Typical ego driven puffering... This entire conversation started because of a misidentified piece of hardware (no it wasn't a UPS) and the point was there are some circumstances, albeit limited where it may make sense.. I am not going to presume I know all of the details of the environments you've deployed hardware in, big or small, and you don't know the specifics of every miner who has ever deployed hardware..
Don't be so presumptuous..
Well, I do know a lot about hardware and I can recognize real technical problems from the cargo-cult and voodoo-chicken-blood inspired pseudo-solutions.
You would however have to check first that it is acceptable to have the Controller Board powered and the Hash Boards not? For instance Bitmains latest S5+ & S7 both require that the Hash Boards are powered before the Controller Board is fired up. It's all to easy to pontificate using generalities when we are not in possession of the detail.
Rich
I wouldn't be surprised if the engineering staff at that Chinese company doesn't have a real engineering degree but some sort of "work experience" degree after serving in one of those remote technical help call centers.
Edit:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latch-up is something discussed in every electronic engineering course and any competent student would know how to deal with and avoid this problem.
End edit.
It is very easy for me to pontificate here because I have all the experience required:
1) I helped many very non-technical artists help set up and maintain their "render farm" which is the finishing stage of ray tracing in computer animation.
2) I worked for many years in hardware design and I know how to recognize common hardware faults and properly fix them.
The "home mining" market is based on pandering to the lowest common denominators of the users, the ones who even have to be explained where on the wall they have to plug in their device.
I had a good fortune on having worked with non-technical people in other markets (animation artists and medical doctors) where such pandering is neither expected nor provided. I really do know what kind of technical work can be expected from people without technical education but with common sense and self-respect.
I may have misunderstood, but I would like to address a couple of your points for clarification.
Are you suggesting a degree provides a better education and skill sets than real OTJ experience?
I've hired, fired, and worked with all types over the past 25 years and I will take the person with 25 years of OTJ experience over the kid who just graduated and thinks he is hot shit any day of the week. Obviously both are preferred, but someone with solid field experience can be filled in quickly on any areas where they may need to improve.
In that same vein I push my kiddos to college and one starts next year because that is definitely the better building block if we talk about what the best thing you should do once you graduate high school, but please never forget how many monumental businesses are founded and successful by people who are college dropouts or never went at all.
My world runs on experience, documentation, and customer service. The kid with his degree usually has never been in the same positions with customers as our high level engineering and support personnel.
Further, the base your knowledge is built from can be fantastic depending on the school but it surprised the hell out of me when some 27 year old guy decided to measure the resistance of a cable he removed it from where it was installed so he could get the ends close enough together for his meter leads to reach. (By the way, for anyone who doesn't get it, you simply use another piece of wire to extend your meter lead, or one of several other solutions.)
I'm not saying it was his school's fault, he is a simple minded, lazy guy. However, real world experience would have busted that bubble and taught him how to think about things well before that.
I had someone I very much respect, and who is doing very well for himself tell me that at the pace technology changes that what he learned in college was how to teach himself how to do things, and not so much about the specifics. We have some of the most brilliant minds in our country who will tell you the same thing. The best schools provide you with the skills you need to be prepared and take advantage of the situations you find yourself in after school. They do not know the future and do not teach based on guess work. My experience at school mimicked his to a degree, but I did not give myself the opportunity to go to a school of the caliber where he attended.
Specifically pertaining to BITMAIN since I believe is where you directed your comment, it is obvious they have skills to make a good product and I do not think you can say with any certainty if their engineering team have degrees, have 500+ years of experience between them, or both.
I am not defending bitmain as much as I am questioning the logic you chose to use in making your case. It doesn't stack up.
Now if you want to discuss the levels of customer service, communications, and other items I'd be happy to make my own opinion more known than it is already, but I do not see how you can make such a generalization without personal relationships in place with the people you mentioned.
There are great minds at many levels, and being a great engineer, repair technician, manager, or almost any position you want to name who deals with an end user in any way requires knowing how to treat people with respect and manipulate whatever you are working on to be the best experience for the customer through their entire experience. You only get there if you have the real world experience, in some cases climbing the ladder through a call center.
I am not advocating anyone skipping college at all, but I do not think it is fair to generalize a group of people based on what has been stated here.
If you have experienced working with so many levels of people then you must understand common sense and self respect exist at every floor where the elevator stops. I agree some locations are better setup with personnel who can handle things better than another facility. What I do not understand is you seem to state common sense exists more in the Dr. Office than in the welder's shop? I again have to disagree. I find it depends on too many variables to come to such a conclusion. Common sense is not something which is taught in college, and certainly being educated more than someone else does not mean you have more common sense.
I work with one particularly bright engineer who has an amazing work ethic, can troubleshoot an issue quickly, and he is the person you want with you on a project, but, he cannot deal with people well in a customer to employee setting. His social skills are atrocious. He talks to everyone the same way and doesn't have the common sense to handle many parts of what is needed to put equipment on someone's floor and get fully paid for doing so.
I am saying common sense is not a variable to be considered when everyone's money spends.
On another note, maybe this is where you were headed with that comment... There are certainly customers who do not make it worthwhile to continue doing business with. I can handle almost anything from an end user, but there are very few, straight lines people should not repeatedly cross, and many of the people who do so probably do not realize what they are doing, and the ones who do realize it, are going to keep doing it to every vendor they have because it is their personality and it has worked for them in the past.
I think this still says the same thing, and that is common sense has nothing to do with it. The person may be an idiot or brilliant but in the end if I cut them off they lost the best they would have ever worked with. In the long run neither had the common sense to stop what they were doing to better position themselves in the future.
Interesting variables to use in defining a person, but it is one person and to make a determination at that level you need many more facts.
I would say if when discussing the company as a whole we may actually agree, but when generalizing that same entire company of individuals we simply do not have enough information. We know the real decisions are made by the owner, CEO, the board, etc and overall we see consistency in specific situations, but that has nothing to do with a decision the engineer made and everything to do with the person responsible for the end user experience.
I hope you aren't the guy who always goes in badmouthing the last person who was there.
Personally I do not badmouth my competitors, partners, employees, etc to the end user. Setup a positive experience and act on it. When you make a mistake, fix it, when you can make an improvement, do so. Always be respectful, explain what is happening at a level the person understands, and provide instructions you know anyone could execute. Common sense has nothing to do with these things, but experience does.
Hell, anything can be improved.
