On Sunday, October 27, 2019 at 5:58:10 AM UTC-4, Edward wrote:
On 10/26/2019 3:08 PM, -hh wrote:
Grumman-581 wrote:
On Wednesday, February 28, 2018 at 4:31:39 AM UTC-6, -hh wrote:
<snip>
I've always preferred USENET over the various web forums
for the simple reason that there was not some site owner
who could sensor you if you did not conform to his
particular beliefs on some matter.
Indeed. I recall a conversation on Scubaboard where I
basically told the owner-operator that his premise was
demonstrably wrong. A day later, a ~dozen pages of that
exact thread “accidentally” got deleted. The only copy
that survived was some pages I still had opened for
cross-referencing, which I then PDF’ed.
But, you're right -- without the new blood being introduced
to USENET in college and us old farts dying off, that seems
to dwindle the participation (other than the spammers).
Unfortunately for scuba diving, it has also become a less
affordable sport, so there’s fewer in the next generation
participating to even seek out online discussion groups.
I still check every morning.
I'm using Google Groups, so its not as automatic. Probably
~2x/month, unless there's been any traffic.
And I still appreciate all I've learned and the folks who
took the time to give advice over the twenty five or
thirty years this newsgroup has been around. Thanks to
both of you and Airhog.
My thanks goes out to those who preceded me as well; learned
a lot while passing it on.
Coincidentally, I had a conversation this week with a new
coworker and found that he got certified locally just two
years ago ... and that the instructor actually did some
stuff which was good for his personal skills development,
but I'm not sure was technically allowed as per current
OW-I training standards.
Those which caught my ear were:
A) A "Doff-n-Don" confidence drill.
B) Buddy breathing ... where I'm not sure if it was
the modern version (donate Octopus) or old school
(where a single reg gets shared between two divers).
C) Air supply interruption. Apparently a valve-off
exercise, presumably to recognize change in breathing.
I'll need to find a currently-active instructor to tell
me if these are allowed, and in what context, and under
which Agency (eg. PADI vs others) rulebook that they're
referring to.
My now-dated recollection was that PADI had not been allowing
anything to be added to the course minimum standards, even if
it was expressed as "not part of the official class", etc.
-hh
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