Why do computers rot the brain?

[zboss]

How MUCH physical activity is to much? Is lifting my dive gear after a dive into the boat too much? I have a boat with a ladder which requires me to either climb on board with my equipment on (rather than having a platform), or take the BC off in the water then climb on board and pull it in.

Also- what TYPE of exercise causes microbubbles? I believe there are two different kinds of muscles - fast-twitch and slow-twitch. Is one muscle responsible for causing microbubbles vs. another?

 

[ScoobieDooo]

I'm afraid I'd have to agree with UP on this one...I just recently sold my Nitrox computer and went back to a Bottom Timer, for several reasons...

1) Computers can and do fail...my DELL desktop's hard drive died in less than 1 year after I bought it. Imagine your comp dying just before your deco stop.

2) As our Chemistry teacher says, the calculator has gotten people so they can no longer use their brains w/o these tools.

3) Cost - I can buy 2 Bottom Timers for the price of a low-end computer and still have a back up in the event of an emergency.

4) You have to ask yourself- whether your DIR or not - WHY would a group of professional divers to dive to extremes use a BT vs. a computer? What is it that THEY know?

5) Simplicity - my comp has SO much stuff in the display that I had to keep watching it upon ascent vs. my BT which is SO much simpler to use. I spent more time 'playing' with my comp than seeing stuff while diving!

 

[scubatexastony]

ScoobieDooo once bubbled...
I'm afraid I'd have to agree with UP on this one...I just recently sold my Nitrox computer and went back to a Bottom Timer, for several reasons...

1) Computers can and do fail...my DELL desktop's hard drive died in less than 1 year after I bought it. Imagine your comp dying just before your deco stop.

2) As our Chemistry teacher says, the calculator has gotten people so they can no longer use their brains w/o these tools.

3) Cost - I can buy 2 Bottom Timers for the price of a low-end computer and still have a back up in the event of an emergency.

4) You have to ask yourself- whether your DIR or not - WHY would a group of professional divers to dive to extremes use a BT vs. a computer? What is it that THEY know?

5) Simplicity - my comp has SO much stuff in the display that I had to keep watching it upon ascent vs. my BT which is SO much simpler to use. I spent more time 'playing' with my comp than seeing stuff while diving!

1) That bottom timer digital? My main died? oh, backup is on the right wrist.
2) I used to do cogo with the trig tables..... until they invented the handheld computer (calculator)
3) That's why you have a backup computer/timer/depth guage. I'd rather spend my money on another computer than flaunt a high end wrist watch......6 bucks at Wallys....keeps good time.
4) They hopefully have training in the type of deco diving they are doing!
5) MAYBE what you're using is applicable to your diving. I have but to glance at either right wrist or A/I to see what I need. Granted it's a digital SPG if you will, more apt to "fail" than an analog, but there's one in the bag should that happen....end the dive, hook up the SPG and have fun.

There's such a grand following of DIR in so much that I feel not many new students (or even so-called experienced divers) can actually work the tables on the fly, until they are baptised by GUE. Kinda funny all the IT guys are swearing that computers rot your brain.....for me, I'll use everything that's available to me to keep checks on my profile.

dive safe,
tony

 

[lisa mc]

So then, Should I buy a computer or what ?

 

[Uncle Pug]

lisa mc once bubbled...
So then, Should I buy a computer or what ?

?

 

[neil]

nradov once bubbled...

Mike,
All I have tried to do in this thread is introduce everyone to a superior method for handling open water dives.
-Nick

With all due respect, Nick, you've done nothing of the sort. You've certainly alluded to the method, but provided nary a clue as to how it's used. You can belittle us for being clueless, but nothing was taught. Sorry, but I slogged all the way through this thread for this? I want my magic decoder ring!
Neil

 

[Uncle Pug]

...where would you like it shipped Neil?

Seriously... you can learn this wet with a downloadable dive computer... or dry with simulation software (like GAP) that allows you to see the theoretical tissue compartments fill and empty.

Do (wet or dry) a multilevel dive and pay attention to what happens as you go deeper and stay longer and what happens when you ascend and spend time shallower.

The same thing happens when you are diving even if you do not have the computer on your wrist or the desk top running at home.

******

Personally and recreationally speaking now... nothing to do with DIR or GUE:
I don't use a computer... and I don't use tables either... tables are for square profiles.

I dive conservatively.... I keep the shape of my profile away from the square right out to the *limit* profile.

Most of my dives when graphed look like a check mark with a flat spot at the bottom of the check and the bigger that "flat spot" the longer I make the "handle".... which is curve rather than straight.

In other words I spend time shallow.... especially if I have been deeper.

I do very slow controlled final ascents.

I dive EAN32 but count it as air (still within the MOD of course.)

 

[MikeFerrara]

No doubt that if one makes an effort they can develop a feel for what they are doing even with more complex (staged decompression dives). As an excersize the other night I even proved to my wife (she needed profe) that with her using the PADI tables and reading them sideways to calculate a multilevel prifile and me doing it in my head I could nail it within a presure group. I was able to do it even for a repetative dive. I new the NDL for the second dive within a couple of minutes and the ending presure group (within a group) after the dive. To do this only requires some simple math and some prior knowledge of the tables and certain patterns that occure in them. When actually diving I doubt I would bother with the calculations. I was just proving a point to my wife who didn't think I could do it.

Where I have always gotten hung up on this has been when some one suggests to others that a computer isn't required to calculate a series of multilevel dives but never really says how. Another problem or question I have with it is how would one teach it? To suggest that one is better off being aware of their profile and what it means is one thing but I think it's another to suggest they ditch the tables or computer or use them in a mannor that isn't recommended by those who developed them. Keep in mind that it's one thing to make a statement on a board and another for an instructor to make that same statement especially to a student. I couldn't imagine a faster way to get in the very deepest stuff imaginable that to tell students to ignore the instructions at the bottom of their dive tables.

I am wide open to ideas, comments and suggestions.

 

[Doof]

1) Computers can and do fail...my DELL desktop's hard drive died in less than 1 year after I bought it. Imagine your comp dying just before your deco stop.

There's a world of difference between a PC and a dive computer. PC's crash because you have one operating system trying to run on a nearly infinite number of hardware configurations. Dive computers don't suffer from this problem. You also have to take into account that a hard drive has all sorts of moving parts that have to be in just the exact right place at the right time or you will experience failure. A single human hair is an enormous obstacle in regards to the distance between a read head and the platter in a hard drive. A dive computer is all solid state, so doesn't suffer from those problems either.

That's not to say that dive computers don't fail. Of course they do. But comparing them to your home PC is a useless argument for the reasons I listed above. ANY timing device can fail. You don't honestly think that your digital bottom timer isn't a computer, do you? It's just doing one or two less calculations (deco \ o2 exposure) than your bottom timer.

Potential failure is a really lousy reason to argue against a computer. Ask any of the bottom timer divers around here what they do if their bottom timer fails. Chances are their response will be something along the lines of "I pay attention to my dive profile". They keep a running image of their profile in their head while the dive progresses. If the bottom timer fails, then they can resort to their own internal timer to make a safe exit.

The same could be done with a dive computer. UP himself uses a dive computer. It's just in guage mode. Surely if dive computers had a larger failure rate than bottom timers, he wouldn't touch that thing, would he?

The argument against dive computers really doesn't have anything to do with failure. It's that they encourage you to stop thinking. You stop keeping track of the dive because the computer is doing it for you. It keeps track of your deco obligation and ascent rate. It encourages complacency. That's not to say you WILL become complacent or that you WILL stop paying attention while using a computer, but it's certainly easier to do than if you've been diligent about tracking your dives on your own.

It's only when you rely 100% on the computer that a failure can be a problem. If I were using a bottom timer but didn't look at it regularly, so I didn't have any idea of my dive time or my depth, than a bottom timer failure could be just as disastrous.

 

[raybo]

if you looked at the definition of a "computer" in the dicitionary it referred to a person, not a mchine as we know it today.

It's simply an object that take input, calculates/processes info & spitsit back out.

The human brain is still the best computer invented. Anyone out ther want to trust any so called "computer" to the task of analyzing the complicted process simply crossing heavy traffic. think about it. It's actually a very complicated physic problem. YOu have numerous projectiles (cars) travel in opposing directions, at varying rates of acceleration & veolicity, and you have to be able to judge the potential accelaration abilty of you vehicle from a dead stop.

I've been watchin UP's posts abut his Tuesday dives. A couple of weeks ago, I was with an instuctor. I was actually just there to fill the final requirement for my Resue Cert, and it was on land, so I didn't actually have to get in the water, but that was a
snowball's chance in you know where of happening.

So I ended up just helping out a bit with his students (2) to make sure they didn't get into trouble (another story there!).

Anyway, it worked out that I didn't really "need" to use the computer. In between watching the students, I was really trying to work on trim & buoancy, and (Ohhh!) wasn't really paying much attention to the guages. At one point when I realized this, I tried to guess how much air I had left, and was within a couple hundred pounds.

FWIW, I think UP's got it pretty much right. After a while you can (and do) get a pretty good feel for where you are, and if you dive the right profile, can stay out of trouble.