Room 101

[Gina McLauchlan]

This is one carried over from the old forum

Room 101 UK residents and anyone who has read George Orwell’s 1984 will know what it is all about. Basically a place you can send things you dislike, and they cease to exist. Let’s stick to things vaguely ROV related.

I’ll start the ball rolling by nominating remote controls:

I’ve just put together a video overlay system consisting of a PC with a video capture card, a VGA to PAL converter and a DVD recorder. The capture card has a remote (that one even has a little IR receiver you stick on the front of the PC). The VGA to PAL converter has a remote. The DVD recorder has a remote. Three remotes, but unless you want to watch TV all you have to do is plug it all in and hit ‘record’. (Unfortunately, to turn it off you have to go through the usual Windows ‘Start/turnoff/turnoff/yes of course I’m bloody sure’ rigmarole – another candidate for room 101?)

I spent Hogmanay at the Monster-In-Law’s – she has a coffee table that holds nothing but the four remotes for TV, video, satellite and DVD player. ‘Could you turn the volume up a bit’ inevitably resulted in twenty minutes of random button pressing and battery changing.

TV remotes I can almost forgive, since the set has to be some distance from your chair. (Though personally I have a portable TV, and use my three year old daughter to change channel.) But do we need the histograms on screen? Is that so that deaf people can adjust the volume? And the little red light to tell you the set is off? Isn’t the lack of sound and picture a bit of a clue?

Video remotes. You install the VCR at the far end of the room under the telly. You get out of your chair, walk across the room, put a tape in, walk back to your chair, and hit ‘play’ on the remote. Instead of a remote, why don’t they just give you a long SCART lead, so you can have the VCR next to your chair and change tapes without stirring your ass?

That’s my spleen vented, so what would you consign to room 101? What do you REALLY HATE about ROVs and why? (Don’t get too slanderous, remember the toes you tread on today may be connected to the feet you have to kiss tomorrow)

[Gina McLauchlan]

This is one carried over from the old forum

I’ll throw in my pet hate….

Systems with one Joystick that is supposed to do everything concerning vehicle control… We’ve got two hands… lets use them. Give me a separate vert control any day.

James Mc

[rigwash]

Too true, Remotes! you forgot the one for the rov camera where someone has to go in the shack and watch to see if the light on the remote is blinking. you’d think the led could go on top eh?

but my bitch are mice. One for the system pc (ok fair enough), but then they start adding up, one for the survey screen, one for the sonar spread etc etc. Just when you have them tucked away, something shits itself inside the console or control tray and you have to pull it out and the mice start mating until it looks like spaghetti junction.

and my all time favourite, DVD recorders. How can they be better than a vcr? hard to cue up, no audio dub, hard to relocate, replay to the action bit the client missed when he went out of the shack for a smoke etc.
Well yes maybe the quality of the recording but not on some old piece of shit system where the cameras are 15 years old and coming up coax instead of fibre optics. Companies would be better off just sending off the box of vcr’s to the dubbing shop to copy onto dvd.

ahh i think room 101 is going to full up pretty quick and let me guess. Most of it will be new tecnology stuff thats been adopted before it’s necessary or up to the job by gadget and gizmo guru’s who sit in offices and order all this stuff up. Funny how this junk usually has something to do with computers or other kit that belongs in the office. We are always very slow to adopt state of the art winches, cranes, launching systems, airconditioning etc aren’t we ????

[Andy Shiers]

People leaving fruit in the waste bin so it stinks the container out ! 😕
Duty managers mobile phone over the weekend that’s not answered ! 💡
Muppets that leave finger prints on the monitors when indicating something ! 😯
Toolpushers / Rig formen and generally every Tom / Dickhead and Harry that leave the radios on in your ear when they come into the container to view a delicate situation ! 😡
Data recorders that take so bloody long to find out where you are even though you tell them where you are and the Vcr’s stop ! 😕
Bloody Seaeye gliches !
JIC fittings that constantly leak and no spare !
Pilots that don’t know compass bearings !
Wankers that only drink coffee and leave it in the sugar bowl for us british tea drinkers………………………….
To name a few 101’s
And that’s on one flippin job ! 😆

[Highlander]

Tobaco-chewing, banjo-playing, semi-illiterate good old boys who don’t know how to say please & thank-you. You know, the ones that call everyone else on the rig “Boy”.
We got rid of them all years ago in the North Sea, but guess what? they’re all here in Angola.
They really wind me up. 👿 👿 Yes siree Jim Bob, Billy Ray.

[truered]

gettin told by its only 1 week job, 7 weeks later???? 😕
drill support 😈
coming home to a pile junk mail 😈 😈
agents not showing up 🙄
kit turning up in rs232 when it should be 485 😳

this list could be long

[Andy Shiers]

Missing ya plane due to drunken assholes that are on the same minibuss as you !
Travelling all day maybe two , to find that there is no food onboard when you arrive and having to go on shift four hours later !equipment needing to be serviced when the system goes into the base only to find that not a sausage has been done to it when you mobilise for the next contract !

[star]

i think i know you mr gardener

[Andy Shiers]

Muppets that paint steel without taking the rust off first 👿
Trainees that say………………."I know , I know " when they bloody well don’t and wrap the rov umbilical around the bell wire !!!!!!!!!!!!!
Waiting to mobilise ( for a hired crane and welders ) All bloody day only for them to turn up just as you are going to get a shower and go for a piss up 👿
Pratts that load up the systems computer with shite and slow the thing down or crash it 👿
Waiting for the agent to arrive to get ya pasports back so that you can get off the bloody ship 👿
Trying to find the OIM to renew the workpermit……………………..only
He ain’t anywhere to be found so you have to come back again ( change out of the overalls , take the boots off up the flippin stairs……………Again ! 🙁

[rovbionic]

highlander

just did trip in Houston Siapiem Yankee Dolittles and can vouch for your observations……but you missed they all wear baseball caps with sunglasses on top.

Bad enough keeping quite about 200 db getho blaster pumping out C&W…but RAP too!

Shared an apartment with a youngster who for 3 wks who gobbled my nosh and called me his bitch……..then there was the one fine day he was educated about "bitch slappin" 😉

Praying our girl Sarah has work for us before my time off is done

[Scott Beveridge]

This is one carried over from the old forum

I’ll throw in my pet hate….

Systems with one Joystick that is supposed to do everything concerning vehicle control… We’ve got two hands… lets use them. Give me a separate vert control any day.

James Mc

One joystick is good as long as you have slide pots for trims or for partial commands.

[Scott Beveridge]

i think i know you mr gardener

You really know how to annoy prople don’t you??? Whilst actually slagging someone (who could very well tread on your toes) you persist to be anomynous and STILL HAVEN’T REVEALED YOUR REAL NAME IN A PM TO ME

[magician2000]

Room 101 And the little red light to tell you the set is off? Isn’t the lack of sound and picture a bit of a clue?

The little red light is to let you know that the nasty TV Tax guy can still see that you have a TV in the house… If the set is in stand by, there is still a signal that can be picked up from it…

[Author]

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