Why should I support my LDS?

[tregrrr]

That is a terrible analogy. In space there is no hospitable habitat you can get to easily if your equipment fails. In OW that is not the case - you can swim for the surface, which is doable in dives to recreational limits.

so what?? how are you able to go exploring in space OR underwater?? LIFE SUPPORT


try doing a CESA from 100' after 20 minutes bottom time and see how you feel in the morning. I know we train with doing it from a full breath of air from 20'-30', but just for fun and to prove a point, start at the bottom with your lungs empty such as would be the case if:

your octo got caught on something and is now missing the diaphragm and grill. (I have found those on the bottom at sites before; made for interesting speculations on the boat later) and for whatever reason your primary' fails completely too.

the chances of both happening on the same dive are slim, but people still play the lottery

In overhead, one carries redundancy, which should make it near impossible to be left without equipment that can get them back to OW and the surface, when used correctly.

oh wait and your redundant gear is is more equipment of what variety?? LIFE SUPPORT thank you

As I said earlier, equipment failure in and of itself, does not cause people to die. It is one's response to this equipment failure that kills one or not. If my reg stops working, there are MANY options for me to take, in order to save my life.

Even in space I imagine they have redundancy up to the eye balls. But if it all fails, it is not comparable to the ocean.

umm, alright, the point that I was supporting with the analogy was that you cannot go into either environment without equipment that provides you with the conditions that your human body requires in order ro remain alive.

If you can escape one, but not another hostile environment back into your native one under your own steam that's great. Really it is. But you also are definitely NOT STAYING in either inhospitable one without the LIFE SUPPORT equipment which was my original point.

 

[Sas]

trgerrr, if I thought like you I don't think I'd be able to get in the water because of so much worry over equipment failing. Don't be dependent on your equipment working all the time to survive a dive, you have to know how to get out of situations yourself.

If I die whilst diving where there is equipment failure, this will be my fault in 99.999999% of the cases, not the equipment's fault, hence I do not see it as "life support"

I can see that we have different definitions of life support though.

 

[tregrrr]

Here is the problem. If a regulator is life support and life support is essential to prevent death, why don't divers die when their regulator fails???

I am pretty sure they do sometimes. As far as "preventing death" I am sure that if you invented something that could do that, you would never have to worry about the prices paid for scuba equipment; you would be beyond rich!!!

Scuba gear does not even try to prevent death, but rather allow life in a situation or location where it would otherwise be untenible... it supports life, not assures. Thats what the fountain of youth is for.

my uncle had the drive wheels of a loaded 60 ton truck roll onto his chest last june, breaking 11 ribs and tearing/deflating both lungs. He was alone and it took 23 hours to push the truck off himself and drive himself 10 miles to a hospital. Sometimes it is people's responses in adverse situations that dictate their survivability. The doctors still can't figure out why he is alive. Some people have the desire or fight in them to defy ALL odds




can we agree that the regs give you air to breathe in an environment you would not otherwise be able to breathe in?? PLEASE??

 

[tregrrr]

/me walks away shaking head

how does a discussion about economics degrade into people fixated on death??

oh yeah... i was stupid enough to use an example of suppliers labeling something in such a manner as to create MASSIVE EMOTIONAL RESPONSE and thereby increase the Percieved Value of their product amongst the consumer group

 

[Sas]

can we agree that the regs give you air to breathe in an environment you would not otherwise be able to breathe in?? PLEASE??

You are making an obvious point and then asking people to agree with it so it appears that people are conceding to your argument, when in fact this comment has nothing to do with the point you have being trying to make.

I will not support this style of argument.

Therefore, I can breathe water when my regs fail, no big deal. Haven't you seen the Abyss?

 

[Deep South Divers]

Can you see how a space suit provides "life support" to an astronaut? In space, it is completely hostile to human existence right?? In a sub-marine environment, until we develop viable gills or some other method of O₂/CO₂ exchange, that too is completely hostile to humans. Have a look at the definition given by Oxford dictionary for LIFE SUPPORT:

Sorry, y'all, but I'm going to have to agree with this analogy. Perhaps it's more obvious to those who are diving in hard overhead (caves, wrecks) and staged decompression diving. But whether it's obvious or not, it's still the case. The bottom line is that without the equipment, you die.

Okay, so depending on the nature of the dive, a diver facing a catastrophic failure of an important component of his life support may have options - like swimming to the surface or borrowing someone else's life support equipment. But it's still life support, much in the same way that a parachute is life support equipment to the skydiver. Just 'cause he's got a reserve 'chute doesn't make the system any less "life support."

No we shouldn't have to pay through the nose just because it is 'life-supporting' equipment, but the economists among us (pointing at the guy who writes REALLY REALLY long posts) have explained the supply and demand paradigm shift already.

Yeah, who IS that guy? Hate that long poster...

THE LDS WHO SURVIVE WILL BE THE ONES THAT CHANGE IN ORDER TO BEST ADDRESS THE NEEDS OF THEIR CUSTOMERS, NOT THE ONES WHO EXPECT THEIR CUSTOMERS TO ADDRESS THEIR NEEDS.

+1! Anyone who thinks otherwise is sadly disillusioned. Markets - including pricing, demand, product innovation, and the works... Are totally controlled by the consumer. It continues to astound me that a manufacturer (actually, a distributor) enacts (sometimes illegally) price controls. Not only is it fruitless, but it places the retailer in a really bad position because he often can't sell an item below a set price, even when that's what the market (consumer) demands.

These are the basics in business. It should not surprise, then, that the industry is in upheval when clearly, what's being practiced is something besides business basics.

I missed making an m-quote on the post about the guy who services and compresses. 8$ fills and service for regs no matter where/who sold them. No BellyAching about online sales... that guy, despite having been in the business for 30 years, is on the forefront of where our industry has to go.

Absolutely!

My air fills are $10. For that price, though, the client gets healthy breathing gas without any shortcuts. They also get fills, two tanks at a time, in five minutes or less - cold. Yes, I could probably sell the fills for less, but at some point, it'd be a sacrifice - either the quality or the speed of fills would decrease. My business model bets that people will pay a couple of extra bucks per fill to have good, quality, reliable gas literally "on tap."

I kind of think the future diveshop will be service and airfill centered.

Yep. What else could a dive shop offer?

I think that there will also be some big internet retailers like Leisurepro and Scubatoys. Some dive shops will thrive in that way, too... By embracing the Internet and joining the paradigm shift, rather than complain about it.

By far, though, the LDSs business plan for the next decade should include air fills, "emergency" purchases, and service.

...but the biggest winners in the whole shift are going to be UPS and Visa.

...And the Federal and Local Governments, who first take an average of about 30% of someone's revenues, then generally take another 6% - 8% at the time of sale.

Change is difficult for the vast majority of human beings to accept much less embrace.

Difficult but inevitable none the less.

Yep, another big study in my upper level management courses. Even "good" change causes an amazing amount of stress in most people.

 

[Sas]

Sorry, y'all, but I'm going to have to agree with this analogy. Perhaps it's more obvious to those who are diving in hard overhead (caves, wrecks) and staged decompression diving. But whether it's obvious or not, it's still the case. The bottom line is that without the equipment, you die.

That is what redundancy is for. Yes, everything could fail at once, but that is highly unlikely.

As I said, I think it comes down to different ideas of what "life support" means, which becomes a semantics discussion and thus uninteresting.

I agree with the points about the future of LDSs.

 

[Deep South Divers]

Therefore, I can breathe water when my regs fail, no big deal. Haven't you seen the Abyss?

LOL! Funny.

Actually, what he was breathing WASN'T water... It was a "fluid" that held enough oxygen in it to allow the lungs to function anyway.

...And yes, the stuff really does exist, and yes, it does work. Unfortunately, it also causes permanent pnemonia, from which 100% of testers died.

...But it sure did make for a cool story.

For what it's worth, the recirculating liquid system was also considered LIFE SUPPORT.

 

[Deep South Divers]

That is what redundancy is for. Yes, everything could fail at once, but that is highly unlikely.

As I said, I think it comes down to different ideas of what "life support" means, which becomes a semantics discussion and thus uninteresting.

Yeah, maybe that's the issue.

I don't see why, though, the definition of "life support" should change as an individual has options.

For example, should an astronaut NOT consider his spaceship "life support" if he's wearing a spacesuit inside of the spaceship? Okay, if something happens to either his suit or his ship, then he's got redundancy... So then either the ship or the suit shouldn't be considered "life support?"

...What if he's in a suit, in a ship, which is docked inside of a massive hangar of some sort - still on the Earth? Since he's quadruple-redundant, which of these things should no longer be considered "life support?"

To me, redundancy - or, "what options you have when the fit hits the shan" doesn't make any "life support" item lose it's definition as "life support."

Likewise, I don't feel that the gas on my back is any less "life support" when I'm diving in 30 feet of water with two other guys that also have available, backup "life support" systems.

Perhaps your definition of "life support" is a matter of criticality for you. Perhaps we're all agreeing on this same premise, it's just that our opinion of "criticality" is different from yours.

 

[Sas]

It is more that I think equipment failure shouldn't result in a death of a diver. That's mainly why I don't see it as "life support".