As if the end of life as we know it wasn't reason enough....Follow

Just because its dull as f'uck around here, and as far as I can tell, no-one else has mentioned it yet......



What about McCains idea to award US$300 million to whoever comes up with a battery that weans Americans (and by extension, the rest of us) off petrol driven cars?

I really think McCain might be onto something here.

Just think! With enough prize money, we could solve anything!


If it works for batteries, why not extend it to lots of other stuff, like war, famine, health care....




I think someone has been watching too many game shows....


I reckon it will be won by some old fella working in his shed at the bottom of his garden, probably a New Zealander.

You wish!

McCain was getting panned for this pretty hard on Pubbie Talk Radio the other morning. Complaints about why McCain didn't trust the free market to create a solution and a waste of tax-payer dollars to put on bounty on a technology which would be worth billions on its own anyway, etc. Ironically, they tended more towards Obama's stance that if the government is hot to trot for such a battery, they'd be better served telling NASA "We're paying you guys, now get to work and develop this battery".

While it doesn't do anything additional to put me off from McCain, it's very obviously a gimmick. Maybe if he took it from his wife's checkbook I'd be more impressed

Funding ongoing research would be better than awarding prizes for research. Otherwise you're only rewarding the inventor of the final product, while ignoring all the important but tiny little technological advancements from disparate sources.

There either already is an automotive x-prize, which is quite similar (I think the contest has not officially begun yet). It's for a very high MPG car. Prize is smaller. The goal, however, could be somewhat more attainable (I don't know the details of either).