I can only think that some fat cat somewhere is employing a bunch of temps to filter out most of the *crap* ideas that end up here and patent the decent ones in the event that technology or culture changes so that the idea can be implemented. DON'T LET THEM DO IT. Half-bakers should be a limited company with the means to do all the legwork, and the account holders taking profits etc....or is this just stupid?
-- anselda, Mar 29 2001

Halfbakery IPO http://www.halfbake...ea/halfbakery_20IPO
Posted when people could say "IPO" without irony. The tag line is "Move over Idealab!". Oh, those were the days. [egnor, Mar 29 2001, last modified Oct 04 2004]

Venture Fund http://www.halfbake...idea/Venture_20Fund
The original bad idea. [egnor, Mar 29 2001, last modified Oct 04 2004]

And another one. http://www.halfbake...w.sellyourideas.com
This idea pops up every few months. [iuvare, Mar 29 2001, last modified Oct 04 2004]

And another one. http://www.halfbake...a/www.sellyourideas
This idea pops up every few months. [iuvare, Oct 21 2004]

Ecclesiastes 1:9 "What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun."

It's a comforting thought for those of us who spend 6 hours a day here, but in answer to your question, nobody. Nobody is making the money off of the ideas here. If anything here were workable, you can be sure that it was done long ago, hence "baked". If it belongs here indeed, it will never be truly useful or practical. Not stupid, just not very well thought out. Half-baked indeed.
-- absterge, Mar 29 2001


There's a whole category for these ideas. (I had a rant here, but beauxeault, below, said it better than I could.)

Regardless, unlike absterge, I think there are some good unrealized ideas hiding here.
-- egnor, Mar 29 2001


The words "with the means to do all the legwork" raise the issue of a widely-held misperception. I find that many people believe a really good idea is a ticket to the easy life. "All you have to do is set up the means to do all the legwork." In fact, though, even with a truly blockbuster idea, the means to do all the legwork is far, far less trivial than most people expect. This is why, when you actually go through the process of commercializing a good idea, you find that the value of having the idea merits only a tiny portion of the rewards. Big shares go to the uniquely-talented and -experienced people willing to give up most of what the rest of us know as lives, to make sure the legwork (and the *right* legwork, at that) gets done. Significant shares (wages and salaries) go to those who actually do the legwork. And the biggest shares of all go to those who provide the massive amounts of money required to make it all happen (usually with a serious risk of losing that money). The portion that usually goes to the inventor is not relatively small because "the big boys steal the idea," but because the idea itself is only a very small part of the effort to make the whole thing commercially viable. Usually.

This is also the reason it is so important that our economic policies and tax laws encourage the massing of capital, but that's another issue, understood better by people other than me.
-- beauxeault, Mar 29 2001


Ouch! I guess I'm just a cynical, old fuddy-duddy at 24, eh egnor? =) My thinking was that if any idea were first made known here and subsequently turned into anything more than an idea, at such a time as that it would become "baked", so as to no longer properly belong in the halfbakery. I did not say that the I think all ideas here were necessarily bad (or good), and I actually concur with you that there are some gems here. The fact is, they're still here. Good ideas that remain unrealized are still almost useless, except for exercises in thought and/or humor. This is a fine place for such a collection of never-to-be-realized ideas. I had rather enjoyed your rant, though. :)

<warning:p++> Along a similar tangent, if the greatest payoff comes to those who had invested originally, and the conceiver receives only the most meager portion, then to how much less should the forum whereby the idea came to be be entitled? It seems that we'd all love to make Jutta rich (well, sure, why not? it'd be good for karma at least =D), but this site is obviously a labor of love, and that carries greater fulfillment than any fiscal reward that might be me meted out to such a host.

Back to my point, any such idea that proposes to bring great gain to any baker or HB itself is necessarily a /bad/ idea.
-- absterge, Mar 29 2001


lol, UB! "quaintly protestant"? hahahah... like I said, I'm just a staid, stoic, old man at 24, right? no, I would never presume to /ban/ any of these things, I just choose not to participate. (well, I will continue to dance in my Christmas pudding, but that's it!)

Right on, PS. =D
-- absterge, Apr 02 2001



random, halfbakery