Why the dislike of air integrated computers?

[dmaziuk]

Judging by the number of people I see filling containers at petrol stations here, running out of fuel is not uncommon either.

All analogies suck. For instance, you're of course aware of the existence of lawnmovers, chainsaws, blowtorches, and a whole lot of other stuff driven by infernal combustion.

 

[RJP]

Ironically, I feel less sure of my own total knowledge and ability than I did 600-700 dives ago, and I look forward to every opportunity to continue my education.

As I always tell students "I wish I knew as much now -- after ~1,000 dives -- as I thought I knew after 100 dives."

 

[stuartv]

You know, I'm treating you with respect and answering your posts. This sort of flippant, mocking language, especially from a very inexperienced diver, makes me feel like you don't respect the sport.

I know that you are a rightfighter, and that's OK, I do that myself sometime. I think that you are worth engaging with because you actually care enough about diving to have learned a lot of theory in your short dive career, and I respect that.

But this stuff is just trolling, and you know it. Maybe I'm just sensitive since I lost a very good friend on a dive last week. You really should tone down the arrogance. The idea of killed on a dive isn't just a rhetorical tool. It really happens, and accident analysis often shows that it starts with this sort of attitude.

Stuart, I am going to echo and reinforce doctormike on this point. I made an oblique reference to this a few days ago, I believe in another thread, and you laughed that off in a mocking tone as well.

Gentleman,

I would like to offer you both my apologies. I see that my recent response was flippant and mocking and that was inappropriate. In my mind, at the time, the audience for that part of my response not you - and that was not right of me. Again, I apologize for the statement and the tone. Beyond that, I don't think this is the time or thread to address my history on SB.

doctormike, I tried to convey this earlier and I'll reiterate now, I really do appreciate that you are taking my posts at face value and responding in kind, rather than bashing me for trolling (which is truly not my intent) and refusing to engage in a productive conversation.

With regard to post 520, if you re-read it, you will see that I specifically prefaced "I might very well proceed with the dive," with "if I were diving a profile like that." And I meant just exactly that. IF I were diving a dive that has a profile just like one of the ones I already know (and I don't just mean max depth, when I say "profile"), and that's a notable and meaningful IF, then I MIGHT continue the dive. I didn't say I WOULD. And I also said "continue". I didn't say I would "start" the dive. I feel like I've ended up in several debates here on SB where someone read a statement I made and then assumed more than what I said, which then became a source of disagreement. I'm not sure why I end up with the label argumentative in those cases. But anyway...


So, circling back, there was a statement that a failed HP hose or a failed AI transmitter would end your dive either way, so neither offers an advantage. Again I say that, to me anyway, the AI transmitter does offer an advantage because it at least offers the opportunity to continue a dive - with no SPG, but without leaking all your air away - which a diver can choose to take advantage of, or not. And I can foresee possible scenarios that I think I would continue. Thus, for me, anyway, AI offers an advantage.

2 computers and 2 SPGs is even better. And for the price you can get a Computer/SPG console nowadays, it seems like cheap dive insurance, to me.

---------- Post added August 3rd, 2015 at 01:48 PM ----------

If you choose to ignore the advice of experienced and highly trained divers, that is your choice.

I do want to respond briefly to this. A post on SB is not a dive. Asserting or implying that I have been ignoring the advice of anyone here is, I think, largely without any basis in truth. I am aware of 2 occasions (that I can think of, mind you - maybe there's more?) where I have "ignored" the advice of more experienced folks. The first was dive #s 5 and 6 for me after my OW cert. I did 2 cenote dives in Mexico after being told by some experts here that I absolutely should not do that with so little experience. I did them. My dive buddy that day was an experienced tech diver (Adv Trimix + CCR) who followed behind me through both dives - with a big, fancy camera rig. I never kicked up any silt. I never touched the ceiling, the floor, or any walls. I shot video with my GoPro with one hand while shining a light to illuminate my video subject with the other, through much of both dives. I have pictures from my buddy behind me showing me in horizontal trim, in midwater (not near the ceiling or floor), and frog kicking my way along. I met that dive buddy on that trip, but ended up diving together 2 different days and he thought enough of me that he's now booked a trip to come over from England next Spring so we can dive some wrecks together off the Outer Banks. I feel vindicated in ignoring that piece of advice.

The other advice was that I should absolutely not start the course for Intro to Tech/Advanced Nitrox/Decompression Procedures now, with the limited experience I have. Well, I am ignoring that advice too, but only time will tell whether it is a bad decision. Maybe time will not tell that it was bad and the advice givers will just conclude that I got supremely lucky.

But, I couldn't help thinking just earlier today about the thread on taking OW training back to more like it used to be. I have read that back in the "old days" OW training took 6 - 8 weeks and included the stuff that is now part of Rescue and also included Decompression. Well, by the time I finish AN/DP, I believe I will have also finished Rescue and I will have more training time and experience - and way more actual open water dives - than anyone that was coming out of one of those OW courses back in the day. So, if it was okay for people back then to come out of OW and be doing compression dives, why is not okay for me to be start AN+DP now? The only difference I can see is that Nitrox wasn't part of the deal back then. Maybe gas switches weren't, either. Are those two differences really enough to justify "the old way was good", and also "you shouldn't do this now without a lot more experience"?

Other than those two times of ignoring advice, I think I have asked a LOT of Devil's Advocate questions. I have certainly riled up a lot of people by questioning their statements. And, as far as I can tell, the ones that get the most riled are the ones that are least able to articulate a statement of facts to support what they said. I'm not ignoring them and I'm not saying they're wrong. But, I have often said that the statements they have posted do not, logically, support the conclusion they have asserted. I want to understand. I don't want to accept on faith. My background is math, logic and computability. Give me the facts and explain how they connect together and I will be happy. But, assert a conclusion, throw out some statements of "why" that don't actually hang together to produce that conclusion, and I'm going to question what you said - until I understand it, or you accuse me of being argumentative and walk away. And, honestly, I think a lot of the time the statements I'm questioning are correct. But, the support offered ends up being based on so much information that the person just assumes is understood that the statements actually made do not support the conclusion, when evaluated by someone like me who has not, yet, "forgotten more about diving than you'll ever know."

I have worked as a teacher before (not of scuba stuff). I feel like 9 times out of 10, when an "expert" explains something to a "newb" and the newb doesn't get it, it's not the newb's fault... Certainly, when I am teaching something, if the person doesn't get it, I take it to mean that I haven't explained it well enough - not that they are being argumentative or ignoring me.


Doh! So much for the "briefly" part... :-\

 

[doctormike]

Gentleman,

I would like to offer you both my apologies. I see that my recent response was flippant and mocking and that was inappropriate. In my mind, at the time, the audience for that part of my response not you - and that was not right of me. Again, I apologize for the statement and the tone. Beyond that, I don't think this is the time or thread to address my history on SB.

Thanks for the apologies. As far as your (or anyone else's) history on SB, it is quite relevant. Let me explain why.

Like it or not, this is a community. We discuss things, just like we might in person. While you can certainly conceal your true identity, use a sock-puppet, and fake your dive count, by posting regularly from one account the other members of the community get to know you. Just like I respond differently to my son telling me something than I might to a random person in the street, who you are is relevant here.

That can be a good thing, actually. The posts of people who regularly give helpful, thoughtful replies are often given more credence than those of "seagull posters", who fly in, make one post and crap all over everyone. People who are not anonymous (like many of the dive professionals here) are often respected even more, since they have to put their real reputations on the line.

As a member of this community, none of your posts are in a vacuum. People remember stuff about you, good and bad. That's what "reputation" is about in the real world, and that's what it is about here...

 

[knotical]

... While you can certainly ... use a sock-puppet, ...

however, from the ScubaBoard Terms of Service at: http://www.scubaboard.com/forums/misc.php?do=showrules

The creation of multiple accounts ("sock puppets") for one person is prohibited and grounds for suspension.

 

[dmaziuk]

Well... I'd say you're wrong only in that I think pretty much any rational diver would end the dive if a HP hose blows. But, that is not necessarily the case for a dead AI transmitter. Example: ...

You should've gone after the unstated assumption that there's no spg. The case where I continue the dive with a dead ai transmitter is where I have one. QED.

 

[RJP]

I feel like 9 times out of 10, when an "expert" explains something to a "newb" and the newb doesn't get it, it's not the newb's fault... Certainly, when I am teaching something, if the person doesn't get it, I take it to mean that I haven't explained it well enough - not that they are being argumentative or ignoring me.

I think that's true in cases where the "newb" genuinely doesn't understand what is being conveyed. However, when a person argues for a contrary position from a position of ignorance/naivete - or more commonly simply rejects the offered advice out of hand because it isn't what they wanted to hear - there's not much that the "teacher" can do to help that person.

As Steven Covey suggests in one of his famous "7 Habits of Highly Effective People"

 

[dmoore19]

Your choice. However, if I lose my method of measuring my tank pressure, I am going to end the dive. You may think differently and that is your decision. On a recreational dive, such as I do, I would surface and resolve the issue before diving again.

Well... I'd say you're wrong only in that I think pretty much any rational diver would end the dive if a HP hose blows. But, that is not necessarily the case for a dead AI transmitter.

Example: I know my own RMV and performance with my HP120 tanks and I have experience with dive profiles where I know that I am going to hit my NDL before my tank drops below 1000 psi. If I were diving a profile like that, if I got in the water and noticed that my AI was no longer telling me my tank pressure - but I know (from a pre-dive check) that my tank is full, I might very well proceed with the dive without "knowing" my tank pressure during the dive (and likely planning to give myself some extra margin on my NDL - i.e. get out well before it goes to 0).

So, to me, hoseless AI actually offers an advantage. It's not a "makes no difference" situation.

 

[stuartv]

I think that's true in cases where the "newb" genuinely doesn't understand what is being conveyed. However, when a person argues for a contrary position from a position of ignorance/naivete

What exactly is the difference between not understanding what is being conveyed and questioning (I won't say arguing) from a position of ignorance?

If I have a student "arguing" (to use your term) with me from a position of ignorance, that tells me exactly that they have not understood what I was conveying to them - so I need to try again (probably with a different approach).

Here's an example where I think people construed me being argumentative: Discussion of buoyancy. My position (at the time): My buoyancy is fine. I'm having no trouble staying at the depth I want, and in horizontal trim. That was my ignorance causing me to question - for example - why I should not go into a cenote.

Did anyone ever explain the following? The reason my buoyancy is not as good as I thought is because saying buoyancy is hard is actually shorthand for saying that maintaining your buoyancy while you're actually focusing on doing something else (e.g. deploying and inflating an SMB, or tying off a guideline) is what is hard. No. The experts did not actually articulate that. I had to figure it out for myself. So, was I questioning from a position of ignorance? Yes. Was I not understanding what was being conveyed? Yes. Why was I not understanding? Because what was being conveyed did not make sense without additional explanation that was not provided. It only made sense to the people who already knew the answer. In that scenario, is the student being contrary and argumentative? Or is the teacher doing a poor job?

Don't get me wrong. I appreciate the time (ANY time) you experienced people are willing to take to explain stuff to me. But, I also think I have gotten a bad rep for exactly the above example - happening multiple times on different subjects. I keep asking questions until the "teacher" gets pissed because it's all so obvious and I'm refusing to accept it. All the other experts see it and they decide I'm an argumentative butthead, too, because the "teacher's" explanation makes perfect sent to them, too. Yet you've all forgotten more about diving that I'll ever know, so none of you are in touch enough with a newbie's point of view as to see why it doesn't make sense to the newbie. Therefore, the newbie who won't just take your word for it must be a contrary, argumentative butthead.

 

[phoenix31tt]

If I was having the same problem all the time and the only common denominator is me... then i'd prolly check myself... just look at your last couple sentences

"Yet you've all forgotten more about diving that I'll ever know, so none of you are in touch enough with a newbie's point of view as to see why it doesn't make sense to the newbie. Therefore, the newbie who won't just take your word for it must be a contrary, argumentative butthead."

some of these guys are instructors who deal with newbie's on an everyday bases... but you say that non of them are in touch enough wiht a newbie's point of view... i beg to differ... i'm sure many other newbie's beg to differ as well...


...i haven't seen you reusing to accept advice because you don't understand... on the contrary... you understand... you just don't agree because it's not what you want to hear... and i think that's the type of person RJP was alluding to...