Latest news with #rules
The Guardian
a day ago
- Politics
- The Guardian
I'm glad we have rules. I just don't expect people to follow them
Rules are great. I think most of us over the age of five will agree that having them is preferable to not. Perhaps there are a few stragglers out there reading this who would love to cosplay a lesser sequel of The Purge, swinging baseball bats at strangers and urinating in the street, but I would imagine you are in the minority on that. Rules are the backbone of what we have left of society. I'm not happy about where we are, but I don't make the rules. At least not yet. I just need to host a popular reality show – then my political career can really take off. A recent interaction has me reflecting on this. I was wandering over to my local coffee shop one morning, off a wide boulevard where motorists scream through intersections like the car from Ghostbusters late for a particularly aggressive haunting. A crosswalk, with accompanying yellow yield light, was recently installed to combat the minor issue of pedestrians being flattened by drivers on their way to the hair salon or texting about being late to the hair salon. The light has been mostly successful in preventing the human waffle-ironing, but it requires walkers to actually press the button to activate it. This is a step that people often dismiss, hoping and praying that the drivers out there are lucid enough to acknowledge the existence of others. Without the yellow light, we're all operating on the honor system for not killing each other. That morning, someone confidently strolled into the intersection, and was mortified that the car screaming down the road didn't immediately stop for him. The pedestrian hollered and moaned as the vehicle screeched to a halt. Once he was done cursing and spitting on the street, the man crossed and the befuddled driver carried on. Besides my relief at not witnessing a homicide, I was left wondering why the man was so upset. Was he expecting the driver to follow the rules? How naive. Let's pray this guy never ends up involved in global foreign policy. I couldn't help but think of this beautifully trusting pedestrian during the last week of nail-biting brinkmanship between the United States and Iran. A few bombs here, a couple of missiles there. Some erratic social media posts later, and we have something akin to a ceasefire for the time being. Donald Trump claimed the Iranian nuclear capability had been 'obliterated', though experts say the country's program was only set back by a few months. It all comes back to the rules we make. We had an Obama-era deal to cap Iran's atomic ambitions – but Trump pulled the US out of it back in 2018, drastically curtailing the west's ability to hold the ayatollah to his promises. It's like if Los Angeles decided to take the crosswalk out of my neighborhood and instead ask people nicely not to run each other over with giant piles of metal going over 40mph – and if someone got hit, to blow up the area with a bunker buster. We need rules, even if we assume people will break them early and often. Because the vast majority of us won't. Most of us are too timid, too square or, in my case, too lazy. The alternative to rules is anarchy: a fistfight in the supermarket or a bachelor party in Atlantic City. Still, it's time to expect that the arc of the universe will not bend in our direction, that our fellows might not be considering whether or not to slow down through the intersection of life. I don't want to wade too deeply into the finer points of foreign policy, because, as I mentioned above, I have never hosted a reality television program. But I am highly qualified to complain about things, which I will continue doing in this space for the foreseeable future. Assume the worst, as I do, and your life will be much simpler. Expect those around you to fail and flout the rules that govern our world. Does this sound cynical? Of course it does. Does that mean it's wrong? Absolutely not. Look around. Not just at the inside of your living room, the bathroom stall or wherever it is you're reading this. I mean, look around metaphorically. Our institutions are wobbly, our trust in order is at an all-time low, and Vanderpump Rules might never come back for new episodes. Where is the justice? The Democratic primary victory of the New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani has been the talk of the entire US, acting as a lighthouse of hope in the choppy pea-soup shit fog of 2025. But in order for Mamdani to win that primary, people had to show up. They had to vote for him and not assume someone else would. Better to assume everyone around you had a nasty fall on the head and can't stop saying 'Cuomo' over and over again. Expect the worst, then enjoy the surprise of being wrong. If I did host a reality show, and therefore became eligible for the presidency, this would be the primary tenet of my foreign policy. 'If we bomb Iran, people will be upset. And upset people do nasty things' – sure, that won't fit on a campaign button, but I'm sure I could hire someone to workshop it into something catchier. I'm obviously thrilled we all haven't been vaporized, but decisions made today do have this pesky way of leading to calamities of the future. You only need to think back to the 1953 CIA coup that led to the overthrow of the Iranian prime minister Mohammad Mossadegh. Cleverer people than me (with a higher word-count maximum) could explain the connection between that regime change and Iran's persistent conflict with the United States. What will be the long-term effects of the US-Israeli bombing campaign? Unfortunately, I'm stuck in the present and can't give you a definitive answer. That is one of the many drawbacks of corporeal existence, another of which is getting hit by a car. Whatever happens next, don't expect it to be fun. But if it is, and we're all drinking champagne in Tehran in a decade, you can come back here and tell me I'm stupid. What a lovely surprise that would be. Dave Schilling is a Los Angeles-based writer and humorist
Yahoo
6 days ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Dragons' Den star Sara Davies has revealed extreme playdate rule for her children
Sara Davies has admitted she has a strict rule that is enforced when her children's friends come round to play.
Irish Times
18-06-2025
- Sport
- Irish Times
Chopping and changing of football rules is ‘frustrating', says Oisín O'Neill
Armagh 's Oisín O'Neill says the chopping and changing of rules mid-championship is frustrating for players and managers. It was confirmed on Tuesday that Central Council had voted overwhelmingly 38-1 in favour of removing the 50-metre penalty for a foul on a player who catches a kickout mark. The change in rule was recommended by the Football Review Committee . The regulation, which will be operational from this weekend, has now been amended to revert to what had existed before the recent Special Congress. The rule now reads: 'If the Player is illegally challenged, a free kick shall be awarded to the player's team from the point at which the challenge is made, and this free kick may be taken by any player on that team.' READ MORE The FRC previously implemented modifications to the trial rules after round five of this year's National League. Kieran McGeeney has questioned the need for tinkering with the rules midseason and O'Neill agrees with his manager's position. 'I think Kieran's biggest issue is that they constantly change. We played half the league and then they changed and now they're talking about another change this week – there are four rounds of the championship left, like,' says O'Neill. 'I think Kieran has no issue with the rules, it's more just that they keep continuously changing. As players, that's frustrating because you're working on one thing one week and then it might change. But look, whatever it is, it is and we'll be ready for the quarter-finals in two weeks. 'We probably had to tweak a few things [after the changes in the league] that we had been working on and change certain things.'
CNA
13-06-2025
- Sport
- CNA
Alligator near your ball? AI rules expert at US Open will tell you what to do
OAKMONT, Pennsylvania :The rules of golf can be complex but at this week's U.S. Open an interactive artificial intelligence avatar is offering a glimpse into how golfers can get instant answers to questions, even what to do if you encounter an alligator on the course. Inside a hospitality suite overlooking the 17th green at Oakmont Country Club are three demo terminals that feature an avatar of USGA rules expert Jay Roberts standing with steepled fingertips and awaiting any questions about golf rules. To interact with the Rules of Golf AI Avatar, a user must tap and hold their finger on the screen while asking a question in either English, Spanish or Mandarin and then get answered in that same language. When asked what to do if a golfer finds an alligator in the same bunker where their ball is, the avatar quickly shows some mental wit: "An alligator in the bunker, now that's a hazard." The avatar then proceeds to tell the user they can either take free relief by dropping their ball at the nearest point in the bunker where they are safe, no closer to the hole, or take a penalty stroke and drop outside the bunker. Deloitte, in collaboration with the United States Golf Association, created the demo using four years of USGA expert-answered rules inquiry data, combined with advanced AI to provide real-time and accurate answers to rules questions. The avatar is not yet accessible to the broader community or stakeholders that the USGA works with but could ultimately serve players through an app on their phone or perhaps on a screen in their golf cart. According to Lou DiLorenzo, Deloitte's National AI & Data Strategy leader, the technology can help further educate golfers on the rules of the game, which can help ensure fair play and perhaps even speed up the pace of play. "What we are doing here is using technology to help make the game and the rules more accessible, which is good for more people to enjoy playing it under fair play conditions," DiLorenzo told Reuters. "Ultimately we think it's going to help increase speed of play, we think it's going to help the interaction between the USGA and the courses that it serves and ultimately the membership that it represents."
Reuters
13-06-2025
- Sport
- Reuters
Alligator near your ball? AI rules expert at U.S. Open will tell you what to do
OAKMONT, Pennsylvania, June 13 (Reuters) - The rules of golf can be complex but at this week's U.S. Open an interactive artificial intelligence avatar is offering a glimpse into how golfers can get instant answers to questions, even what to do if you encounter an alligator on the course. Inside a hospitality suite overlooking the 17th green at Oakmont Country Club are three demo terminals that feature an avatar of USGA rules expert Jay Roberts standing with steepled fingertips and awaiting any questions about golf rules. To interact with the Rules of Golf AI Avatar, a user must tap and hold their finger on the screen while asking a question in either English, Spanish or Mandarin and then get answered in that same language. When asked what to do if a golfer finds an alligator in the same bunker where their ball is, the avatar quickly shows some mental wit: "An alligator in the bunker, now that's a hazard." The avatar then proceeds to tell the user they can either take free relief by dropping their ball at the nearest point in the bunker where they are safe, no closer to the hole, or take a penalty stroke and drop outside the bunker. Deloitte, in collaboration with the United States Golf Association, created the demo using four years of USGA expert-answered rules inquiry data, combined with advanced AI to provide real-time and accurate answers to rules questions. The avatar is not yet accessible to the broader community or stakeholders that the USGA works with but could ultimately serve players through an app on their phone or perhaps on a screen in their golf cart. According to Lou DiLorenzo, Deloitte's National AI & Data Strategy leader, the technology can help further educate golfers on the rules of the game, which can help ensure fair play and perhaps even speed up the pace of play. "What we are doing here is using technology to help make the game and the rules more accessible, which is good for more people to enjoy playing it under fair play conditions," DiLorenzo told Reuters. "Ultimately we think it's going to help increase speed of play, we think it's going to help the interaction between the USGA and the courses that it serves and ultimately the membership that it represents."
