I was writing to a Classics college pal about how De Multis Agendis was coming along 😬

I am now checking my daily screen time and writing it down in my diary, as a starting point to reducing this.

(What I could conceive of as being true is that: ‘of those Scottish schoolchildren who speak two or more languages, for nearly 30% of them, English is the second language.’ But perhaps it’s all entirely made up!)

Checks out. From Chess Heroes, by Richard James:

“Online ratings are often quite a lot higher than over the board ratings, & can also vary from site to site. At lower levels, for example, lichess.org ratings can often be 200-300 points higher than chess.com ratings.”

(Currently 700pts higher…)

Thank you also for signposting to your other books, I will explore them too.

I have reached Ch 13, and it has so far provided many ‘yes!’ moments, and pointed out pitfalls I haven’t given enough thought to. We probably provide many children with their formative experience of chess, so need to think about how to make this as positive and faithful to the game as possible.

@richardjameschess.bsky.social I’m a parent volunteer running a school chess club. I found your book in the library today, and finding it so helpful in setting out and addressing all the issues I’m encountering. A super book. 🙏🏼

A suggested comparison. The effect of social media is not dissimilar to the growth of the great European ans American metropolises in the 19th century - a great essay to read is Georg Simmel’s The Metropolis and Mental Life (1903).

PS I love that Chartres Cathedral has a window of Colin Fae Accounts but that’s definitely a chess game, and not an audit (despite the admonitory finger wag). You can see the wee chess pieces peeping out of the poke.)

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God;
but in the end were simply just too many words, many of which were untrue or in the wrong order, and they were mostly with Alt-man.

More on language vs intelligence, a dynamic the AI industry is increasingly having to reckon with www.theverge.com/ai-artificia...

1. It might be too fanciful to suggest that this armorial panel from the old Scottish Exchequer in Parliament Square shows a chessboard in the middle? (late 18th / early 19th C??)

2. The arms for the Instutute of Chartered Accountants of Scotland, granted 1951.

1. Chartres Cathedral. The inscription reads “Window of Colin from the Royal Treasury” early 13thC

2. Exchequer of Ireland(Facsimiles of Irish Manuscripts, volume III, plate xxxvii.) 1414??

Richard Fitzneale served as Lord High Treasurer of the Exchequer to Henry II from 1156 to 1196 (following in the footsteps of his father and great uncle) and wrote this in his Dialogus de Scaccario:

I think 1985 computers were better at chess than 2025 AI, too.