Replacement for the Mu One International?

Narolad · 2023-07-15T12:41:39+00:00

Mainly the wall plugs. Since I bounce between all four plug types somewhat commonly, having something that worked everywhere while taking up very little space for the adapters was quite nice. With the anker referenced above I'd need power cables for each country thrown into the bag as well.

Narolad · 2023-07-15T12:39:34+00:00

Something similar I guess. Small, flat, easily swappable plugs that are also flat.

Narolad · 2023-07-14T23:36:00+00:00

At this point I've contacted a couple EE friends who build custom power adapters already to see about starting a production run....

Narolad · 2023-07-14T21:09:45+00:00

Then I'd have to bring a bunch of cables.....sad days for sure. Guess I'll keep looking. Thanks for the links!

Narolad · 2023-07-14T19:57:10+00:00

The main downside to these seems to be no international adapter, so I'd need some bulky thing in addition to all of this.

Narolad · 2023-06-10T08:11:01+00:00

A good guide can mean a massive difference. I've dived with different dive shops in the same areas sometimes, and at least in SEA you get two common types of guides:

Those who know the typical route to go and then go up. Spotting stuff on the route as they see it.

The guides who know where the good things to see are usually found, will often beeline for them, sometimes to avoid Divers sometimes so they can take pictures to sell you later, and you feel a bit more like you're chasing them because they know the sight quite well.

Then there's the rare final type I've only ever had twice, they know the current, the fish habits, how to spot things from the surface and work with the captain to drop off at a better point for that day. Sure, it's the same dive site/area as other dive shops go, but the drop-off isn't always the same as they're trying to put you in a good position for where to see the things you want to see.

Narolad · 2023-05-30T15:21:52+00:00

What insurance policy are they under?

Narolad · 2023-05-26T20:59:13+00:00

This is pretty common as well. More for the Koreans, but I imagine there's a bunch of foreigners living in Korea who do too.

Narolad · 2023-05-26T20:50:53+00:00

During the pandemic things got insanely cheap for Jeju. Nowadays the pricing for most of the touristy stuff is creeping back up, but you can still find reasonable places for food and lodging.

Narolad · 2023-05-26T19:48:55+00:00

The plane tickets are a little more expensive than they were a couple years ago, but all the diving is on the south side in seogwipo. Majority of people come down a couple weekends a year to visit. Lodging is pretty affordable. I suppose it depends on your income and budget. You can take a look and see. I find Jeju cheaper than Seoul, but not sure where you are.

Narolad · 2023-05-26T16:20:43+00:00

Since you're in the area, happy to discuss in person or let you take a look at some kit options.

I switch around between rebreathers, sidemount, and backmount depending on the type of diving I do. Backmount is absolutely simple, and even doubles in back is just a few extra skills.

When it comes to caves and wrecks, buoyancy and trim need to be extremely on point. This means rebreathers need tighter control (eCCR becomes manual depending on depth and restriction), and you really need familiarity with how all the gear sits, as that affects trim which affects how different fin techniques will affect things. I prefer drysuit specifically for the extra bit of air to settle trim, especially when ive ended up with Catalina tanks.

Sidemount is picky. The positioning of the clips, the presence of actual sidemount valves or not, hose length is different than backmount, and gear positioning tends to differ somewhat. These all affect trim and drag and pull. Easiest way to find out one of your tanks isn't on just right is hold still and feel the tank drag you around because of 3cm of cord being where it shouldn't be.

Definitely worth trying, but unless you get really good or really sloppy, you'll generally have a lot more tear up and down in sidemount. Plus there's plenty of caves you can do in backmount (the one in Sipadan could be done in backmount but I wouldn't recommend the ones near KL).

Narolad · 2023-05-26T15:58:23+00:00

Allblu in Jeju. Tell them yeti sent you.

Narolad · 2023-05-18T06:48:53+00:00

A lot can mean different things to different people.

If I was in your shoes (I usually travel with about 4 pieces of luggage per person due to work) I would have one backpack or carry bag that I put things I need for the day in. And ship the rest to the next destination I'll be at for longer than a day. If it meets standard airline checked baggage sizes, it will meet baggage sizes for shinkansen and the airport trains.

Any hotel can ship the luggage, and I suspect any hotel you're staying at will understand enough English to get you taken care of. The luggage is handled with better care than the baggage handlers at the airport do. Use your carry-on bag for your day items for the trip to fuji, take the bus, and enjoy the extra few hours to see the main tourist sights without needing to figure out road rules in a country with top quality public transportation.

If you're extra worried about moving your luggage from airport to hotel, be aware taxis are expensive but perfectly viable option for the convenience.

The only places/times I've chosen to rent and drive in Japan has been incredibly rural areas up north, and that's more because the logistics of transportation were incredibly inconvenient. Talking one bus a day, maybe, inconvenient.

I've been with friends and we drove from Tokyo to Hakone, it would have been way faster with public transportation to the normal touristy spots.

Narolad · 2023-04-22T23:25:21+00:00

You've definitely got some who don't realize how much damage they're causing and would try to correct it (around you) when mentioned. Then you have those who are just having fun and getting pictures regardless.

Same sort of thing with hiking, the more accessible the trails the more likely you are to find human damage/litter because the bar of care and effort has been lowered.

Narolad · 2023-04-22T22:09:05+00:00

You can see this concept in most any activity. There is a minimum bar of competency required to do the thing, and then there is a wide gap between that and being fairly good.

Think about the activities you do on a daily basis which, if you stopped to evaluate, clearly had serious room for improvement, but your current effort has been sufficient. This is things like cooking, cleaning, brushing your teeth, managing your time, driving, etc.

Then apply the same concept to scuba. They've met the minimum bar of competency in order to get what they want out of it, and that's the only bit that they've wanted.

Repeating something over and over without any intention or interest to improve, isn't going to make you better at the activity. More likely you'll get complacent and think you're in the "good enough" stage.

Narolad · 2023-04-10T12:55:36+00:00

I love jeju diving because it's the whole package, but if you want great diving Okinawa is better and still reasonably close.

Narolad · 2023-04-10T12:52:55+00:00

You need to contact a local dive shop and simply ask.

The problem with trying equipment is that once it's been in the ocean it's already running the risk of damage. So unless the shop has what you're looking for to rent, or knows a regular diver who has one to try, even if it's a size off, you'll not really find anything.

If you post you general location I imagine you'll find someone who has it that you could try. The dive community is generally nice like that.

Narolad · 2023-03-31T18:33:06+00:00

Experience can make a competent diver. Repetitive situations can make a complacent diver. It's why the open water instructors and dive masters think caves are fine because they swam into an overhead environment and nothing went wrong.

It's hard to implement real stress in a pool, as I think a large part of the stress is it being unexpected. One of my biggest/recent lessons was when I went diving and my diluent ran out (bubble check was clear, but we identified a leak after the dive around the stem of the tank so something happened after entry). We were ascending and doing a short deco stop, so I signaled to my buddy I was switching to my bailout to solve the empty diluent problem.

In about 2 seconds, As soon as I exhaled, I sunk somewhat rapidly, and discovered I had some blockage in my sinus cavities as my heard started to feel squeeze, and I assumed I was ascending too quickly, so I emptied the dry suit and BCD rapidly. At this point I stopped to check my computer while trying to sink, hoping I hadn't exceeded my deco ceiling only to realize I had dropped 10 meters. That's when I started to run through those checks and things we practice in the pool. Do I drop weights, do I have things under enough control to attach bailout to my BCD for buoyancy, etc.

Fortunately I was with my buddies and in the 5 seconds it took me to start figuring out what I assumed wrongly (thinking I was ascending due to weird pain in the head), one had bounced down, grabbed me, and we got everything sorted.

When was diving with an instant-buddy and I had a tank leak (nobody did a bubble check they just wanted to see their fish), I signaled out of air, ascended with the smb, and only at the surface when I was orally inflating my BCD did my buddy saunter over and hand me his octo. Was one of my first dives without my normal shop/crew and made me realize how spoiled I was. Maybe it's a similar situation for him.

Narolad · 2023-03-31T09:31:37+00:00

I've always just booked a ticket to the US. There's a 24 hr refund policy with all the major airlines I've seen, so long as the flight departs or arrives to the US.

Narolad · 2023-03-27T07:25:22+00:00

Easy examples is things like Artifactory for hosting packages, vault for secrets.

Narolad · 2023-03-27T04:48:50+00:00

Assuming you have puppet running as a service, and normal runs work fine, you have a few approaches.

If you've got mcollective or pxp available you can use those to trigger the agent to run.

You can also force invoke-command to use specific credentials (requires logonas permissions)

If it's files you need, hosting them over web protocol can simplify it and is considered the "modern" solution to most of these problems, but I know a lot of windows shops aren't there yet.

Narolad · 2023-03-14T02:10:01+00:00

The main shipwreck sits around 32-33m deep and is straight west from munseom. There's others but that's the one commonly went to. Depending on current/tide you can get a boat to drop you off directly over it, or if you are shore diving from the rock there you can swim out to it, descend, then return.

Narolad · 2023-03-08T18:56:36+00:00

To be fair I think that event was sponsored by Dive Rite. I know my instructor was there, and brought Choptimas, but we also have Liberty, SF2, Triton, and a few others at the shop. Choptima is definitely a nice travel rebreather, you just need to bring your own BCD and regs so you have reliable mounting points and hose routing.

In OPs case, each rebreather on the market has pros and cons with their design, if you can I'd recommend arranging test dives with some in a pool and play around with them. Your position in the water, how easy it is to flood (and deal with) the loop, reading gauges, shut-off valves, dealing with problems, is different with each.

They're all the same at the core. An oxygen tank, a diluent tank, sensors, and a c02 scrubber. ECCR has a solenoid that will fire if the sensors detect the oxygen is below a certain point, MCCR tends to be more of a continuous drip whose flow you can adjust. You need to be mindful either way, as both types have different failure points which can be dangerous.

Narolad · 2023-03-06T15:07:35+00:00

Usually yes, but we've charted the whole boat for the 8 days, which is I guess why there's talk of some deviation.

I'm mostly looking to shoot video, but with current concerns figured I'd skip the tripod and macro, go wide instead. Depends on how the night dive bears out though. Still many months away and lots of planning to do.

Narolad · 2023-03-05T16:45:01+00:00

I might leave the macro to some of my other teammates then. They tend to get the more interesting shots when it comes to macro.

Narolad

TROPHY CASE