Mihai Keller

En Roumanie, le pro-européen Ilie Bolojan nommé premier ministre Après l’annulation de l’élection présidentielle du 24 novembre, la Roumanie a plongé dans une crise politique. La nomination doit être entérinée par le Parlement.

En Roumanie, le pro-européen Ilie Bolojan nommé premier ministre

Romania has a new president: Nicușor Dan 🇷🇴 🇪🇺

Claude Monet, Woman with a Parasol (1875)

"a triumph of style"
"the excitement of the exterior"
"[sits] unexpectedly well in its semi-rural surroundings"

my God

“If only it were all so simple! If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?”

Time to recall, yet again, one of the wisest quotations in literature.

Bluesky is getting its own photo-sharing app, Flashes More good news for those looking to exit Meta’s social app ecosystem in favor of a more open alternative: An independent developer is building a photo-sharing app for Bluesky called Flashes. The soon-to-launch app is powered by the same technology that…

Bluesky is getting its own photo-sharing app, Flashes

Please don't let the aspect ratio be longer than 4:3, otherwise a single 'long' photo (for instance in 16:9) can fill an entire screen, and it takes ages to scroll through photos...

Opinion | Nations Prepare for a Post-European World Trump recognizes that the Continent has abdicated its role in history.

Thought-provoking:

www.wsj.com/opinion/nati...

Romania and Bulgaria have joined the EU’s free-movement Schengen Area. A good move for a united Europe.

Edvard Munch, The Day After

The New Year That Never Came (2024) ⭐ 8.5 | Drama, History 2h 18m

Arguably one of the best Romanian movies ever made: "Anul Nou Care N-a Fost" ("The New Year That Never Came").

A dark humour drama with four intermingled storylines, set right before the anti-communist revolution in December 1989.

Available on Netflix Romania.

m.imdb.com/title/tt3303...

35 years ago, Romanians stood up for the right to choose their own destiny.

Many gave their lives so that their children could be free and live in democracy.

Today, Romania and Europe remember their sacrifice.

Romanian pro-EU parties unite to crowd out far-right candidate Georgescu Social Democrat Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu threw his support behind reformist Elena Lasconi for president.

Four major Romanian political parties formed a coalition, vowing to keep Romania on a pro-EU and pro-NATO path.

Trois bouts de cartons posés l'un sur l'autre formant une architecture brutaliste.

En montant un meuble Ikéa j'ai empilé trois morceaux de carton et accidentellement créé une maquette de sous-prefecture des années 60.

Here’s some cool stuff you can do with Bluesky It’s not just an Alf pics repository.

Here’s some cool stuff you can do with Bluesky

A map of flight paths emanating from breeding colony of gulls, with this caption: Early on, LifeWatch noticed something odd. Most gulls were making daily trips to Mouscron, a city on the French border 65 km away. They went to investigate and found the birds bingeing on discarded snacks at the Roger & Roger potato factory.

Today in relatable science: Gulls making a mysterious daily trip that turned out to be to a potato chip factory

Despite a massive head start, BlueSky has now overtaken Threads in the US 👇

Another useful tool: the Bluesky Network Analyzer helps you find accounts you'd likely want to follow.

bsky-follow-finder.theo.io

'Know your audience', the saying goes. Language like 'NPCs' was only used with the hardcore base, and the four words behind 'DOGE' are self-explanatory. But concepts like 'brat summer' - which take a lot more than four words to figure out - were dropped on the (non-plussed) general public.

Liberals speak a different language ‘Gaslighting’, ‘cosplay’, ‘intentionality’ — the American left doesn’t realise how odd it sounds to most people

"Style and substance are linked. If you can’t tell that a word lacks resonance outside of big cities, you can’t tell that a candidate does either. [...] Meanwhile, the right is out there, in people’s ears, on their screens and all too easy to understand."

on.ft.com/3YQioPf

€0.02 from Europe: For a non-native speaker like myself it's much easier to 'get' the messaging on the right. On the left it can feel pretentious & unnecessary, like the coded language in a high school clique. "New and intelligent" to its members, kind of lame if you ask the others

He addresses that in the article... "While conservatives have their own argot — “red pill”, “blue pill” — you have to delve quite far into the weirdo fringe to encounter it. Among the megastars such as Joe Rogan, not to mention Donald Trump, what stands out is an Orwellian directness."

Here I know 'beregată', 'hoit' and 'șirag'. The last one is in fact standard if the necklace is made of beads/pearls. The other two are like those above: archaic but can be used today to add some flavour to a text. (A poet may say 'talaz'; a blogger may write about a 'jivină politică'.)

From Transylvania. Heard & understand 'jivină' and 'talaz'. They sound like old literature, but may still be used in a literary context today. Never came across any of the other, though 'mlădețe' must be closely related to 'mlădiță' (botanical term for an ofshoot).

Eclectic is a place? How wonderful.

App recommendation for those like me addicted to radio. Move the circle to listen instantly to stations all over the globe.
play.google.com/store/apps/d...

I cannot not think of Snatch whenever I hear this song...

Made a quick ticker for live Bluesky user numbers! 🦋
Going up quite fast!
bsky-users.theo.io

Valid Handel

"In Romania, a walk in the woods blossomed into a mission to safeguard centuries-old beeches and the history that shaped them."

www.nytimes.com/2024/01/09/s...