Opposite of face blindness?

Face blindness means that I would not recognize individuals I know. Clothing, voice, or other cues would be the only way to know person A from B.

I keep thinking new people I see look like a close relative of an acquaintance. I am not confusing them with the person. Just wondering if they are a sibling or cousin of this person I know.

Usually, I talk myself out of this thinking. Still, it is a case by case event so once in a blue moon, I ask. The more I am around the new person and the feeling persists, the more likely I am to ask.

Once I was correct. She was the sibling of a college friend’s friend. Hundreds of miles distant. Over a decade after I graduated college.

Over a few months window, my brother had a couple people both ask him if he was my brother. He moved across the country to get away from people who might know me. Of course, any time people I know head there, I advise them to be on the look out for a guy who looks like me but with my brother’s hair style.

From Opposite of face blindness? published July 22, 2020 at 06:49PM.

Inverse Editor-Author Power

New authors have fairly weak power. Editors can exert their power to:

1. streamline the story such that it flows more smoothly
2. cut out dense detailed descriptions that take the reader from the story
3. their experience at what it takes to make a book become a bestseller gives them authority

The trick is when the author becomes a proven bestseller, the editor becomes weaker. You can look at the books in a series like Game of Thrones and see how the editor became weaker as the book lengths ballooned.

1. A Game of Thrones 726 pages
2. A Clash of Kings  761 pages
3. A Storm of Swords  973 pages
4. A Feast for Crows + A Dance with Dragons 1761 pages

Tom Clancy follows this model as well.

From Inverse Editor-Author Power published July 15, 2020 at 07:50AM.

A world without work

The funny thing about being a technocrat is the goal is to end my work. Create solutions for everything, but it a true Moving The Goal Post situation. As soon as one has crafted the solution, there are improvements needed. As soon as it is perfect, there are new business processes and objectives. And then vendors stop supporting it, so one needs to architect the replacement whether the same product or something new.

While a Sisyphean effort to reach done, it is job security. There is always seems to be something that needs doing.

My favored path is to automate my work. Scripts to perform precise and routine and simple tasks get scheduled. They do their thing faster than I can. They do their thing more consistently than I can. Overall, I would say they are a better employee.

They take things off my plate such that I can focus on the work that is more engaging.

I consider my scripts to be my direct reports. The work they do reflects on me. I am responsible for their job performance. If they break down, then I am the one holding the bag to clean up the mess.

From A world without work published July 08, 2020 at 06:39AM.