Got a bunch of 'em. What're yours?
"If everything is going along smoothly, according to plan; then there is a much larger, catastrophic problem of which you are not yet aware."
"If it's dumb, but it works, it isn't dumb."
"When the problem seems insurmountable, and everything you have tried doesn't work? Go dumb."
In other words: Forget everything you know, and go back to the brute-simple stuff you never even stop to think about anymore. What has to happen to make event X happen? What has to happen to make event Y happen? Tie all your assumptions to a rock and throw them in the ocean and go back to the basics as if you are learning it for the first time and make the system SHOW you where and how it is going wrong."
"Division is your friend, your very best friend."
Got a room that won't shoot x-rays? What part of it is working? What part isn't? Ok, that subsection that failed: what part of it works, what part isn't? Where does it fail? Ok, THAT bit of it: repeat. Eventually you come down to the broke piece. It's an approach that can take a while, but sooner or later, you find it.
"480-three-phase does not forgive."
It is better to remind your buddy that a system has lethal live voltage, even if you know you don't have to, even if you know it may make him mad, several times; than to explain to his widow at his funeral why you didn't think it was necessary to remind your buddy that one damn time.
"If everything is going along smoothly, according to plan; then there is a much larger, catastrophic problem of which you are not yet aware."
"If it's dumb, but it works, it isn't dumb."
"When the problem seems insurmountable, and everything you have tried doesn't work? Go dumb."
In other words: Forget everything you know, and go back to the brute-simple stuff you never even stop to think about anymore. What has to happen to make event X happen? What has to happen to make event Y happen? Tie all your assumptions to a rock and throw them in the ocean and go back to the basics as if you are learning it for the first time and make the system SHOW you where and how it is going wrong."
"Division is your friend, your very best friend."
Got a room that won't shoot x-rays? What part of it is working? What part isn't? Ok, that subsection that failed: what part of it works, what part isn't? Where does it fail? Ok, THAT bit of it: repeat. Eventually you come down to the broke piece. It's an approach that can take a while, but sooner or later, you find it.
"480-three-phase does not forgive."
It is better to remind your buddy that a system has lethal live voltage, even if you know you don't have to, even if you know it may make him mad, several times; than to explain to his widow at his funeral why you didn't think it was necessary to remind your buddy that one damn time.