realmarkeology

I watch this farce play out in so scripted a manner that the only thing left for me to believe is a head fake to the left while landing a hook from the Right. Dear Lord.

 My name is Mark Brown. I have a unique background and career path.  http://www.linkedin.com/in/mbrown8767 There will be plenty of why's and how's - but those come after.  Here is the overall chain of ideas:   1. Amazon/China/Walmart +Wall Street = bad for small towns and Main Street USA.  2. Local, Self-sustaining economies are vital to community identity.  As an amateur historian and genealogist, I can tell you why Fortville succeeded better than Maxwell, Eden, Mohawk, McCordsville, etc. We had a self-producing economy and a Main Street. That's why Fortville survived better than the others.   3. People are sick of the social media illusion. But they need to be engaged. And people love stories.  Give them a show....like the Disney Store. Uniforms, "old-fashioned service"  via a story that links all of them together. Brown's Body Barn, B&W Tools, "Spike & Sam's Horseless Carriages" Fortville 49'ers Marketplace (?) - where ol...

My original thought was a kind of tongue-in-cheek piece on how humans unconsciously "categorize" or "stereotype" nearly every aspect of our environment (confirmation bias). I expect the grass to generally be green except when it's dormant. If it is daytime and clear skies overhead, I expect to see blue.  Our brains unconsciously categorize things that are threats and things that are alerts, or all good, or supportive/nurturing. It's too overcome the lack of wiring in some aspect of the brain. I think it's the connection to the prefrontal cortex, but I'm on a roll and not looking that up now. This functionality is how you hear of people who start driving to work on their daily path when they suddenly realize they are in a different place, like they were on auto pilot. In essence, they were. (Maybe it's related to the fight/flight response of the amygdala?) So, I've been toying with the idea of WYSIWYG. I believe I first saw this on my 1990 wor...

I want to share something with you that I wish I had learned long ago. This is about my drive to be authentic, it's about personality, it's about drive and determination, but most importantly being honest with yourself. Over the last 6 months, I've been trying to do something that I have a vision for, that I understand what needs to be done, but I haven't known how to do it myself. But the weird thing is the vision. Because it's not of what I want, it is the end result of what I don't want. I've tried to focus on things that I want in the past. But if any of you have watched the movie A Beautiful Mind, or know anything about game theory, you'll know that statistically it is unlikely for you to get everything that you want. You will find more happiness and more opportunities by simply eliminating the things that you don't want. I found very often that the things I think I want, well, it's just based on wrong information. I'll get it and then I...

What I'm listening to:  U2, All That You Can't Leave Behind , 2000 When I Look At The World In 1992 I was hustling office plants from a rusted old Chevy van that barely ran for a fly-by-night business called "Fancy Plants". Every morning I would show up at work where we would get to pick our van and plants to take with us based on when we showed up for work. Basically, we would go from business to business in various areas and try to get them to buy plants from us off of the van. When we returned home at night, we were charged $15 for each plant missing or damaged. Whatever was left over was our pay for the day. Yes, it was just as shady as it sounds - so I didn't stay very long.  But I very quickly picked up on something from my co-workers. They were all vying for certain areas/territories that they felt they owned and had "built". In reality, it was nothing but a seniority system. So I very quickly did some math and realized that I could drive up to 90...