It’s hard to quit smoking. Trust us, we know. Half the battle is wanting to quit in the first place. Once you do, the other half is mostly fighting with yourself until enough time goes by that food tastes better, and life looks longer.
[Danko] recently quit smoking. And because idle hands are Big Tobacco’s tools, he kept himself busy through those torturous first few days by building a piece of pocket-sized motivation. This little board’s main purpose is to help him root for himself by showing the time elapsed since his final cigarette, the number of cigarettes he has avoided, and all the money he’s saved since then. At the press of a button, he can reflect on the exact moment he took the plunge into Cold Turkey Lake.
Sure, there are apps that’ll do the same thing. But anyone who’s ever tried to quit smoking knows how important it is to stay busy every minute while your brain deals with the lack of toxins. It runs on an ATtiny85 and a DS1307 RTC chip. Looks to us like [Danko] adapted a board from a different project, and we love it when that’s a possibility.
Not a smoker? Good for you. The next hardest thing humans motivate themselves to do is exercise. That’s a lifelong battle that can definitely be improved with some gamification.
Imagine if Kester snuck nicotine into their solder. So many people would be jonesing for their maker fix and not know why. Imagine what people might create!
krusty the clown from simpsons did almost that, he infected the children soup with nicotine :)
Don’t forget about the Tomacco, http://simpsons.wikia.com/wiki/Tomacco
Kudos for quitting, I know how hard it can be. Hardest part for me was kicking my cigarette and coffee habit. I found that the nicotine mints helped me tremendously during the work day, coworkers can really make you want a smoke, but for some reason a mint flavored lozenge doesn’t really pair well with coffee…
Its weird when you notice smells again, not to mention the first time you smell a cigarette and it grosses you out
Is that a 100puf capacitor I see?
Love the cost totalling row on this.
Even without the positive health benefits, quitting (heavy)(tobacco) smoking will pay you back with a pretty good new car every decade.
I smoked for 30 years and then, listened to a stop smoking audio book on youtube done by an English fellow where he said go ahead and smoke while listening. I did and, after the 6 hour program was over, I have never had another cigarette or nicotine of any kind and it has been 3 years now. I was at 1.5 packs/day yet the withdrawal symptoms were minimal just like he said. I believe that fellow’s name was Allen Carr. I believe youtube took that video down after a bit. I did not gain much weight (10 pounds, which I lost 6 months later) and I do not miss smoking at all. If you really want to quit, find this guys book and either read it, or listen to it.
I used to do smokeless tobacco, AKA snus in the Nordic countries. That way I could spend the entire day taking in the nicotine, I did that for around 5 years.
Then I picked up Allen Carr’s book by accident on a visit on a holiday once and read through the thing in one go. I was curious to see what a book could offer for nicotine addiction, what could be so good about some paperback right?
Well, after I finished the book, I quit tobacco right then and there even when I had zero thoughts of doing so before. It just wasn’t logical to continue anymore, if that makes sense. Pretty good book IMO!
Could be adapted for drinking, swearing, voting, etc.
Vote early, vote often!
B^)
$4 per pack? Wow that’s expensive. Here in eastern Poland I can buy a pack of russian cigarettes for about $1.5 (5 PLN).
$4 Lol… The price of cigarettes in the UK is nearer $14…
I was struck (no pun intended -really!) by the “pats pocket” comment.
A former classmate once went out in a blizzard because he’d run out of cigarettes and bought a pack.
But, realizing how stupid it was to go out into the blizzard because of an addiction; instead of smoking any of the cigarettes, he’d just pat the pocket the pack was in. And that is how he stopped smoking.
(Now he has a pocket patting addiction, but never mind that…B^)