• Facebook continues it’s road to IPO which means it will be Hi5 in no time. You’ll get ads disguised as friends stories, app trash in your mobile timeline and you’ll find your friends endorsing products they don’t know about.

• Apple is continue to integrate and putting the screws on Samsung. This time Apple bought a flash storage company. “Half a bil ? I’ll pay in cash.”

• An HIV vaccine is beginning human trials. And for something really awesome artificial retinas that really work and restore vision.

• RIAA gave bad grades to Google which means Google is probably doing something right. GoDaddy is a SOPA supporting deuchebag cause they secured an exemption. Meanwhile, in the spirit of SOPA the Taliban had themselves a good old computer bunrning. And those dirty dirty MPAA members continue to pirate. Not as much as the US House though. And I for one encourage the RIAA/MPAA to take on the US Navy.

• Print out this cartoon just in case you’re found an enemy combatant. Jonas Brothers, watch out!. But luckily the TSA is keeping america safe one cupcake at a time. Maybe they hired Homer. That would explain the appearance of snow cone machines in DHS.

The Templar Knights were the most powerful order following the Cruzades. Their presence reached from northern Europe to the Near East and commanded vast military power, wealth and influence. However in 1307 their luck changed. Accused of unchurchy things they were witch hunted in France and then across Europe. The same knights who lead the charge through the Muslim kingdoms were now being arrested, tortured and burnt at the stake by king Philip IV of France and pope Clement. Within the year the order was disbanded and only small pockets remained, powerless and poor.

The Templars were not only a military force but became europe’s first banking infrastructure. They offered deposits and travel checks for pilgrims and obviously lent money to credit worthy people like kings. Coincidently, at the time of the prossecution, France owed the Templars a crippling debt that was endangering the sovereignty of the king himself. By the years end the debt problem was solved and France was a rich kingdom again.

The moral of the story is, I guess, don’t lend people with armies into a corner.

• A truck carrying 5000 BB PlayBooks was stolen. I imagine the thief’s faces when they figured out it wasn’t iPads. Or maybe not now that kids don’t care about iphones anymore.

• Flash Player 11 for Android!! It just doesn’t plays On2 or Sorenson. Or scrubbing. And if a call comes in the video keeps playing. And text entering doesn’t exactly work perfectly. Yeah …

• IE6 will start updating itself into something less crapy in January. What’s that woshing sound ? It’s a million IT drones scrambling to disable autoupdates to keep their craptastic IE6 only “webapps” working. Also, Messenger will get XMPP. Microsoft seems to be correcting its mistakes one small push at a time.

• Whoops, Google Wallet stores stuff in the clear. And Windows 8 will sync passwords across computers using Live logins. I predict a field day for some people.

• Sony, pirates. Universal, pirates. Fox, Pirates. Homeland Security, pirates. RIAA, pirates. The official home of the French President, pirates. Of course you could argue an IP address isn’t enough to identify someone and lots of people have access to those addresses but only pirates would argue that.

• If you ever wonder what a SOPA/PROTECT IP world looks like, today Universal can censor a news piece about Universal censoring a music it doesn’t own on shaky claims. Post-SOPA will be fun fun fun.

• HAARP you say ? No, it’s just the chinese making rain.

• Windows App Store. At some point Microsoft will be just like Apple. One way or the other. Have you hear about the latest xbox upgrade ? You agree not to sue.

• China will get a traveling wave nuclear reactor. I’m sure Bill Gates would much rather help USA build it but that would mean not having depleted uranium to make ammunition.

• A domain stolen by the US Govt was returned after over one year. All to keep the artists safe. Or lobyists in food and board. Noone is really sure cause canadian musicians want to make music sharing legal. And Clinton confused everybody by saying US Govt wants the world to keep the internet open while the US Govt is working to make the Firewall of China seem amateur.

• A security advisor who worked for Delta says TSA is a gigantic waste of money throwing away over $50B in pretend security.

• CarrierIQ steals your keystrokes, manufacturers take a step back, Sen Franken demands answers and the lawsuits start flying

• Wanna know why people are upset ? Maybe because the financial system is so corrupt the US Federal reserve lies to the elected representatives about a $7.7B loan bellow market. Result, $13B in income from money printed in secret. Or maybe because 85% of the most expensive building in London doesn’t pay property tax and most have little helpful schemes involving offshores to avoid sales tax to the tune of 750 million pounds a year.

• EU is going after Facebook’s abuse of personal information in advertising right before Facebook settled with FTC over privacy violations. Nice for Facebook buying Gowalla.

• Elvis Costello says my recording company is gouging you so just steal my music. You wouldn’t steal a handbag but the anti-piracy group BREIN would steal music to use in anti-piracy marketing materials. But hey, the recording industry will help the guy get his money back for a mere third.

• Maybe it’s because Berlusconni is gone but an Italian court ruled web editors are not responsible for what people’s comments. And man, someone should stop those US 5 year olds from beating up cops. Maybe it’s all the hamburgers they eat turning them into super-5-year-olds.