The New Ideas Blog

Regular readers of this blog and subscribers to my Brainpower Newsletter know that I’m a believer in safe self-experimentation. In fact, I regularly recommend trying things out that do not yet have scientific evidence proving their effectiveness. After all, why would science ever look into a new supplement or technique for improving ones health or mind if their was not first some anecdotal evidence?

In the newsletter I had the “brainpower contest” going for a while (in 2007), to see what “tricks” had worked for subscribers to (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…)

We seem to have such a need for them that when there are none, we begin manufacturing heroes. I was thinking about this as the press and public went crazy over Barack Obama in the days leading up to his inauguration. He rode a train along the same route that Lincoln took to Washington, and he was sworn in on the same bible as Abraham Lincoln.

I had to look into the writings of Lincoln to see what this “hero” was really about. It is clear from what I found that (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…)

Opie, our cat, stepped on my keyboard a few days ago, and the time and date appeared on the document I was working on. Now I know what the “F5″ key does. That might be a useful feature. It may seem surprising that I have never learned that before, but it is common to get used to using  things a certain way and ignoring other possibilities. How many of us actually know what every button on the television remote control is used for? (Well, not me anyhow - our’s has 80 buttons.)

That is the second time his curious paws and claws have (more…)

(Stories From The Cabin - Part Two)

They say that necessity is the mother of invention. My creative tinkering at seventeen-years-old may have looked more like laziness. Having strings hanging above the couch where I slept - I lived alone in a cabin - meant I could stay under the covers all day while turning on lights, the radio and television with a quick pull. But the reason for the various contraptions was not my desire to relax. It was that it was too cold to get out of bed.

In fact, the refrigerator had been off for weeks, since the food (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 (more…)

Using a metaphorical understanding is one of the primary ways we communicate ideas. This is true even in - or especially in - the sciences. How would we explain an atom without the concept of a little solar system. Scientists will tell you that they actually look nothing like the metaphorical models we make, but we have to have some way to “see” these things mentally.

Consider the mundane description of temperature as being (more…)

(Stories From The Cabin - Part One)

Innovation on paper or in one’s mind is fun, but experimentation is what most often produces the best ideas and makes them useful.

When I was a young man I lived in a cabin in Northern Michigan. White cedars were the most common trees. They are the lightest wood in the area, weighing less than half of what a maple tree of the same size would weigh. When they grow in swampy areas they often are very thin, and when they dry they are relatively stiff. They would be perfect, I decided, for making my own stilts. (more…)

I was an angry young man many years ago, so I know a bit about the phenomenon. Unfortunately being angrily opinionated is not limited to young men or women, but during youth is when this negative power seems to be at its most dangerous. Here is what I see in the angry opinions that many people feel the need to voice.

The angry young man (or any angrily opinionated person) has discovered the TRUTH. What’s more, now that he has discovered it, it is (more…)