Also Sprach Zamo.ca NG

Given that “history makes fun of those who don’t know it, repeating itself” (Iorga), I look at a number of lesser known historical facts and theories which are, in my view, relevant to the Russo-Ukrainian crisis.

I present a conversation I had on Facebook with a protochronist lady; it’s an opportunity to recap some of my older articles on Dacians and Dacia and introduce a new hope (not the old one ).

I started writing this with the intent to present several movies, but I only have time to tell you about a Munich Agreement/Betrayal movie, WWII and the Russo-Ukrainian crisis.

First, Happy New Year, then let me disclose a project I've been carrying on my mind for quite a while and made a plan to make it real . It's a novel taking place in the Dacian era .

Spurred by an acquaintance's insistent, fervent appeals to learn Esperanto, I’ve decided to look at other languages that are more equally “learnable” by both Europeans and East Asians. As luck would have it, I’ve decided to look at the Romani, rromani or Gipsy language.

We’ve discussed in the recent past how the VERY sparse information we have about Dacians has allowed very little “certain” knowledge about our ancestors. And I just learned about a theft that happened on the last day of a travelling expo at the Drents museum: it’s catastrophic.

Having found on Facebook the list of goods allowed under food rationing in 80’s Poland, I search the Romanian Internet as well as my own memory for fading images of the queues (called lineups in Canada) for food and how that happened in communist Romania. I discovered that it happened twice: first post-WWII, under Soviet occupation and again in the 80s, while Ceausescu paid off the external debt.

I didn't write much about the Romanian elections, and given the significant disruptions, I thought I share my thoughts. Let me start by asking a few LLMs about Calin Georgescu and the odds of Russian meddling as well as the odds of his campaign having broken the law.

Having heard of the magic of the new kid in town (DeepSeek), I put it through the paces of that “novel prompt” with quite impressing results and ask it for an illustration as well.

I’ve taken that prompt and fed it to Claude AI with amazing results. Here it is, and the Romanian translation will be more refined.

Given the recent surge in interest in Hidroelectrica (and Romanians trying to save money now that energy subsidies for everyone are ending), I took a deeper dive into Hidroelectrica, a publicly traded company on BVB under the symbol H2O.

I use a few historical references as a segue to Moldova’s Eurovision entry and to document the success stories of two young Romanian actors, and a few other Romanian-Chinese people, who are all , in my view, members of the Romanian diaspora.

It's a new year, I have a new blog (or, at least, new look), but the same old subjects, blog-friends and recurrent topics. I salute my blogroll friend Krossfire, Dacia and differences.

I’m not a oenologist, I’m not even a “connoisseur” and I drink next to never. But when I buy wine and especially when I’m in Romania, I’ll buy some Romanian wines and I’ll tell you about it.

A recent loss in court of a serious academic who may have produced some important, original research, contrasts dramatically with an astonishing win of a less important plagiarizer, whose scientific contributions are null / #zerobarat.

Not long ago, a controversy that’s still somewhat alive erupted over Olympic swimming champion David Popovici decision to “live the dream” and buy himself a Porsche Spyder. While I have no right to criticize him, I summarize a few opinions in the mass-media and add my own.