DIANE MAKAR MURPHY A Web site for ideas whose time hasn't come

Imagine, for a moment, a urinal sink.
Sitting in my jammies in front of a flickering computer monitor, I stumbled upon the idea. A click in a place or two and I found myself at a Web site called halfbakery.com -- an Internet site devoted to "ideas." The entire page that appeared before me was devoted to the viability of a urinal sink. Honest.
At first, I was curious, then amused, then amazed. Some of the people in this good-natured argument were scientists. "It's a standing joke to all synthetic chemists [at least where I work] that you have to wash your hands before going to the bathroom," read one comment.
This strain continued with proponents suggesting time and money could be saved if the water flowing into a urinal was also used to wash one's hands.
People wisecracked, occasionally throwing in a practical observation about cost and water conservation. The idea evolved by about the 25th message into a sink built into the top of the urinal with its wastewater being used to flush the urinal. Some genius proposed a hand drier built into the sink, too.
By message 30, I was thinking, who has time to think about this stuff? Then, I realized I was reading it...
But you never know when you're going to pick up some life changing information. For example, the urinal brainstormers said studies have proven toilet seats are cleaner than most kitchen sinks. That might change my lifestyle. ...
Following the links
By the end of the messages, I realized that I had successfully dodged doing anything at all important much of the morning (like cleaning my own toilets), yet had created the illusion for myself of doing something extremely important like reading about chemistry, germs and water conservation, and wanted more. I followed the links out of "Bathroom, Public, Urinal" and clicked on the "best" half-baked ideas.
The links that appeared included: panic pin, tails for all, cream cheese rings and custard-filled speed bumps.
Obviously, I clicked on cream cheese rings. Now listen to this: a ring of cream cheese pre-formed to fit on a bagel. Not bad.
I clicked again: custard-filled speed bumps.
The inventor proposed a speed bump filled with custard. Since custard is soft until pressure is applied, it would not react to slowly moving cars. But speeding cars would cause it to harden and jolt the speeder. By the end of the thread, "custard" had evolved to "polymer gel" and I instantly knew I had more fun reading about urinal sinks.
My idea
Having wasted even more of my morning, I realized something more must be going on. And it was. I have always been a closet inventor. A small closet. My brain. I've never actually MADE anything, but I have thought of numerous things.
One of my best is a car with a magnetic field opposite to that of the world; it slides along with no fuel! Is it possible? Hey! Did anyone ask Jules Verne if going to the moon was possible?
But far and away, I have spent the most time thinking about one, and only one, invention. Most kids have parents who say to them, "Go to college. Get an education. Be a success." My children have heard, "Invent a toilet seat a woman will sit on in a public restroom and you'll be a MILLIONAIRE!"
We've toyed with rotating toilet seats that clean while back in the wall, toilet seat sprays, standing toilets, Ferris wheel toilets and, once, when I was depressed, a hole in the floor with a handle on the stall door.
If I ever come up with a workable idea, you can bet I won't be visiting halfbakery.com to share it with anyone, though. That's just for half-baked ideas.
murphy@vindy.com