Hacking

I've been hacking up a storm, and I've made some major improvements to the mobile navigation menus, as you can see in the very meta screenshot above. In fact, it's now almost as good on a cellphone as on a big desktop computer. This website has well over a thousand pages, which calls for excellent navigation features if you're ever going to find anything. That's a real problem on a tiny cellphone screen - where do you put it?

It all lives in that little tab at the upper right, which takes up hardly any screen space. The menu itself is now scrollable, and adapts to whatever space is available. It shows all the relevant directions you could go, almost but not quite the same as the desktop sidebar. The mobile navigation is now so good that I decided to leave it turned on all the time.

I don't believe in the "mobile first" paradigm of web design - I think that results in a crummy design that inflates into a bigger crummy design. My method has always been desktop-first, and if it works on smaller devices too, great. It's always worked pretty well on a tablet, but I am just shocked at how well it works now on a phone.

I also did a lot of hacking on the back-end, mainly to keep track of what WordPress is doing behind my back, and stop it. Like deleting images all on its own! That's not helpful.


Here are some dimensions and specifications for scuba cylinders. This is by no means an exhaustive list. These numbers should be taken as approximate since equivalent tanks from different manufacturers will differ slightly. The two most common models - the Catalina aluminum 80 and Luxfer aluminum 80 - are highlighted, along with my favorite, the OMS LP steel 85.

  • Weight, full - this is what you will have to be able to lift, in and out of your car, around the dock, and up the boat ladder with all your other gear. Times two for doubles.
  • Weight, empty - this is pretty much irrelevant
  • Buoyancy, empty - this is what you need to weight yourself for, so that you can do a safe free stop at 20 feet at the end of your dive
  • Buoyancy, full - this is what your BC needs to be able to support when you jump in the water, otherwise you are a "dirt dart" heading straight for the bottom and disaster