Show HN: Maildown – Super Simple Email API

Show HN: Maildown – Super Simple Email API

Maildown is a command line interface that lets you send emails using Amazon AWS SES with a minimum of fuss

Maildown makes it easier to add structure and style to your email content. Before you can use Maildown’s features, you should run the command

Amazon only lets you send emails from verified email addresses – In other words, you need to verify that you own your email address before you can send mails from it. You can either do this from the SES console, or by using Maildown:

When you use the above command, AWS will send an email to the email address you provided.

Source: github.com

GDPR After One Year: Costs and Unintended Consequences

GDPR After One Year: Costs and Unintended Consequences

As you can see from the mix of data and anecdotes below, it appears that compliance costs have been astronomical; individual “data rights” have led to unintended consequences; “privacy protection” seems to have undermined market competition; and there have been large unseen — but not unmeasurable! Here is the latest data on cases and fines released by the European Data Protection Board:

GDPR can be thought of as a privacy “bill of rights.” And the right to opt-out of data collection creates a free-rider problem where users who opt-in subsidize the privacy of those who opt-out.

Source: truthonthemarket.com

What an Extinct Bird Re-Evolving Says About “Species”

What an Extinct Bird Re-Evolving Says About “Species”

On the phylogenetic species concept, the fossil rails and modern rails are different subspecies, since by dint of having split off from the mainland, rail species at different times, they have independent evolutionary origins. Part of the motivation for calling these the same subspecies based on morphology is that the bones of the fossil and modern rail are more similar in size than either is to their close ancestors—as the authors note, “Like D. c. aldabranus, it also differs considerably in size from D. c. cuvieri and D. c. abbotti.” The tape resets when the island reemerges with much the same environmental conditions as before and the mainland rail species recolonizes.

Source: nautil.us

Problems with DSLs for non-programmers

Problems with DSLs for non-programmers

In software engineering there were always ideas of automation and generality that will lead the body of work for the field to be elevated to the context where someone who does not know ins and outs of particular domains low structure and basis to perform tasks and fulfill the needed features easily. As I see it, domain specific language is an extension of general-purpose language or a brand-new separate one that exists in the context of particular domain, trying to simulate the structure, concepts and vocabulary used in the domain in order to let people write code in a highly abstracted fashion leaving off technical details and focusing on important topics and actual features. More and more work and actual domain code writing is done by the programmers and the project ends up with another wheel developed inside the team that is not really used by the business, but programmers have to write code for it because the codebase is quite large enough already and rewrite will take ages.

Source: artur-martsinkovskyi.github.io

The Feds May Come to Regret Charging Assange with Espionage

The Feds May Come to Regret Charging Assange with Espionage

The indictment of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange under the Espionage Act, announced Thursday, has the potential to trigger a First Amendment brawl the Department of Justice may soon come to regret starting. But if soliciting leakers and helping them submit information is the new standard for Espionage Act prosecutions, then the Associated Press, Forbes, the Guardian, the New York Times, POLITICO, the Washington Post, and other publications that publicize their SecureDrop address to collect whistleblower information must be in trouble, too. In April, law professor Steve Vladeck said he doubted whether Assange—or the New York Times—could win a clear-cut First Amendment victory if charged under the Espionage Act.

Source: www.politico.com

Founder Books

Founder Books

The following is a compilation of the books recommended by over 100 founders and makers in tech, compiled from various sources. Included is a link to each book’s page, along with a list of the people who recommend that book. You can search the list by book name, authors, or founder name.

Source: postmake.io

Who Owns the Northwest Passage?

Who Owns the Northwest Passage?

MIKE POMPEO, America’s secretary of state, raised Canadian hackles earlier this month when he said during a speech in Finland that Canada’s claim to the Northwest Passage was “illegitimate”. America has long maintained that the Northwest Passage, which has up to seven different routes, is an international strait through which its commercial and military vessels have the right to pass without seeking Canada’s permission. Canada, which officially acquired the archipelago along with Britain’s remaining possessions in North America in 1880, claims sovereignty over the passage because all of its routes run between islands that are Canadian territory.

Source: www.economist.com

DSLs for non-programmers are a hoax

DSLs for non-programmers are a hoax

In software engineering there were always ideas of automation and generality that will lead the body of work for the field to be elevated to the context where someone who does not know ins and outs of particular domains low structure and basis to perform tasks and fulfill the needed features easily. Domain specific language is an extension of general-purpose language or a brand-new separate one that exists in the context of particular domain, trying to simulate the structure, concepts and vocabulary used in the domain in order to let people write code in a highly abstracted fashion leaving off technical details and focusing on important topics and actual features. More and more work and actual domain code writing is done by the programmers and the project ends up with another wheel developed inside the team that is not really used by the business, but programmers have to write code for it because the codebase is quite large enough already and rewrite will take ages.

Source: artur-martsinkovskyi.github.io

macOS X GateKeeper Bypass

macOS X GateKeeper Bypass

On MacOS X version <= 10.14.5 (at time of writing) it is possible to easily bypass Gatekeeper in order to execute untrusted code without any warning or user's explicit permission. Gatekeeper is a mechanism developed by Apple and included in MacOS X since 2012 that enforces code signing and verifies downloaded applications before allowing them to run. The second legit feature is that zip archives can contain symbolic links pointing to an arbitrary location (including automount enpoints) and that the software on MacOS that is responsable to decompress zip files do not perform any check on the symlinks before creatig them.

Source: www.fcvl.net

Please don’t theme our apps

Please don’t theme our apps

They are built and tested for the upstream GNOME stylesheet, icons, and fonts, so that’s what they should look like on peoples’ systems. On a platform level, we believe GTK should stop forcing a single stylesheet on all apps by default. We realize this is a complicated issue, but assuming every app works with every stylesheet is a bad default.

Source: stopthemingmy.app