Zero to Hero? The Good ole' Days? You can't please anyone!

[DCBC]

Oh come on Wayne, don't be such a kill joy.

If CD didn't like the poll he could have deleted it. I just added it as a joke. Changing the rules would have been modifying your poll without your permission because you wouldn't have been able to change it back. And I didn't do that, now, did I? I asked your permission. You didn't give it and I left your poll the same even though my suggestion would have been a vast improvement.

It's humour, son, humour.

I know Rob, I even voted! I was referring to the fact that it would be nice to be able to change somebody elses post, because you want to make a point. To my knowledge only Moderators can do this. It's nice to not to have to get the permission from the OP beforehand. It seemed at the time, this was done on CD's post without his knowledge. At least he wanted it known that it wasn't him who made the modification.

If you wish to modify a post of mine in the future, I'm always open to improving it. I would however like to agree on the changes before it's changed. You asked to change my questions without suggesting what they would be changed to. Considering that we have a different perspective on this topic, I think that would have been the expected approach.

 

[DCBC]

With the exception of a few skills I've read about from way back-like breathing from the tank valve-- It seems there is a consensus that if you go all the way to Rescue Diver you're getting about the same training that OW used to be years ago. But many divers don't go beyond OW, and thus are ill equipped in some emergencies. Is that it in a nutshell?

In some ways your training would be comparable. In other ways, it would be better, because of the number of training dives that you would have to complete. I think that you have nailed the problem on the head, not everyone goes past OW!

This reminds me of a conversation that I had with the HQ of a very large training agency some years back, when I was told that I couldn't include rescue and altitude tables into my OW program. They told me that: 'If you give them everything in the OW, how do you get them back (to make more money)?' My reply was: 'What if they don't come back!?' I left that training agency as a result.

One observation that I would make is that there is only one certification agency that doesn't require surface/sub-surface rescue in their OW program (there may be others of which I'm unaware). The student can of course take AOW, but until s/he does, they have no idea of how to safely rescue their buddy. These divers are taught to dive without the aid of a rescue diver, DM or instructor. Somehow that just seems irresponsible to me, but I suppose that is because I'm considered a dinosaur. :mooner:

 

[Diver0001]

I know Rob, I even voted! I was referring to the fact that it would be nice to be able to change somebody elses post, because you want to make a point. To my knowledge only Moderators can do this. It's nice to not to have to get the permission from the OP beforehand. It seemed at the time, this was done on CD's post without his knowledge. At least he wanted it known that it wasn't him who made the modification.

Well, I posted on this thread that I was adding the poll so it wasn't a surprise to anyone. I didn't ask CD's permission because I knew he would delete it if he wanted it gone.

It was just some clean fun between two moderators. Maybe you haven't noticed but CD has modified the poll multiple times since I created it too.

As for asking permission, no moderator that I am aware of has ever modified a user's post without permission unless it was a moderation action. It has never been done to "make a point" and it never will.

If you wish to modify a post of mine in the future, I'm always open to improving it. I would however like to agree on the changes before it's changed. You asked to change my questions without suggesting what they would be changed to.

Actually, I did clearly post what I wanted to add but the thread was pretty chaotic so it's understandable if you read over it.

Considering that we have a different perspective on this topic, I think that would have been the expected approach.

of course

In any event I don't want to make a big deal of it. It's not worth either of our time.

R..

 

[Tanked]

Tea bagging is making a bunch of short dives back to back for the sole purpose of meeting a number of dives requirement.

Are you sure about that Thal?
Urban Dictionary: teabagging

 

[knowone]

On that fateful day in 1963, people that remember what they were doing would have to be around sixty. If all that claimed to be in the crowd were there, it would have encompassed Fort Worth. Circa 1976, my first general skin scuba diving course. There was still confusion about title. It included twin hose training as equipment comparison. The only difference with courses way back when was that the possibility of failure existed. If you passed you got as far away from the classroom as possible and went diving.

In the animal world we have seen that the vast majority of species live in societies,
and that they find in association the best arms for the struggle for life: understood,
of course, in its wide Darwinian sense - not as a struggle for the sheer means of
existence, but as a struggle against all natural conditions unfavourable to the
species. The animal species, in which individual struggle has been reduced to its
narrowest limits, and the practice of mutual aid has attained the greatest
development are invariably the most numerous, the most prosperous, and the most
open to further progress. The mutual protection which is obtained in this case, the
possibility of attaining old age and of accumulating experience, the higher
intellectual development, and the further growth of sociable habits, secure the
maintenance of the species, its extension, and its further progressive evolution. The
unsociable species, on the contrary, are doomed to decay.

-Peter Kropotkin, Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution (1902), Conclusion.

In other words, If you're going to get in, learn to swim, or get a tattoo on your forehead[DOESN'T SWIM] FxxK OFF and do a solo course.

Twenty five years after my first course I unrelatedly bumped into that twin hose and bought it. Grouse. Its not sport it's life support. Then you can dick around.

 

[Thalassamania]

It's not that I think they did not learn, it's that I think some percentage will always not care about what I taught them, even though they did learn it.

Those people should either be weeded out before (or during) the course or simply not certified at the end ... why's that so hard?

With the exception of a few skills I've read about from way back-like breathing from the tank valve-- It seems there is a consensus that if you go all the way to Rescue Diver you're getting about the same training that OW used to be years ago. But many divers don't go beyond OW, and thus are ill equipped in some emergencies. Is that it in a nutshell?

No ... as I said ealier:

Despite the superficial analysis that the sum of a bunch of classes resembles the "old days" curriculum, the final effect is simply not the same. There are any number of reasons for this ranging from the details, like the fact that the segments the "old course" has been cut up into often displaces items from their most effective location in a sequence, such as waiting for Peak Performance Buoyancy until well after crappy overweighting habits have been deeply inculcated into the new diver, to the destruction of a course gestalt that produces a beginning diver who is well balanced and well prepared to go out and learn on their own.

 

[Cave Diver]

It was just some clean fun between two moderators. Maybe you haven't noticed but CD has modified the poll multiple times since I created it too.

@ your latest effort.

 

[scubafanatic]

If memory serves me right, when I was finally certified by L.A. County in the 60s, through a 3-week course that essentially covered everything up through rescue, I was able to go to 130 feet. Not that I did until much later... I kept all my diving above 100 feet back in that era (no SPGs at the time).

...while I know how it was done 'back in the day', I can't really imagine diving without things like SPGs/BCs/etc. I'll take all the modern 'toyz' any day of the week and am thankful technology has progressed !

 

[Thalassamania]

For most diving many of the "modern toys" are so unnecessary.

 

[Chugwhump]

For most diving many of the "modern toys" are so unnecessary.

Thalassamania;
With all due respect (and clearly a bunch is due as I have read many many of your posts and appreciate seeing your view points even if I do not always totally agree), toys are very necessary....to me.
I am a gadget idiot, sorta.
New crap they give me to try out, is like really serious fun for me.
I dig diving like everyone else on the board, and I always want to see what stuff people are dreaming up.
I get a kick seeing solutions for non issues.
I also get a charge out if it when someone makes a useful widget/gadget/thingie.
In my opinion, more often than not, somebody carried a good idea too far, or started making something useless that morphed into something useful.
I just hope the creative folks never stop trying....progress is slow however.

Just my opinion, and for the most part, if anyone agrees with me on this or many other matters, they need to have their head examined.
IJS.....

Chug
Wants to dive Wake Island.