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>In all four cases, there are many, many pretenders to the throne, there >are many agencies who claim they have a standard, and that their standard >is the One True Standard. > >The result is several, conflicting standards, which is to say, no >standard at all. In fact, conflicting standards are WORSE than no >standard, because they leave the false illusion of the safety a standard >creates. A good point. Worse yet, all of the agencies are for-profit businesses, with no real concern about what's in the diving consumer's best interest. And why should they - over conservative, draconian policies only result in bigger profits for the supply side of the dive biz. Rather than spend money on any research to answer many of these long outstanding questions about O2 cleaning and air quality, or risk the liability they'd face if they actually set a standard of their own, the tech agencies pedal manuals that are a cut-and-paste from NOAA, Navy and CGA and when forced to take a stand, take the most conservative one possible just to cover their butts. They relay this hodgepodge to their dive shops, who don't understand it anyway, and so often interpret it in the narrowest way possible. So why are we surprised when dive shops pull stupid tricks like this? I've got no labeling at all on my tanks (but an analyzer in my dive bag). I know that's stupid, but the alternative, unless I want to buy mulitiple sets of dedicated tanks, is constant hassles with the dive shops - this one won't put air in my tanks becasue they say "amy contain nitrox" and that one won't put nitrox in them because they don't like my card. Easier to operate in a stealth mode. Still, is it just my imagination, or when something really stupid turns up, does the name ANDI seem to be more often than not attached to it? They seem to be pushing the most extreme standards, and be least willing to accept the certifications/labels/standards of other agencies. Just the other day someone told me it was "illegal" to use 80%+ O2 without ANDI cert - the reasoning seemed to be that since only ANDI offered such a course, you could only do it with their permission. The would be just an amusing stupidity, if it weren't that so many shops that pump O2 seem to be accepting ANDI's logic. You know, it's important for divers to fight this kind of turf grabbing and commerialization. We have no org working for our interests, the way pilots or drivers etc have - and in the absence of any resistance from the diving community, the for-profit bizs like the tech agencies end up getting to write the rules, and we get stuck paying to conform to them - witness the Visual. And then we have the dive gear manufacturers, who routinely engage in price fixing and refusal to sell parts, in blantant violation of anti-trust and other laws. I can't think of another industry that dares treat the customer so cavalierly. -- Send mail for the `techdiver' mailing list to `techdiver@aquanaut.com'. Send list subscription requests to `techdiver-request@aquanaut.com'.
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