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 (more…)

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 (more…)

There are many books out there that explain THE WAY to manage your money. The truth is we all have different habits, goals, and skills, so there is no one way to manage money. Some less common ideas are suggested below, in case you find one or two useful. I also want to announce my new website:

The Meaning Of Money

It is about the purpose of money, the philosophical issues, and all the deeper questions, although it also covers making it, saving it, investing it and such. Now, let’s look at some creative ways to manage your money.

I know two people who bought a home and (more…)

I have written a lot about creativity in the business world. Innovations and inventions and ideas will always be interesting to me. But what about getting more creative in one’s everyday life? That’s what I’m going to write about today, and again soon. Consider this the first installment of my “Creative Life Series.”

For today’s post I want to suggest some new ways to provide yourself with housing. Some of you who are reading this already own a home and perhaps have no plans to move anytime soon. Others are perhaps renting and not sure if you want to buy. Let me start by saying that those are certainly not the only two options.

I once lived in a shed. Why? Because (more…)

Here are two more random ideas that I have been playing with, starting with an invention idea for insect control.

The Bug Vacuum

I was once in a Bonanza Restaurant in the upper peninsula of Michigan, and they actually had a “bug zapper” inside. It’s distasteful enough to have listen to insects being electrocuted outside on a patio, and to have a pile of dead bug bodies below the zapper, but inside a restaurant? In any case, I recalled this the other day and it got me thinking about what kind of devices could be used to control flies and other flying insects inside buildings.

The “Bug Vacuum” would be a relatively simple device that detects an insect near the entrance and then (more…)

I have been criticized for using extreme examples in making a point, but it is a very useful way to explore the real nature of things. I have two examples of this that follow. The imagined extreme of a language with only twelve words in it shows us the possible limitations of “moral systems,” and the extreme action of stealing from your neighbor to buy food and art points out the potential ethical problems of government programs.

The Language of Morality

Have we made a false idol of language? Whether religious or not, most of us like to think (more…)

(Stories From The Cabin - Part Six)

Creativity is natural in children, but rather than encourage it, adults often discourage it. They do so by teaching kids to judge the results of their efforts too soon, to compare too much, and to avoid any mistakes as though they are terrible things. They also watch too closely and offer advice too readily, trying to control what their children are doing. Fortunately, my four brothers and I had a mother who tended to allow us our freedom, especially during our long summers at the cabin.

I was probably nine years old when one day we were playing on the beach and (more…)

Language is a slippery thing. Although many people have the idea that words have “official” meanings that are somehow set in stone, this obviously isn’t true. A word means whatever a culture takes it to mean, and that changes continually. Consider how different the meaning of the word “gay” is now from when it meant just “happy.” And apart from radical new meanings like that, the connotations of words change continually. “Justice,” for example, while having nominally the same meaning over the last two hundred years, certainly has a different “flavor” now.

What got me thinking about this was yet another “improvement” to my Hotmail email account. My immediate reaction was (more…)

(Stories From The Cabin - Part Four)

My kite ideas (and the kites I made) were mostly for entertainment. I was living in a cabin on Lake Michigan as a young man. I used garbage bags, old yardsticks, and tape of whatever sort was available to make the kites - I didn’t have the money for better supplies, and there were no stores around nor did I have a car to get to one. Heavy duty fish line was all I had for for kite string.

Delta-wink kites seemed to work best. In fact they continued to fly even after (more…)

(Stories From The Cabin - Part Three)

One way to have more creative ideas is to understand the principles involved in things and apply them in new ways.

The water was gushing out of the eight-foot-high culvert by the little cabin I lived in, because it was the height of the spring snowmelt. I was nineteen and always looking for a bit of adventure. Although there were a few snowflakes in the air, it seemed like there must be some way to have fun in that torrent of water…

“Why not water ski (more…)