Language Transfer and The Thinking Method

Language Transfer is an incredible project by Mihalis Eleftheriou to teach not only languages but a method of learning.

First off, the free courses are excellent. The recordings are available on the web, but the content is also available through Apple and Android apps.

I've personally only completed the German cource, but I intend to complete the Spanish and French courses as well.

I think these courses exhibit a few important aspects of learning that make them so effective.

  • Student interaction and a call / response methodology to engage students.
  • Pausing for reflection and forming connections. In fact it's emphasized to facilitate active recall of the material.
  • Repetition. Returning to previous content at appropriate intervals to improve recall.

These are the core principles used by Mahalis to teach these languages.

IANA Protocol Registry

If you've ever found yourself browsing through RFCs published by the IETF, you know it can be a bit of a chore if you're just researching some tag name or error code. You shouldn't need to read through the entire spec for a protocol just to do some troubleshooting. Right? Well, here comes IANA to the rescue. IANA has conveniently compiled a central repository for the many codes and numbers contained in Internet protocols. You can find it at their protocol registry.

Personally I was just looking for a simple breakdown of all the tags available for DMARC. Of course, there's also a DMARC tag registry table embedded in the DMARC RFC (RFC 7489). But I was having trouble wading through all 73 pages of the spec. So, in this case, it wasn't really necessary. However, for something like the SMTP service extensions, it can be much more useful as the service extensions are spread across many different RFCs.

What is DMARC?

I've recently been trying to get a better handle on how email works and how it's secured. If you want to do the same. Go try out the exercises at https://www.learndmarc.com.

It's a great resource for visualizing how DMARC works in conjuction with Sender Policy Framework (SPF) and Domain Keys Identified mail (DKIM) to secure email and catch spam and phishing attempts.

There's even a quiz you can try to see how well you can analyze email traffic and determine the DMARC results.