I’ve made Peanut Blossoms every Christmas for the past few years, forming something of a minor tradition. I leave some for my neighbors, bring some to work, and eat more than a few myself.

I started in 2006, using a recipe I got online, and they didn’t come out well at all.  Overly crunchy, and with the Hershey’s Kisses falling out, they were nothing like the peanut blossoms I remember from years gone by.

Each time I’ve made a batch (at Christmas and on other occasions) I’ve tried a new recipe, hoping to improve the outcome.  They were all different, but none were very good.  One called for too many dry ingredients and too little peanut butter; another favored shortening to peanut butter by a surprising ratio; a third had an unhealthy affinity for brown sugar.

Since I already have all the basic components of cookies at home (baking soda, sugar, et cetera), I stopped at the store to get only the special ingredient: Hershey’s Kisses.  (Don’t even pretend that a dollop of chocolate frosting is remotely acceptable.)  There in the store, I saw a convenient “Take One!” display with Hershey’s own recipe. I took one.  I made it.  It was by far the best batch ever.

This reminds me of a riddle from the movie Roxanne:

Question: What can you sit on, sleep on, and brush your teeth with?

Answer: A chair, a bed, and a toothbrush.

Sometimes the answer is so obvious, you don’t even realize it.

I’ve already saved that recipe card for next year.

I’ll take a moment now to congratulate myself on creating this, my 300th blog post. Its ID happens to be 400, which tells us that I discard fully one in four articles I begin to write.  I either have very high standards, or I have a lot of bad ideas.

By the way, if anybody I knew five years ago asks, I still don’t see the point of a blog.

My post about the anti-cheating device reminded me of my all-time favorite student in five years as a teaching assistant for Computer Programming I classes.

To preserve her anonymity, I’ll call her simply Lisa S.  No, that’s too obvious.  How about L. Simpson.  (Yes, that’s a direct quote from The Simpsons.)

In the third week of class, this student sent a sudden barrage of excuses for poor performance.  She hadn’t gotten the textbook yet, but would rush to the store immediately.  Her job was too time-consuming, so she’d quit straight away.  She couldn’t touch a computer while the sun was up.  (I may have made up that last one, but there were plenty more.)

This instructor was famously fair, and readily granted Ms. Simpson an extension: turn in the first three assignments together, for no lost credit.  She submitted them directly to me to grade.

The first didn’t even compile.  That earned a zero automatically, but I wrote (as I always did) extensive comments about why it didn’t compile to help her for next time.  The second also didn’t compile.  It again got a zero.  I again wrote extensive comments.

The third also didn’t compile.  This time, however, when I opened the code to document what went wrong, I found a veritable masterpiece.  The code was virtually flawless.  It was properly formatted, commented well, solved the problem with minimal logic, and even offered subtle enhancements to the user interface that most students never bothered using.

In fact, it reminded me a lot of my own code.  Ahem.  I say: it reminded me a lot of my own code.

Every week after I finished grading an assignment, I wrote my own version of the program, emphasizing areas a lot of students had struggled.  Many students loved studying these.  Ms. Simpson in particular loved that her extension let her submit her assignment after she’d had a chance to copy it from me.

Understand, she didn’t just study my code, or borrow a line or two that I’d written.  She literally downloaded my example and put her name at the top — it was identical, byte for byte.  I have to recommend that the number one rule in plagiarism be, “don’t copy your grader’s own creations.”

After recovering from the shock of seeing my own work with a student’s name on it, I had to revisit the fact that it didn’t compile.  What had she done to render inoperable a perfectly good program?  Let’s look at the top three lines.  They should have read:

/** Bobbo Jones
 *  Computer Programming I
 */

Instead, they read:

** Lisa Simpson
*  Computer Programming I
*/

She changed the name, yes, but she also removed a slash from the beginning.  With the slash there, the program will compile.  Without the slash, it will not, and the assignment earns a zero.

I’ll say that again for emphasis.  Not only did she try to replace my name with hers, but in the process she broke the program!  My entire feedback to her for the assignment read:

This program doesn’t compile, so it automatically gets a grade of zero.  Also, it’s probably not a good idea to submit my code with your name on it.

This triggered the best part of the experience.  (That’s right; we still haven’t gotten to the best part.)  Upset at getting a zero, she protested to the instructor.  When she confirmed my judgment that people who submit non-functional, plagiarized homework should get a zero, Ms. Simpson filed a formal complaint with the dean.

I would have paid good money to read that.  “I copied my grader’s own code and put my name on it, and I still got a zero!  It’s unfair!  I demand justice!”  Here’s another tip: when your actions merit summary expulsion from the University, you generally don’t want to call your dean’s attention to them.

We never heard from her again.

Following are signs I’m accustomed to seeing on highway exits:

• Food
• Gas
• Lodging
• Hospital
• Airport

Following are signs I find new and strange on highway exits:

• Wi-Fi

If you’re curious, the icon for Wi-Fi is not the usual symbol.  It’s just the word “WIFI” on the standard blue square.

I also really like the old “Library” signs.  It’s a pictorial representation of a place where people go to read.  If you can’t read the word “Library” aren’t you also disinclined to visit one?

I love that I can search for messages in GMail based not only on the text in the message, but also on text in any attachments.  This isn’t a new feature, it’s just one of GMail’s original features that I happen to like.

However, this means that virtually every search I perform returns at least one message: the message a student in CS-100 sent me exactly four years ago today.

This particular CS-100 class wrote a program to search for Scrabble words.  Users would enter their available letters and the program would list all possible words spelled with those letters.  Done correctly, it took only about 20 lines of code using the C++ Standard Template Library, which was the focus of the assignment.

This particular CS-100 student submitted her work to me early (before the online dropbox opened), so her homework is attached to the e-mail message.  This includes one C++ source file, and one file called dictionary.txt

Ay, there’s the rub.  For in that file of text, what words may come when we have search-ed through this mortal mail must yield results.  There’s the source that makes a match of unrelated text.

Did she write about “serious software error?”  You bet!  Her message contained the words serious, software, and error.  Did she right about “Registration Manager?”  Yep!  How about “Emergency Alert committee meeting?”  Absolutely, she did!

So, Ms. Student, you have become the one student I am least likely to forget from five years as a teaching assistant, if for no other reason than because you have written to me about every possible topic in the universe.  Congratulations!

The ways of the city have set in too deeply.

When I walk home from the convenience store near my apartment, I have to cross a particularly troublesome intersection.  Cars stream onto the street from several inlets, so breaks in traffic are far apart.  I won’t count how many times I’ve stood for a full minute or two just waiting to cross.

There’s a traffic light, but those aren’t always helpful for crossing streets in Boston.  For example, the Walk sign over at Cleveland Circle barely lasts long enough to get a quarter of the way across the full intersection.  You have to race traffic anyway, so why wait for the light?

There are usually buttons to press to signal that you want to cross, but those just don’t matter during the day.  Lights don’t just instantly change when you press the button unless they’re specifically staying red until they sense traffic in your direction.  If the light is just cycling normally, you’re out of luck.

On my way home tonight, I suddenly made the connection that my troublesome light was at the entrance to a cemetery, where there’s almost never any traffic.  The light stays green on the main street unless it has a reason to change.

I pressed the button — possibly the first time I’ve done that inside the city of Boston.

The light changed instantaneously to yellow, and then red.  Then the walk sign appeared.

…

Let us never speak of this again.