The New York Times today has a story about a possible wind farm in New York. Because of rising gas prices and the high cost of being dependent on the Middle East for energy, we clearly have to develop our own energy here at home. But today's article points out some of the reasons wind hasn't saved us yet, despite the American Wind Energy Association and other advocacy groups' insistence that it's the answer:

Industry experts say offshore wind farms are rare in North America because of the difficulty of finding suitable locations, the cost of running transmission lines to shore, and the thicket of environmental regulations. Shipping lanes also need to be considered, as well as a shortage of equipment available to plant turbines in deep water. Nearby residents often object to offshore turbines because of aesthetic concerns, as was the case with the Jones Beach proposal, which also exceeded initial cost estimates.

Does anyone have wind turbines near them? What's it like? And what's wrong with nuclear power? Sure, there have been a couple of disasters, but assuming we can get on top of safety concerns, it seems like that has to be one of the better energys sources, right? MIT thinks so.

Hackers broke into Sarah Palin's Yahoo account and posted screenshots and personal emails, reports the AP.

Rick Davis, campaign manager for the McCain-Palin campaign, issued a statement about the hack: "This is a shocking invasion of the Governor's privacy and a violation of law. The matter has been turned over to the appropriate authorities and we hope that anyone in possession of these emails will destroy them. We will have no further comment."

And for real: why don't we hear more often about hackers being punished? Like TrainReq, who broke into Miley Cyrus's phone - he's still happily blogging away.

So what are the rules? LawForKids.org has a summary:

There's been talk about how video games aren't so bad for kids after all, and now here's a case in point: MyWebTimes (via GayGamer) reports that eleven-year-old Audrey Plique saved her family from a car crash because of what she'd learned from Grand Theft Auto:

Karen Norris, of Streator, will say no such thing. Not after her quick-witted 11-year-old daughter, Audrey Plique, sprung to the rescue of their family because a popular video game showed a potential danger of a vehicle rollover.

Some couples will do anything to make sure they have a boy or a girl, including, these days, plunking down thousands of dollars for fertility treatments like IVF even if they're fertile.

According to the well-researched article "Pick a Sex, Any Sex," couples are opting for procedures like MicroSort to ensure that their odds of getting the baby they want will be better than 50-50.

It's increasingly popular, but it's still controversial.

"Should a child's gender be selected like a brand of flour off the grocery store shelf?" asked one mom.

Wired's blog has the lowdown on a new kind of Segway, Toyota's Winglet. See it in action above. What's the purpose of these "personal transporters" again? They move at roughly the speed of walking (although the Segway can get up to 12 MPH), don't appear to have a lot of storage space, would be a hazard on a city sidewalk, and are super dorky. If you want to add pizazz to walking, why not just get cup stilts?

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BoingBoing posted this security video of a worker freaking out and throwing computers and office equipment around. (There's a second video with sound and color here.) Many of us who have worked in corporate settings can relate to his nervous breakdown.

Time Warner Cable is going to start metering subscribers for their internet usage and charging users who go over their allotted gigabytes, reports the AP. The initial test of this new billing system will be tested in Texas starting Thursday.

Time Warner says it will affect very few users, as five percent of subscribers take up half of the cable line capacity. It's an effort to make things more fair for the 95% of subscribers who aren't doing huge uploads and downloads (although those numbers may change as film downloads become more popular with the new services now in the works).

A few other companies are considering metering, so this may be the future of internet access. Does anyone in Europe or from the old days in the U.S. have any thoughts about metering? Is it a step forward in making internet access more fair?

Pope Benedict is eager to reach more young people, so he's embracing new technology, including social networking and text messaging.

According to this Reuters article: The Pope will text daily messages of inspiration and hope during the six-day Sydney event while digital prayer walls will be erected at event sites and the church will set up a Catholic social networking Web site akin to a Catholic Facebook.

Wow is he going to get a lot of friend requests. But if he really wants to reach today's kids, he should start talking like them. For his first text, may we suggest: "Jesus luvz u. For realz."

In its recent elevator feature, The New Yorker told the incredibly sad story about an office worker, Nicholas White, who went out for a smoke break then on his way back got stuck in the elevator -- for 41 hours. The Times covered the tragedy and basically said he should sue for millions. So sue he did.

A Vermont divorce has turned into a free speech debate, reports The New York Times:

The husband, William Krasnansky, posted what he calls a fictionalized account of the marriage on his blog late last year. His wife, Maria Garrido, complained to the judge overseeing their divorce, who ordered Mr. Krasnansky to take down "any and all Internet postings" about his wife and their marriage pending a hearing next month.

Mr Krasansky claims that this amounts to censorship before publication, a rare violation of the First Amendment. The case is stirring up a major discussion about just what level of online disclosure is permissible under the law.

We believe he should have the right to say whatever he wants and his ex-wife should have the right to sue him for defamation if he says anything on there that is clearly damaging and clearly about her. The judge was out of order in demanding he take down the blog without a hearing.

But have you seen the blog? Omigod. First of all, it's called "LookAtMyPugs's Jurnull." That title should be illegal.

Most of the time, beginning-of-the-year predictions are things like "Jessica Alba will break up with Cash Warren" or "Charlie Sheen will be arrested." But one British chess-master turned AI expert turned futurologist has written a book in which he predicts that citizens of the world currently under 35 have something special to look forward to in their lives: great sex with robots. David Levy, 62, has looked at the advances in computer chess and other kinds of applied artificial intelligence, and he has decided, quite rationally, that soon enough society will cross the great dildonics barrier into man-robot (or woman-robot) sex. You can read all about it in his new book, Love and Sex With Robots. But before you investigate his nuanced, not very sexy argument, answer this poll question.

Would you have sex with a robot (assuming, that is, that the robot agreed to have sex with you)?

Yesterday, it was announced that Microsoft had bought a 1.6% stake in Facebook for $240 million, valuing the social utility site at roughly $15 billion. The deal makes geeky twenty-three-year-old Mark Zuckerberg, at least on paper, worth $5 billion. Talk about revenge of the nerds.

Silicon Alley Insider (which we're guessing is also made up of social misfits) says he deserves all this money because of his strategic intelligence. Here's how it's played out:

Facebook began as a Harvard-specific site through which students could rate each other's hotness in Zuckerberg's dorm room (possibly with some other people who have since sued him).

After reportedly almost getting kicked out of school for creating the site, and following the advice of hero Bill Gates, Zuckerberg dropped out to pursue Facebook full-time. Brave!

Zuckerberg raised huge amounts of venture capital and got Facebook to the point where it was being valued in the multi-billions, then turned down a measly $1 billion offer from Yahoo and then sparked a bidding war between Google and Microsoft. Super brave!

And now: ludicrous wealth is his!