Preemptive

See what is going on here? Kim's people are threatening Guam with a show of force
attack. It puts the US in the silly position of acting to defend Guam, which is it's
base for offensive action, that very action which the  Kim team purports to be
defending against with its development of nukes.. Should the US order such a preemptive
move, North Korea would have no other choice but to arm their Guam-pointing missiles.

And all this would happen fast: 24 minutes for the bombers from Guam, 14 for missiles
towards Guam.

Indeed, one sees that North Korea - which was heavily bombed from there in the Korean
war - has been through the mill. There is a basis for opening talks, and this is it. Nothing happens,
from or towards Guam.

Defcon

https://www.morningledger.com/defcon-warning-system-how/13112135/

Guam is reportedly at DEFCON 4.

Stopping type 1 Diabetes

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/news/hopes-rise-for-diabetes-patients-as-trial-jab-brings-the-disease-to-a-halt-w2fn28jvd

http://www.latimes.com/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sn-diabetes-immunotherapy-20170809-story.html

C-Rolls

Cinnamon rolls are pretty yummy; in point of fact,  the sweetness comes primarily
from a brown sugar and cinnamon streusel interspersed in the paste. The pastry itself is soft
but airy with some sweetness, but 'good' because it  breaks down rapidly en bouche.

One should not follow a recipe like it is voodoo, and one sacrifices as one goes along.
Substitutions are also dangerous in this mind-set.. A good recipe is strategy applied to food
chemistry. Let us examine the 90minute C-rolls below.

There is yeast involved, and the whole thing is going to take 90 minutes. This tells me there
will be some sweet hot liquid involved to power the yeast, some kneading because
rolls are a bread, and some wait time (indeed, there are two wait periods). There is
milk but not that much butter involved, so the product won't be a puff, but a roll.
Finally, it tells me to add the one egg with water, because at that point the pastry is warm, and
I don't want the egg to start cooking before it is mixed in. A rumba recipe, which I will
have to pace myself through.

Notice as well that the small rolls are in a muffin tins, and touch the sides; one is
instructed - for a one pan version - to have the rolls touch. This is what gives height as well
as spread. And of course one adds oven time, because it takes longer for heat
to reach the middle. Voilà!

Just for comparison, one might buy a ready to cook roll in a can. One knocks open the can
and the dough springs out. This is an exercise in elasticity!!

http://allrecipes.com/video/2636/ninety-minute-cinnamon-rolls/?internalSource=picture_play&referringId=17006&referringContentType=recipe

Oatmeal

It was 13°C outside this morning, and the hearty breakfast is back,
if only for a few days. I know oatmeal is a great favorite but, in my experience, it
is often lumpy if not altogether rubbery, and the mess in the pot to clean up,
too much. So I have hit upon a reasonable alternative.

The idea is to mix a half recipe of quick oatmeal, with a half of oat bran.
It plays out as below:

2 3/4 cups of each cereal; between  3/4 and 1 cup boiling water.

Must be well mixed initially.

While it cooks for three minutes; prepare fruit, yogurt, milk, almond butter.

Consistency is light; pot not too difficult to clean!

The final product.

Tastes fine; warmish and satisfying...

Hey, it's oatmeal, folks!😉

Seme

I'v been trying to solve a non-existing problem; time to move on.
I am, of course, a total newbie when it comes to the Chinese language.
China is about as far as it gets for me geographically. And going to beginner
Chinese sites has gotten me into all kinds of stuff about Chinese being a 'tonal'
language, and how I have to master those tones.

But here is the thing: accented vowels are part and parcel of French, and it is
those very accents one finds in pinyin Chinese: aigu, grave, circonflexe (albeit
upside down) and high tone (which is conveyed by vowel groups in French).
So why all the blah blah: accents are said to enrich the lot of semes available in
the language (these being indivisible units of meaning of a language).
As explained in Wikpedia, seme (related to semiotics) is a key concept in 'comparing
languages for the purpose of instruction'. A native speaker of anything doesn't worry
about semes as such...

ahem, Fine!

The heart of the language, and its pictograms, should be a hurdle yet; but I
probably have those to thank for the fact that the verbs don't conjugate and the
adjectives don't gender or plural. I no longer find it amusing to hear an Asiatic person
drop an s of mispronounce: I've got your back.

Pinyin Chinese, using the Roman alphabet, developed in the Modern Era in China,
as did an appreciation of rhyming poetry. I am told newspapers are now in pinyin, and
often omit those pesky accents, leaving the reader work with context to decipher meaning.

Looking forward to finding my way around.

source: Yangyang Cheng

                                               *     *     *

Pinyin

 Nǐ hǎo                                   Hello
(you good)

Nǐ hǎo, ma                           How are you
(ma turns anything into a question)

Wǒ shì Louise                     I am Louise

Nǐ shì Random                    You are Random

(shì fulfills some of the functions of the verb to be; there are others.
Verbs are not conjugated for either person or time...)

Wǒ shì jiānádà rén              I am Canadian

Nǐ shì zhōng guó rén          You are Chinese
(you are middle kingdom person)

http://www.chinese-tools.com/tools/pinyin-editor.html