The New Ideas Blog

I am working on my newest book, The Thousand Mile Hole - A Guide to Deep Thinking. I hope to have the first draft ready by the end of summer. Whether or not that happens, I will have the book published by the first weeks of 2011. But in the meantime I have already set up a website for the book. I even have excerpts from a few chapters posted there, although the final versions in the book may be revised of course.

On the site I refer to the book as “A Guide to Deep Thought” (That link will take you there), rather than using the actual Read the rest of this entry »

Beyond mental slavery is now published (finally). It is available at Amazon.com (just use that link), and can be ordered at your local bookstore as well. You can also read excerpts from the book at a site I set up just for that purpose. My newest site is called, naturally enough, Beyond Mental Slavery .com (and that link takes you there). What is the book about? Here’s a short description:

Are You a Mind Slave?

We like to think we control our minds. Beyond Mental Slavery demonstrates just how often our minds are actually controlling us. We are under the influence of ideas that are not really ours, biases we’re not fully aware of, and programs that cause us to react in ways that have nothing to do with our conscious goals or desires - and may even sabotage them. Research, stories and examples that the reader can verify from experience, are used throughout the book to demonstrate just how easy it is to be ordered around and misguided by various thought processes - by the same mind we believe Read the rest of this entry »

A fun way to exercise your creative abilities is to think of new uses for things. This is also a way to innovate and invent new products. It’s way to save money too. Ever use chairs for saw horses or milk crates for furniture? Here are some examples from my own life to get you thinking.

I worked in fast food early in life, and I hated to see those strong cardboard boxes that the cups came in thrown away. They were large, and had a Read the rest of this entry »

Most people prefer simple ideas. Even geniuses like Albert Einstein like to keep it simple when possible. But Einstein understood that we can oversimplify things. He said “Simplify as much as is possible, but no more!” That last part is crucial, which gets us to today’s topic, the idea that SUVs are somehow bad because they use a lot of gas. It’s a gross over-simplification.

Does an SUV driver use more gas than someone driving a smaller more fuel-efficient car? That depends on how Read the rest of this entry »

When talking about financial freedom, different people can mean entirely different things. For some it means getting to do what they want because they have enough money. For others it means having enough income from investments that they are free of any financial concerns.

Of course, few people are actually unconcerned about financial matters regardless of how much income they have. Some even get more worried about their finances as they get wealthier. And few people get to Read the rest of this entry »

People have money trouble for different reasons. On the other hand, there are some mistakes and bad financial habits that are common in these situations. This explains why some people have these problems with money over and over. See if any of the following apply to you.

1. Not wanting to think about money.

If you didn’t pay attention or think about where you were going when driving you would probably get lost and have accidents more often. The same is true of money. Many people Read the rest of this entry »

Things are often not as reasonable as they appear to be when it comes to government regulation. They also are often not what they appear to be. With that in mind, here’s a different perspective on mandated auto insurance.

First we start with the obvious - at least what is obvious to those who understand what happens at the intersection of politics and business. It is that the big push for states to mandate insurance came from… wait, it’s coming… insurance companies! Surprised? Not in the least? No, it should be at all surprising that large companies want to use governments to force people to buy Read the rest of this entry »

Imagine for a moment a reporter interviewing a candidate for a national political office. The reporter asks this woman, “What do you think about the recent voter registration drives that have increased participation in this election?”

“I think it will make it more difficult for me, since most of those registered will probably vote for my opponent.”

“But in any case, isn’t it better for the country if more people participate?”

“Not if they vote for my opponent.”

The reporter laughs nervously, but Read the rest of this entry »

Forbes magazine recently did a profile of Victor Li from the the University of Michigan, and his newest innovation; flexible self-healing concrete. Great idea (and you should see the photo of the concrete bending without breaking). But that is not exactly what this post is about. Instead I want to look at another idea that occurred to me as I read the article. It is that we often create things without regard to the future costs they will impose on us or others.

In fact, after neglecting the massive highway system we have built in this country for decades, it would now cost well over two trillion dollars to catch up on maintenance and Read the rest of this entry »

Big brother? Yes, and big mother and father too. There is an obvious and increasing tendency to assume that we mere humans are not able to take care of ourselves or make decisions about our own lives, and that government should therefore be there to “guide” us. This argument very obviously forgets or purposely ignores the fact that government is made of fallible humans as well.

The example that reminded me of this is a recent government-ordered recall of over five million window blinds or shades. They happen to have Read the rest of this entry »