Posted by MHK on March 13, 2001 at 15:36:23:
In Reply to: dive stores selling computers without printed tables to go along posted by RaiderKarl on March 13, 2001 at 15:25:05:
Karl,
You are correct about the worries, and I think after you had an opportunity to review the site I sent you that may help, but if not e-mail me privately and we'll keep it going. That discussion may get too technical for this list..
The other thing is that you also hit the nail on the head about ancilliary issues that the blind reliance on computers doesn't factor in. Education got watered down in favor of convience and profit margin and if they got back to making classes more informative than they couldn't fit it in with a *family* vacation in Club Med, or Cayman. So the result is poorly trained diver's that barely know what the hell they are doing sent off with the encouragement to buy more classes, or buy expensive gadgets ( ie; computers) to make up for what we didn't get around to teaching you in your OW class..
And what has been increasingly frustrating on this list is that you have SOME on this list that last took a class 20 years ago ( when training actually meant something) advocating positions that have been long since denounced even if todays diver's were as trained as they were..
Moreover, advances in technology such as Nitrox have made diving safer, but yet again you have 20 year diver's denouncing the advance irrespective of the fact that commercial and military diver's have been using it for decades...
Your point about knowing/understanding which algorithm, which conservation factor etc. etc. is an often ignored point of view. I can't tell you how many diver's I see on the boat week in and week out that have no clue, some aren't even sure what the computer is telling them and we wind up explaining to them.
Later