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A lahar was the cause of a deadly railway accident in New Zealand about 60 years ago: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tangiwai_disaster

There are some interesting implications if Vanmoof can't come out of this alive, because a lot of the bike's functionality is based on cloud services.

Some people have been looking at extracting the necessary certificates needed to communicate with their bikes via Bluetooth: https://www.reddit.com/r/vanmoofbicycle/comments/14xj66k/get...

HMG: Her Majesty's Government (of the United Kingdom)

Some previous commentary: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23676307

You probably didn't notice, but he went through and updated each page to work on mobile devices. It's amazing how much effort and love he puts into this site: https://www.seat61.com/mobile-version.htm

His concise monthly European rail news is also great: https://www.seat61.com/news.htm

Not sure if anyone else was confused, but the cruise ship is called "The World".

It seems pretty clear that there is a reason why they got the leaks - they paid attention:

Obermayer told me that his source for the Panama Papers, whom he refers to as John Doe, had tried to get the attention of several large international outlets, including a U.S. paper, before he got in touch with him. “The leaker didn’t say, ‘Here’s the biggest leak in history, are you interested?’ ” Obermayer said. The first documents that John Doe offered him were not journalistically compelling, at first glance. But Obermayer recognized that they had come from Mossack Fonseca, which he knew operated in extreme secrecy. “I thought, If somebody has obtained data from inside Mossack Fonseca, this could be really interesting,” he said. Knowing the implications of the firm’s name, Obermayer speculated, may have been why he ended up with the Panama Papers.

I think some context is necessary - I wasn't sure what this was about. Here's an article from The Verge: https://www.theverge.com/circuitbreaker/2017/11/8/16623076/l...

On the contrary, because I bought the Nexus 6P from the Google Store, they replaced it with a Pixel XL for free. The Google experience is terrible through a third party, but their Google 'direct' experience is pretty darn fantastic.

Gotcha, I appreciate the explanation.

Doesn't the max-age parameter[1] restrict a browser from accepting only those previously specified keys for a certain time frame? Therefor newly issued certificates should throw a warning. Otherwise it would be trivial for a MitM'ed sever to deliver their own key hash via a HPKP header. Or am I incorrectly understanding the value of the pinned hash?

1: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTTP/Public_Key...

Symantec is surely testing the patience of Google/Mozilla now. Illegitimate revocation seems almost on the same level as illegitimate issuance of certificates. Imagine the impact on an HPKP site.

Agreed. This headline makes it sound like they're cheating in exams, but this is take-home assignments we're talking about. If wolfram alpha wasn't available, they'd be asking friends or posting in maths forums. Wolfram alpha is simply more efficient at this job but all take-home assignments have this problem inherently.

Students just need to be aware that they should learn from solutions provided by wolfram alpha (there's nothing wrong with that), otherwise they're going to flunk the closed-book exams anyway.

The answer to your question is given by the EC decision:

There are also high barriers to entry in these markets, in part because of network effects: the more consumers use a search engine, the more attractive it becomes to advertisers. The profits generated can then be used to attract even more consumers. Similarly, the data a search engine gathers about consumers can in turn be used to improve results.

Simply put, the EC believes that Google is a barrier to any viable competition, so there's no ability to develop a competitive service to Google's own.

This link is broken for me. It gives me a "too many redirects" error when visiting it.

Can we update the title to the article's actual title? It is currently quite misleading.

"Google Assistant will use more than one device to decipher the exact voice commands"

The BBC have tweeted a screenshot[1] showing another address as well, showing a lot of activity at the address[2]

1: https://twitter.com/BBCBreaking/status/863046075002884097

2: https://blockchain.info/address/13AM4VW2dhxYgXeQepoHkHSQuy6N...

I imagine it isn't just a publicity stunt. From what I can guess, this is a multi-facet approach at divesting their core (route-planning) business. I think there are two distinct outcomes from this announcement.

1. New tools built from ground up to plan, schedule, and operate buses. I imagine there are a lot of efficiencies to be gained here, and they can probably resell these tools if it is successful. Automated, dynamic schedule, dispatch, even ticketing. There's a lot of old tech to be replaced/improved.

2. Integrating the data they gain from their app to find and operate profitable routes. One of the key issues of the London bus system is that people do not "tap off". This means there is limited information about how to best optimise TfL routes. While TfL can sample existing routes and have a good understanding of existing infrastructure, a problem lies in identifying new routes. Citymapper, through its apps, likely has a more intimate understanding of routes that are desirable. They have point to point data - even the data where people walk, as opposed to which stop they get on/off. They also don't have an obligation to serve unpopular routes whereas local governments (might) run buses at a loss in order to be accessible. This enables Citymapper to design and tailor routes specifically to be profitable routes that their customers desire.

3. The third outcome is just the outcome of doing both 1 and 2. By building their own bus operating system, they can prove the system themselves and make it even more enticing to potential buyers.

I'm very interested to see how this turns out and whether Citymapper will actually end up running real bus routes across London, and potentially other cities.

Just think about it - do you ever transfer during your commute? Would you prefer a route with less transfers and walking? This is the type of problem Citymapper can address. They have a wealth of data at their hands and are much less constrained by regulations. That said, there are several good reasons why public transit is almost always subsidised and I hope Citymapper is conscious of that.

Looks like the Google Earth Flight Simulator[0] didn't make the cut. Many features are missing from the original desktop app and it's not immediately clear what this offers over using "Earth" within Google Maps. The "auto-rotate around the landmark" feature is also a pain for people who are used to maps being north-facing by default.

[0] https://googlesystem.blogspot.co.uk/2007/08/google-earth-eas...

Non-paywalled but not identical version: http://www.latimes.com/business/technology/la-fi-tn-google-w...

This is horrific, but what a fascinating story and outcome. Thanks for sharing

Most interestingly, several countries with the Queen as their Head of State have expressed a willingness to become Republics after Elizabeth passes. The most likely candidate being Australia. Her death is likely to cause the further deterioration of the British Empire, or whatever remains of it.

While the monarchy exists mostly in name outside the UK, her death will be closely followed by the people whose lives have been touched by the British Empire.

What is the metric actually measuring? Where did 70% come from? The article says that only 30% of requests were automated but I find it hard to believe that the API aims for 100% automated responses for all requests. Heck, if the bot API managed to reduce human resourcing by 30%, I'd say that's more success than not.

Is this an article or an opinion piece? It reads very weirdly but I can't pinpoint it.

Final release notes: https://golang.org/doc/go1.8

Only a guess, but I think it means "the government knows what is best for its citizens".

This is not footage from this earthquake. This earthquake hit at 12am in the morning so these videos are obviously of another time.

It provides a sort of scapegoat for attacks. The government can't be seen as doing nothing against the threat of terrorism, so when the adversary uses encryption to cover their tracks, the government can point and say 'we did our best to outlaw their method of communication'.

This is an elaborate hack and a very detailed writeup. Thanks for sharing.

Unfortunately, given how slowly bonsai trees grow, this is not an event that can be staged annually. If it were, every artisan’s top trees would become redundant.

It's refreshing to feel the scale of slower-paced rewards compared to today's expectations of near-instantaneous rewards.

The exploit has been fixed, and this video shows how easy it was to perform: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QPl_BJoBaVA

TL;DW: Steam accepted blank recovery codes for password resets, enabling passwords to be changed without needing access to the recovery email account.

I hope someone is writing a new test case.