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I know nearly nothing about the University of Maryland. I know probably about the same things as many of you; they are nicknamed the Terrapins, a terrapin is a turtle, they wear uniforms that look like Dragon puke, they're from Maryland, and Paul Bear Bryant got his first head coaching job there right after the end of World War II.
When I think of Maryland the state, I think of two separate occasions on which I went there for work.
The first occurred around 1992. I was to go to a conference for a company - Infinite Technologies - that sold email products at a time at which we were trying to convince people that they should start using email for communication. Most companies - the vast majority, really, weren't yet on the Internet and were just at the beginning of starting to try to figure out what it would mean to them.
My company sold an email product where we could provide hub services to other companies; they would get their email through our servers. The night before this conference I noticed some unusual traffic coming into our servers and I began to examine the emails that were coming in. The emails were hundreds of "yo mamma" jokes and they were being delivered to bad addresses and being sent from nonexistent addresses. Since they couldn’t be delivered, they just sat in the mail queues being processed and re-processed, grinding the small server into the ground.
I tried to figure out what this meant into the wee hours of the night and got about two hours sleep before I had to leave for my flight to Baltimore. When I got to the conference the next day I brought this up with several of the company's engineers and had discussions about it with other consulting firms. We didn't realize it at the time but we were dealing with a very early incident of of an email attack. The goal of the attack was to fill our server up with junk email – fill it up to the point that it wouldn't run anymore.
Over the next few years I worked with several companies on developing security into their email products. It didn't take long to realize that the attackers had the upper hand and you were in a reactionary mode because most companies didn't want to deal with security first. It's still that way today.
I remembered being amazed at some of the neighborhoods in Baltimore and how old the houses looked. They were packed together, the goal clearly to fit as many people as you could in as small an area as possible. We toured Camden Yards as part of the conference as the ballpark was just completed before our arrival, and of course, we had to visit a brewery or two.
The second time I went to Maryland for work was to help a family start up their construction business. I made several trips between 1997-1999. They were headquartered in a shipyard near Chesapeake Bay. It was a family owned business, and one of the brothers lived somewhere across the Bay to the East. When I worked with them I would stay at his place and I was shocked that the area in which they lived was very rural and we could barely get any Internet coverage. I thought the area was very beautiful and it was a sharp contrast to how populated and cramped Baltimore itself looked at times.
The family was from Maine originally. They forbade me to eat lobster. They would tell me "this lobstah from around heah, Jon, it ain't no good. If you want a lobstah we can go to Maine, but you ain't eatin' no Maryland lobstah." Crab cake, on the other hand, was an entirely different story. Crab cake is still one of the most amazing foods I've ever had, and Old Bay Seasoning remains in my cupboard to this day.
On one of my trips they threw a Hawaiian luau party. On the way to the party we had to stop and pick up some of their friends, one of which worked for NASA. As he got in the car, I flippantly said "What are you, a fuckin’ rocket scientist?" And he replied, "Yeah, I am, how did you know?" He then proceeded to tell me about what he did, which, honestly, didn’t sound all that interesting. There was no mention of alien conspiracies or kidnappings. I was rather disappointed.
I never took the time to get to Washington, D.C. to visit any of the monuments or things there. There was always something to do and driving around D.C. is hell. Told myself I’d get back someday. I never have.
That’s all I know about Maryland.
NEWS
Maryland football wants to “get back to what we did” to end its losing skid - The Diamondback
During the preseason, coach DJ Durkin's first with the Maryland football team, he preached for hard work, sound fundamentals and constant effort. After all, he inherited a team that posted a 3-9 record a year earlier and suffered a talent gap from the upper echelon of its Big Ten competitors.
The Los Angeles native feels fortunate to be on the cusp of a unique achievement at Nebraska. When he takes the field Saturday on Senior Day at Memorial Stadium, he will be able to say he's appeared in every game since arriving on campus in 2013 as a top-100 recruit from Chaminade High School.
Terrell Newby hasn’t been given a lot of credit, has he? He’s taken charge in the fourth quarter of a fair number of games this season, and has improved greatly from even where he was last season.
Maryland football’s Lorenzo Harrison and D.J. Turner charged in BB gun incident - Testudo Times
They were suspended for a "student code of conduct violation" before the team’s loss to Ohio State.
This sounds so incredibly stupid.
Volleyball | Senior CLASS Award
VOTE FOR KADIE ROLFZEN!!!!
Whether or not Nebraska seizes opportunities to climb back into the nation’s top 10-ranked football teams this season, the Huskers’ senior class still has enough in its five-year resume to leave a prolific legacy.
Huskers Battle Bruins in NCAA Second Round - Huskers.com - Nebraska Athletics Official Web Site
The Nebraska soccer team (11-5-5) heads to Morgantown, W.Va., for the second round of the NCAA Tournament, where the Huskers will face fourth-seeded UCLA (14-5-1) on Friday at 2 p.m. (CT) at Dick Dlesk Soccer Stadium.
An attack via a burst of electromagnetic energy could cripple vital electronic systems, threatening national security and critical infrastructure, such as power grids and data centers. Nebraska engineers Christopher Tuan and Lim Nguyen have developed a cost-effective concrete that shields against intense pulses of electromagnetic energy, or EMP. Electronics inside structures built or coated with their shielding concrete are protected from EMP.
Casualty rates are projected at 90% within a year were the United States to be hit with even a couple relative small nuclear devices (10 kiloton, the type North Korea is working on) as the resulting EMP could knock out all electronics and communications across North America were the devices airburst in the proper locations.
So, yeah, this is kind of a big deal. (I’ve always got GOOD news for you, right?)
Michigan, Nebraska, Maryland might need backup at QB
Big Ten quarterbacks took a big beating last week. No. 4 Michigan, trying to win its first Big Ten championship since 2004, might have to get by with a backup after Wilton Speight injured his left, non-throwing shoulder in last week's surprising loss to Iowa . Nebraska's Tommy Armstrong Jr. has a left hamstring problem. And Maryland's Perry Hills (left shoulder) is banged up, too.
Big Ten
Penn State vs. Rutgers Game Preview - Black Shoe Diaries
The Nittany Lions hope to keep their Big Ten title hopes alive with a victory against the Scarlet Knights.
Urban Meyer on being No. 2: ‘People respect our work and we move on’ - Land-Grant Holy Land
The head coach is laser focused on Michigan State.
Conference expansion might mess up the Big Ten championship game yet again - Land-Grant Holy Land
The Big Ten might fail to send it’s best team to the playoff, thanks, in part, to Maryland and Rutgers.
What We Learned: Iowa Week - Maize n Brew
Michigan is not immune to mistakes.
The Wisconsin Badgers Are Making the College Football Playoff - Off Tackle Empire
Biel With it
Wisconsin at Purdue Preview - Hammer and Rails
Get ready to get run over, again.
Q&A: What to expect from Wisconsin vs. Purdue - Bucky's 5th Quarter
Hammer & Rails previews the Boilermakers.
Four Purdue Football Players Accused of Rape - Hammer and Rails
According to Fox 59, four Purdue players are involved in a rape investigation
Indiana at Michigan Game Preview: Hoosiers visit Wolverines as heavy underdogs - The Crimson Quarry
This should be fun.
Elsewhere
At a press conference in Eugene today, Oregon wide receiver Devon Allen announced he would be foregoing his remaining college eligibility at the University of Oregon to focus on his pro track career.
Will Texas, Notre Dame, other football flop teams rebound in 2017?
It's been a rough year at Texas, Notre Dame and schools that have flopped this season. Which football teams will rebound in 2017 and which will disappoint again?
Wake Forest says game plan documents somehow leaked to Louisville before their game - SBNation.com
The Cardinals pulled away from the Demon Deacons in the fourth quarter.
What other Playoff contenders can learn from how Pitt beat Clemson - SBNation.com
The Panthers were the smarter, tougher team. Here are a few things Clemson should expect to see again.