There's the blazing Russian Caucasus, with an ongoing war all against all, which is not to be neglected.

Alexei Navalny, the opposition politician who has led anti-corruption protests, had a blog about a credit line to a company owned by Vladimir Putin's son-in-law, $1.75 billion from Russian state funds; this is one transaction. Putin controls more money directly and indirectly than any individual in human history.

Losing can persuade you to change what doesn't need to be changed, and winning can convince you everything is fine even if you are on the brink of disaster.

It's interesting that the greatest minds of computer science, the founding fathers, like Alan Turing and Claude Shannon and Norbert Wiener, they all looked at chess as the ultimate test. So they thought, "Oh, if a machine can play chess, and beat strong players, set aside a world champion, that would be the sign of a dawn of the AI era." With all due respect, they were wrong.

I don't really like discussions about a supposed Russian national character.

Nervous energy is the ammunition we take into any mental battle. If you don't have enough of it, your concentration will fade. If you have a surplus, the results will explode.

There is a good chance Donald Trump won't survive four years. Conflict of interest is the biggest danger for Trump. He is destroying one of the pillars of the free world. He is seeking to eliminate the very concept of conflict of interest. A lot of things in America were built on a code of honour. I am confident the damage done by ruling through family and friends will be made impossible by future regulation.