Lose to Win

13th World Chess Champion Garry Kimovich Kasparov on the stage of the Theatre Franco Parenti in Milan, Italy Saturday, October 5, 2019 speaking as a special guest at OnLife, a two-day meeting on Artificial Intelligence and social sciences between past and future organised and hosted under the auspices of la Repubblica. The whole footage of Kasparov’s lecture is freely available on the YouTube channel of la Repubblica.

Numbers & Colours

CNR (National Research Council) and PoliCom did an exclusive research study for la Repubblica on the Twitter data of several political leaders, finding out that the number of their followers is dramatically overrated, in the proportion of 1 to 8. I don’t think it is a novelty, but rather a confirmation of something that was well known to everyone. As for me, I have to say I am not a leader nor a political theorist, so it’s beautiful not to have a “social target” to reach. Indeed, I have only two or three readers each day, who not necessarily are followers of mine. I’ve always thought that classifying a reader as “detractor” or “fan” is a most sad thing, so my two or three readers can be sure I won’t ever call them followers for watching things I do not always like.

A sand dune in the 腾格里沙漠 (Tengger desert), China. Photo: Jonathan Watts.