Another Tables vs. Computers Thread

[The Chairman]

Allowing pride and/or arrogance to compel me to dive beyond the limits of my skill and knowledge is what could very well kill me. Is this the wrong attitude?

Amen Brother OhGo!

 

[MikeFerrara]

Not to annoy anyone, but, as a novice diver, I am still gaining skill and knowledge related to these new abilities. There are precious few ways to gain practical skill and knowledge other than to dive. Lack of skill and knowledge, in and of itself, will not kill me. Allowing pride and/or arrogance to compel me to dive beyond the limits of my skill and knowledge is what could very well kill me. Is this the wrong attitude?

Every one has to start somewhere. I just disagree with the starting place that the industry has chosen. How many times do we see a new OW diver say to their instructor "I'm still having trouble with this buoyancy control stuff" and the instructor answers, "You'll get it with experience". Maybe you will and maybe you won't. Maybe you have the tools you need to improve and maybe you just have a lot of handicaps. Maybe bouncing around in the water column will get you hurt and maybe it won't. I think they could get it a lot better in the pool before even going to open water. Well, no, I know they can. As far as I'm concerned, it's the pride and arrogance of the certification agencies putting new divers in a position where as a new certified diver, just about any dive they might do outside of a pool is beyond their limits. It's not only your own pride and arrogance that can get you hurt but also the pride and arrogance of others.

In most cases it doesn't get you hurt but it sure can make learning a lot of work and very frustrating at the least.

 

[blueeyes_austin]

Divers can spend a thousand bucks on a computer and take a class tailored to the use of that computer but we'll have the same old same old until they start teaching divers to control their position in the water...lots of divers popping to the surface from their 70 ft dives and some of them are going to get bent claiming thet the were within their table or computer. The thousand bucks would be better spent on an entry level diving course that really taught diving, IMO

And yet, if they used their computers properly, they provide immediate, continuous feedback on a safe rate of ascent.

 

[boomx5]

And yet, if they used their computers properly, they provide immediate, continuous feedback on a safe rate of ascent.

If someone has no in water skill, a computer isn't going to help.

 

[JeffG]

And yet, if they used their computers properly, they provide immediate, continuous feedback on a safe rate of ascent.

Does that computer control the divers BCD?

 

[MikeFerrara]

And yet, if they used their computers properly, they provide immediate, continuous feedback on a safe rate of ascent.

Make no mistake. As they pop to the surface their computers are beeping like crazy giving plenty of feedback.

You can use a computer to guage ascent rate just as you can an old fashioned deth guage and watch. Either way though, you have to be able to control it or the feedback isn't going to do you much good.

 

[The Chairman]

Does that computer control the divers BCD?

No, but the tables sure have them, don't they?

Why blame the dive computer for a diver's lack of skill? This is nothing but a red herring put out by a few. At worst it is nothing more than a fallacious appeal to fear. Unless of course, you can prove that table divers have better buoyancy skills than computer divers.

Using a watch and a depth gauge is FAR MORE TASK LOADING than just the ascent rate. I would say it's over 4 times as much (two instruments plus the mental gymnastics) task loading that may lead to a less than timely adjustment on the BC. But that's what the novice diver needs, right? Let's add even MORE task loading!

 

[Soggy]

You spin me right round, baby right round, like a record, baby right round round round.

 

[JeffG]

Why blame the dive computer for a diver's lack of skill?

Can't blame the computer...just the instructor.

 

[tedtim]

Can't blame the computer...just the instructor.

Nah, its the manuals (both for the courses and for the computer)