12 meter procedure - any good?

[boulderjohn]

On one side, you have this printed material, but this federation has been clever by using a ring binder, so new insights could be incorporated by changing only a few pages at minimal costs.
Then, there are the powerpoints, which can be changed quickly and for free.

Yes, using the right technology, changes can occur very quickly. A couple decades ago I was in charge of our school district's instructional services website. One day a call was directed to me by a guy who was having trouble making a link work. I looked at it, and about 5 seconds later I told him to hit "Refresh" and try again. He did, and it worked. He said, "So if it doesn't work, I just have to hit refresh?" I laughed and confessed that in those few seconds I had corrected the error. That is all it takes to fix online resources.

But for some reason that doesn't seem to happen in scuba. When I was certified as a TDI trimix diver, I had to take exams for both the regular trimix course and the advanced trimix course. One exam was 10 years old, and the other was 12 years old. They both had mistakes on them. They were both downloaded from the website in MS Word format, and that is how I took the exams. Those errors had stayed on those exams for at least a decade, even though they could have been fixed in a matter of seconds and at no cost whatsoever. My instructor knew about the errors, and he could have fixed them himself (or at least told me about them) when he gave me the exam.

 

[RobPNW]

Here is an article by David Doolette: Gradient Factors in a Post-Deep Stops World
Here is an article I wrote a couple years ago: Evolving Thought on Deep Decompression Stops

Both of those deal with decompression diving, and NDL diving is different.

In NDL diving, the first GF is pretty meaningless, unless you violate those NDLs. After that, it is a matter of your decision as to how close you want to come to the limits. Remember first that the "limits" are not a bright line between safe and unsafe. If you dive to those limits, you should be pretty safe. The second GF tells you how close you are coming to those limits.

I am an older diver myself, and I am pretty cautious. When I am doing an NDL dive, I set my computer for a GF high of 85, but I generally stay in the water on a safety stop until I get a SurfGF number in the 70 range.

I'm pretty inexperienced and don't plan to be in a deco situation unless I do something stupid or something goes badly wrong. I'll read the guidance but probably figure out on the computer how to set a moderate conservatism, not live in fear but not push the edge either.

 

[boulderjohn]

I'm pretty inexperienced and don't plan to be in a deco situation unless I do something stupid or something goes badly wrong. I'll read the guidance but probably figure out on the computer how to set a moderate conservatism, not live in fear but not push the edge either.

Good plan. Each computer brand has a different way of adding conservatism. Just decide what is in your comfort zone.