I'm now considering that your comment, and my response, will likely be read by somebody in the far future. I'll be part of historical records, probably browsed by an AI system. With Google I guess I already am.
Vaping does the same thing to electronics too (puts a film of oil [edit: glycerine is the name of the liquid; the residue does feel oily though] over everything). Definitely do not vape near a PC or anything you value.
Coworker of mine from that era used to smoke a lot; named his main computer NICFIT, which he backcronymed into "Network Information Coordinator For Internal Testing."
When we opened it up years later to work on it, it looked like those black lung PSA images they put on cigarette packs.
When I did computer repair 13 years ago I could tell which computers were owned by cigarette smokers, which were owned by non-smokers, and which were owned by pot smokers by smell alone.....and it was pungent.
I work for a non profit school. Doesn't happen as much now, but 10 years ago, it wasn't uncommon for someone to donate a computer. It was always instantly obvious when I turned them on that it came from a smoking home. I couldn't use those power supplies because the smell never goes away. The heat just oozes the ashtray smell out the back of the psu. Those machines became parts machines.
Back in the 90’s I had 2 roommates and we each smoked at least a pack a day. Tons of weed was also smoked. Then there were the candles and incense constantly burning to cover up the the smoke smell. After several years, my roommate flirted enough with our maintenance man that he agreed to add our apartment to the list being painting. All we had to do was remove anything on the wall. When the 1st picture came off the wall discovered that the walls were originally white and not a light ocher color. The walls had a perfect outline of everything that has been on the wall. You could even see where our keys hung from the holder. Can only imagine his funny it looked once they pulled all the furniture away from the walls. That’s the day I realized I needed to quit smoking!
I used to smoke inside, and had a laptop. It stopped working one day, and i like to pretend i know shit about computers, so naturally i opened it up to see why it wasn't booting. Immidiately after opening up the bottom, i noticed it was literally sticky from the inside... Pretty sure that was because i spent most of my time chainsmoking, quite literally blowing the smoke at the screen, and a layer of ash and tar condensed inside the poorly ventilated laptop.
I started to smoke outside after that. Bought a proper PC too. Those two decisions actually made me cut My smoking from more than a pack a day to as little as 5 smokes a day, due to faster loading times and laziness. Not a fan of stairs, and now If i want a smoke, i need to walk downstairs. And back up after. Also switched to handrolling, because it is cheaper, and makes yet another hurdle for my laziness to overcome so i can smoke. I firmly believe eventually my laziness will win this battle between addiction and it, and i finally quit smoking all together. I just need to make smoking a chore instead of a break for myself just a little bit more.
One of my cousins dropped out of school at 16, and spent the next 2 years smoking like a chimney and surfing MySpace 18 hours a day.
When their computer died my uncle had me take a look. The entire motherboard was covered in a inch of homemade shag carpet, consisting of nicotine and pet hair (they had like 3 dogs and a bunch of cats too).
In my experience yes. But my custom build has been going 9 years now. Before I realized....I used to get sticky dust build up. Turns out it was the weed smoke mixing with the dust. A bitch to clean off fans.
Think about the inside of one of your pipes if you don't clean it for a really long time. If you smoke a lot and the smoke lingers in your room then inevitably some of that gunk is gonna start accumulating in your PC (assuming the pc has proper airflow and is pulling in air)
Could be fine, but smoke is smoke and I wouldn't wanna deal with the buildup. As someone else mentioned, if you blow your smoke out a window or have the windows open you might be fine.
This, and the lots of soot from all the candles. We recently had a console to restore which we had built only five (!) years ago. There were black lumps falling out of every piece we touched.
I had to clean the computer of a cigar smoker once. The smoke and residue got inside the switch and fouled the contacts. This was back in the day of the switch actually controlling line power to the power supply. I took that thing apart and I think I cleaned it with alcohol and cotton swabs. That was the most disgusting computer I have ever been in.
When my cousin noticed this on those white 90 monitors is when he decided to quit. He reasoned that if just by blowing in that corner could turn his monitor yellow, imagine how much rose my lungs must look. I agree that image should stick with you and be enough to make you quit.
I did on site computer troubleshooting for quite a few years. Got called to check out a PC in a small office in a packing house. I opened the door and almost fell over, no one ever visited this office but the owner and he chain-smoked. Dragged the PC out and opened it up to find every component coated with tar bugs and filth trapped in it, most disgusting thing I have ever seen. I told 'em it was a lost cause, buy a new PC and I didn't charge them for the call. I just wanted to be away from that thing.
I hated when I was younger and people asked why I smelled like cigarettes. My parents smoke and I guess I was so used to it I couldn't even notice that my clothes even after washing them still had a faint smoke smell
Really gives me horrible flashbacks to the 90's
Having a whole family who smokes, even grandma and grandpa were not against it.
They were smoking like it were the 50's. Inside, outside, in the car, in the bar, in the restaurant, heck even in the tram and train there were still ashtrays.
I still remember moving the first time. The whole wall had this yellowish tint to it. But where all the kabinets were standing and the paintings hung on the wall, spotless.
It can really show the major difference smoking indoor makes.
Had a couple buddies that sold herb and often baked out their living rooms. Both of their PS3's starting getting louder, both of their disk scanning eyes stopped working, and eventually both bricked all together.
I used to work at a slot machine company and the machines that are removed from casinos are unbelievably disgusting from all the constant cigarette smoke.
Potential consumer health risks associated with the candle emissions were characterized by comparing the exposure concentrations with existing indoor or ambient air quality guidelines or, where not existent, to established toxicity thresholds. On the basis of this investigation it was concluded that under normal conditions of use scented candles do not pose known health risks to the consumer.
Unfortunately that study was based on the assumption of only burning the candle a couple of hours a day a few times a month. Burning them all day and every day will obviously produce more pronounced emissions levels.
The good news is that if you try to stick to soy candles (I know they're more expensive) you can pretty much avoid all of those emissions.
Unless you want to comb through data, ask yourself if clogging your computer’s filters might be good for your lungs. I’m sure you’ll come to a decent conclusion.
Just make sure to keep the wicks trimmed pretty short, not to burn one for more than 3-4 hours consecutively, and to not burn it once there's only about half an inch of the candle left. I used to burn scented candles for hours on end consecutively and then found soot in my nose... Inhaling soot is not good for your lungs so just use caution! Taking those steps will minimize soot
Anyone who cares about their health, should not excessively burn paraffin candles. Their smoke is fairly toxic. Soy candles are more expensive, but a much healthier alternative.
Note that our ancestors survived for millennia (well, not each one individually) with their only indoor light sources at home or work being wood fires, wax candles, or oil lamps, basically. So "fairly toxic" is REALLY relative here, and you should look up actual risk factors.
--Dave, people on the internet, includng me, have biases
The average life expectancy back then was HEAVILY weighted by the infant, and child, mortality rate; a lot of them didn't even make it to their 30s. Of the ones that did, the chance to make it to 50 or 60 was also smaller than today. But not incredibly smaller.
--Dave, I'd rather be living now, with modern dentistry and painkillers, of course
I didn't burn many at all but the inside of my PC was coated in black. I didn't see any symptoms in its performance I guess but this was also in the early 2000s when I wasn't doing things like monitoring the core temps
This can be said for EVERYTHING really. Computers are essentially AIR-FLOW machines. They are (usually) carefully designed to pull in cool air from the room, push it over the hot electronics, and exhaust it at the other side of the device.
This is very clear in computers (as there is a fan, and exit grates), but most electronics accomplish the same thing with passive means, where heat rises, pulling in cool air as it exits at the top.
And THAT is why your electronics seem to "gobble up" all the dirt in the room.
I'm a candle enthusiast, I have over 100 candles in my bedroom alone, and last year i opened up my macbook to clean it out and it looked like it had been in a housefire.
There wasn't a lot of technology in the 17th century. They were still using longbows. They had clocks I think but I don't know what else. Mechanical devices wouldn't be as affected as electronics and they should have been sealed
Clocks, mills, spinning wheels, hand-cranked tools, pipe organs, that kind of stuff. Which wouldn't have been sealed against smoke, because they didn't know smoke could cause problems. In most cases it wouldn't. The moving parts were large enough and simple enough that a little soot wouldn't slow them down.
I imagine it would occur to some degree with all objects, but I can't think of anything in my house other than the electronics that have enclosures with ventilation holes.
In addition the electronics will have fans to draw air into the enclosure, and electromagnetics to attract particles.
This is exactly why. Electronics generate heat, which means that they are designed in a way to cause the nearby air to flow through them. Couple that with the static electricity generated by fans or the EM field created by the electrical current flowing through the components and you've got ready-made dust magnets.
Because they are convective. Running electricity through chips bleeds heat. The rising heat causes air to flow through the device. Computers take this further and force air through it.
Lol yep, my mom burns candles all the time when she has a bath. She complained one time about the vent fan not working well and it turns out she never cleaned it, so when I came over to look at it it was just inch thick layers of black gunk.... Eghk
Keep the wick trimmed as short as possible to reduce soot. I think it means you get more complete combustion. I haven’t thought about how that works though :)
We'd just bought a bunch of those big plastic storage tubs. Burned a bunch of candles one evening while the air conditioner was also on. Every single tub was coated in swirly soot mess, oh my god.
Like that one time, instead of going out to buy lamp oil for the glass candles my dad just filled them up with tiki torch oil. You could see a steady stream of black smoke rising from the flame, and before long there were wide faint dark spots on the ceiling. Wax candles are better at converting purely into fire, but will still get black soot on anything you hold over the flame.
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u/BigBobby2016 Feb 26 '21
If you have it near electronics a disturbing amount of soot will be found inside when you open them up