Why isn't DIR universally metric?

[Geoff_H]

It's really amusing to see the level of resistance in the DIR community to a clearly superior system.

 

[Gombessa]

If you can form a one-to-one correspondence between all the cardinal numbers in Imperial Units (i.e. depth in feet) to their equivalents in ATA, then good for you Gombessa.

(For comparison, do the same for the metric equivalents and explain to us what you notice. . .)

It's pretty much the same from what I can see. 33, 66, 99, 132, 165, 198ft = 2, 3, 4, 5, 6ATA, respectively. And those I just know. With metric, you get per 10m, sure. But is depth to ATA really the main benefit we're talking about? First, roughly 3ATA per 100ft is pretty easy to keep in your head. Second, of all the "scuba math" involved in gas planning, fills and mixing, converting depth to ATA is by far the easiest thing you'll ever do, and the most memorizable; in fact I assume anyone who has been through Essentials or Fundies has drilled rock bottom/min-gas enough to know the depth-to-ATA numbers by heart for the ranges in which they dive. It's just, if I'm going to switch to metric, it has to confer greater benefit than just that, right?

 

[Kevrumbo]

If you can form a one-to-one correspondence between all the cardinal numbers in Imperial Units (i.e. depth in feet) to their equivalents in ATA, then good for you Gombessa.

(For comparison, do the same for the metric equivalents and explain to us what you notice. . .)

It's pretty much the same from what I can see. 33, 66, 99, 132, 165, 198ft = 2, 3, 4, 5, 6ATA, respectively. And those I just know. With metric, you get per 10m, sure. But is depth to ATA really the main benefit we're talking about? First, roughly 3ATA per 100ft is pretty easy to keep in your head. Second, of all the "scuba math" involved in gas planning, fills and mixing, converting depth to ATA is by far the easiest thing you'll ever do, and the most memorizable; in fact I assume anyone who has been through Essentials or Fundies has drilled rock bottom/min-gas enough to know the depth-to-ATA numbers by heart for the ranges in which they dive. It's just, if I'm going to switch to metric, it has to confer greater benefit than just that, right?

Here's a hint my friend:
http://www.scubaboard.com/forums/4956641-post24.html

There's nothing to "memorize" per se, it's just more intuitive, recognizable by inspection and quicker once you're comfortable working with depth in meters to pressure ATA conversions. . .

Another hint: how about looking at your depth in meters, and recognizing instantly what your ATA is, so you can multiply it by your pressure SCR and thus quickly determine your depth consumption rate (DCR)? [divide-by-ten then add 1???]

 

[GShockey]

It's really amusing to see the level of resistance in the DIR community to a clearly superior system.

A discussion between a few posters on Scubaboard is hardly representative of the DIR community......particularly considering that for GUE alone, membership is made up from 70 countries....

 

[rjack321]

A discussion between a few posters on Scubaboard is hardly representative of the DIR community......particularly considering that for GUE alone, membership is made up from 70 countries....

Not only that its a North American focused board, the heartland of imperial tanks and SPGs.

 

[rjack321]

Just taking a look at some of the gas planning threads at TDS (the "1/2 + 200" stuff) etc is a good example of a page after page of stuff that would be pretty much crystal clear in metric.

Even if this were a good idea (and its not) the fundamental discussion of 1/2 +200 for stages has nada to do with units of measure - its about where you keep your gas reserves, sprinkled throughout the cave little bits in various stages or consolidated in your backgas tanks.

 

[JeffG]

don't go to TDS to get gas planning advice.

Its a good place to find used gear though.

 

[lamont]

It's really amusing to see the level of resistance in the DIR community to a clearly superior system.

Sounds like all the Debian zealots I have to deal with at work who can't accept that RedHat is the defacto US corporate enterprise Linux distribution, like it or not...

Get the tank manufacturers to change. That's the biggest deal. Then I don't have to have the stupid arguments about if LP tanks are better than HP tanks because you can get a good fill from dive shops on the LPs (aided by the american mentality that a 2640 fill in an LP104 is better than a 300 psi fill in an HP130 because otherwise you're getting screwed out of what you paid for...).

And get Oracle to switch OEL to being debian/ubuntu based and I'll switch distros immediately...

 

[JeffG]

Sounds like all the Debian zealots I have to deal with at work who can't accept that RedHat is the defacto US corporate enterprise Linux distribution, like it or not...

Linux is still around? Who would of thunk.

 

[mikemill]

I don't think there is much hope of US diving (DIR or otherwise) moving to metric, not because of any merits of the imperial system rather than simple resistance to change.

Don't confuse resistance with indifference. I don't plan on switching systems because I don't want to change but because I have no motivation to do so. The system I use works perfectly well for me.