I’m afraid I have to agree with
Rick. A dry ambient pressure sub suits MY needs also. I agree that for the
engineers out there, there must be a certain pleasure in designing and building
a sub and it is a great achievement, but if your not interested in what is
under the ocean wouldn’t your time be better spent designing a car or
plane or something you are actually interested in
Mark
-----Original
Message-----
From:
owner-personal_submersibles@psubs.org [mailto:owner-personal_submersibles@psubs.org]
On Behalf Of Rick and Marcia
Sent: 23 September 2004 06:36
To:
personal_submersibles@psubs.org
Subject: Re: [PSUBS-MAILIST] I
Disagree Rick
I liked your response. Let's
look a little further . . .
Regarding your post, we are, in
fact, in agreement. Here are some quotes from my own post:
"Unfortunately,
artists don't (usually) make good builders"
"a
dry, ambient pressure boat suits my needs perfectly" (emphasis on MY)
"The
engineering mentalities will get their boats built. The rest of us with
much prettier ideas . . . well, we'll see you at the
dock."
Just to clarify, if a builder/user
relegates his/her design to the technical aspects of engineering, and
ignores the engineering of the human/machine interface, it is to their peril.
BTW, for those unfamiliar with the
field, engineering is simply one of the most creative professions out
there. I'm putting emphasis here on human engineering (ergonomics).
More than just using the proper
coloured lights in an instrument panel, it also includes the measure of
stimulus in the brain's pleasure centres. The intensity,
consistency, and repeatability of pleasure derived from an experience
(diving in a sub) will determine whether the subject (the sub pilot) will
return for more. Like the rats whose pleasure centres were electrically
stimulated whenever they pressed a lever (they collapsed from
"pleasure"), the sub pilot will return for more if his/her
pleasure centres are stimulated appropriately.
It begs the question: Do we want a
creation that we will enjoy? That we will have a long lasting experience
with? "Enjoyment" and "long lasting experience" are,
as illustrated above, quantifiable and expressed in the final product in a
tangible form: Whether the user continues to use the product or shelves it
to go onto something better.
So, the above is really a
fancy-pants way of saying you need to enjoy the sub piloting or you won't
repeat the experience. And why won't you repeat it? The experience
WAS NOT VIVID ENOUGH.
p.s.: before becoming an artsy I
studied engineering. I'm intimately familiar with the process of
quantifying human needs.
----- Original Message -----
Subject:
[PSUBS-MAILIST] I Disagree Rick
Sure, esthetics are important in
build almost anything the eye can see, but it's the engineering that gets the
job done. The artist part in a sub is way back there somewhere.
Behind a whole bunch of engineers.
If not for the engineering,
we'd all be OOOH-ing and AAAH-ing over pictures and sculptures of
subs and none of us would have anything to actually dive in.
Heck, if all you want is a panoramic
view of the first 100 feet, SCUBA dive and spend your sub money on a towel
to dry off with afterwards.
||| I've been
diving since 1974. A submarine redefines the underwater experience.
I've been under ice, worked commercially, night/wreck/current/shark/manta rayed
and fed wolf eels by hand and more. All truly wonderful but, even that
gets trite (for me) after a while. Maybe I'm jaded.
The appeal of a sub is either
to go past SCUBA depth, and for a longer time then SCUBA allows,
or dive and stay in a dry atmosphere.
||| For those with
those priorities these assumptions are true.
if you want to dive without getting
wet and live to do it again, you better be a damn good engineer first off.
Truth be told, most people that
actually build a sub do it for the challenge of the build
||| Again, another
assumption. I'm the parent of three young children. I don't need
more challenges! What motivates me is simply the passion whose
genesis was derived from a story I read in 1966.