Reuters:

> Dutch police ended a hostage taking in an Apple flagship store in Amsterdam after a man armed with two guns held at least one person hostage for hours, police said on Wednesday.

This situation played out late last night.

This tweet shows the hostage and the hostage taker:

https://twitter.com/parool/status/1496229024682721280

The caption, translated from Dutch:

> A photo in the hands of Het Parool shows the hostage taker, dressed in a camouflage suit, together with the hostage. They sit opposite each other, the hostage appearing handcuffed with his hands behind his back.

Another tweet shows the hostage taker wearing what looked like a bomb vest.

Here’s how it ended:

“We managed to end the situation by hitting the hostage taker with a car when he ran outside,” police said on Twitter, adding that the man was being treated for serious injuries.

And:

> The situation ended when the hostage, reportedly a 44-year old British man, fled from the building when a police robot delivered water at the door of the store at the request of the hostage taker.
>
> The hostage taker ran after the man and was quickly hit by the car.

The video of this ending is the first part of this I saw last night, before all the details emerged. Still putting all the pieces together.

Reuters:

> A single activist helped turn the tide against NSO Group, one of the world’s most sophisticated spyware companies now facing a cascade of legal action and scrutiny in Washington over damaging new allegations that its software was used to hack government officials and dissidents around the world.
>
> It all started with a software glitch on her iPhone.

And:

> A mysterious fake image file within her phone, mistakenly left behind by the spyware, tipped off security researchers.

Interesting read. Were it not for that mysterious fake image, we still might not know about this.

Bowdoin College:

> Bowdoin College’s groundbreaking Digital Excellence Commitment (DExC) will provide every current student and all future students with a suite of the latest Apple technology and access to a full range of course-specific software designed to advance learning, inspire innovative teaching, and create digital equity across the student body in the use of tools essential for success in the twenty-first century.

That’s an M1 MacBook Pro.

The effort started a few years ago:

> In summer 2020, the College issued each student an iPad Pro Wi-Fi + Cellular (activated and funded by the College for those students who had internet connectivity needs), an Apple Pencil, and an Apple Magic Keyboard.

From the FAQ:

> students will have the option to pay $1 to keep their equipment when they graduate.

Nice.

Nice origin story. Amazingly, Daring Fireball has been a going concern for 20 years now.