David Allsopp

@doublehelix.bsky.social

3665 Followers 2633 Following

Scientist turned software engineer. He/him 🏹 Field archery 🐀 Rats 😷 COVID cautious 🏃 Parkrun https://medium.com/@davidallsopp @doublehelix@mastodon.social

Avery Edison tweets in 2023: I wrote "I am alive" on a piece of paper, and placed it into a photocopier. What I saw next has shocking implications
Close-up of the flower-stalk of an Aloe succulent plant, with a dozen or so pale yellow buds in a tight cluster, surrounded by the dark green pointy fleshy leaves, speckled with stubby white spikes.
Norm Ignorer @blackwifehaver.bsky.social posts: I stand by the sentiment which got me mass-reported: A huge portion of "disabled" people are either malingering or having their psychosomatic delusions flattered by scumbag doctors. Of these people, all are narcissists.
A snippet from the guidelines, including the explanatory text (which the OP edited out) with a cartoon drawing of a woman athlete filmed from a low angle behind, emphasizing her backside in skimpy briefs. The guidance explains "there are times when these angles can be compromising and uncomfortable for the athlete"
Norm Ignorer @blackwifehaver.bsky.social posts: Official guidelines from the European Broadcasting Union. I'll bet that within my children's lifetimes, it'll be quasi-illegal to depict women in visual media except maybe as ethereal, unknowable, disembodied beings. With a selective screenshot from some guidelines which are oppose "The sexualization of women athletes through selective camera angles and editing choices"
Kellie-Jay Keen (AKA Posie Parker) in a venom-green dress and sunglasses, shouting "I'm not a feminist!"
Map of Canada's Boreal forests, stretching over 3000 miles (5000 km) from Yukon in the west to Newfoundland and Labrador in the east.
Austin Powers, International Man of Mystery, smiling and saying "oh beehive"
Someone solving a Rubik's Cube in under 14 seconds
A man dressed in grey strokes a white pet rat, sat cradled in one arm, in the manner of the Bond villain Blofeld. Video is looped so rat is petted endlessly.
Meme: "Yo dawg, I heard you like X so I put an X in your X so you can Y while you Y". Image shows rapper Xzibit laughing
Meme in which a man angrily addresses a rather small crowd and shouts "there are dozens of us", except that this has been struck out an amended to "a dozen", then amended further to "several"
A painting by Paul Kidby of several Terry Pratchett characters from his book Sourcery. Conina (daughter of Cohen the Barbarian) has long blonde hair and dangly earrings, and is wearing an improbably white dress, given that she is wiping the blood off her rapier and standing with one booted foot atop a pile of dead bodies of massive barbarian foes. Rincewind the wizard, dressed in red robes, is sat on the ground, clinging cowardly to her leg. Behind them stands Nijel The Destroyer, a skinny ginger teenager wearing thermal underpants, and armoured codpiece, and casually holding a massive and ornate sword, point resting on the ground.
Sketch from the Little Britain TV comedy show. In front of an old timber-framed English house, Sir Norman Fry reads out a wildly implausible explanation for some hugely embarrassing incident to the press as his wife grins nervously alongside him.
The old "art decider" twitter account, saying simply the word "art".
The Blues Brothers in their car saying "I hate Illinois Nazis"
Chris Morris standing in front of a Venn diagram with two circles, both labelled "drugs". Their intersection is labelled "kids".
Snippet from a book: "Well, we'll want to dig about when we're hunting for a way down to the dungeons," said Julian. "Ropes", said Dick, "we may want those too." "And torches," said George. "It'll be dark in the dungeons." "Oooh!" said Anne, feeling a pleasant shiver go down her back at the thought. She had no idea what dungeons were like, but they sounded thrilling.
A frame from the Inspector Clouseau cartoon; Clouseau is talking to Chief Inspector Dreyfus who is sat at a desk
An estate agent's map of central London, centred on Kensington Gardens, showing dozens and dozens of properties on sale from upwards of 5 million
Hot Rat Summer, a guerrilla mosaic public artwork installed in Cal Anderson Park in Capitol Hill, Seattle. In an arched alcove, it shows a rat standing in its hind legs, with a golden sun with radiating beams behind its head acting as a halo, a red heart against the blue sky, standing on land graduated from green to red, and the words "hot rat summer" at the bottom. On the shelf formed by the base of the alcove there are six candles in glasses, some bearing the image of Marsha P. Johnson.
A white pet rat sleeping on top of a fabric hammock in a green jungle pattern, her face towards us, eyes closed, long whiskers glowing from the backlighting
A cylindrical cartridge of Evo-stik "Sticks like shit" all-weather adhesive
Screenshot from part 1 of the Sexual Offences Act 2003, showing the definitions of 1) Rape and 2) Assault by Penetration, both of which carry a maximum sentence of life imprisonment
A cat in a painfully contorted posture, legs askew, lies on a shop counter as the worried owner looks on. The shop owner, with a jeweller's loupe in his eye, inspects the cat and says "It'll be about 2 weeks if I can get the parts". Several calm-looking cats can be seen on shelves in the background. From the inside shop window, we can see the reversed text, "Cat Repair"
Derek Zoolander wear a sweater and a matching headband in an angular abstract pattern, pulling his famous "blue steel" supermodel stare and pout, and saying "I can't turn left"
The label on a bottle of Henry Weston's 2013 Vintage cider, marked 8.2%
Meme: two small children backed into a corner in fear, the younger boy in tears, labelled "conservatives". They are staring in terror at a placid pet rabbit, labelled "things that don't happen"
Lawrence Fox tweets: "Here we go again. The cultural commissars at the @bbc are telling you what is and isn’t appropriate for your ignorant little ears. Wouldn’t it be nice if we sent the (proper) version to the top of the charts? #DefundTheBBC" Minutes later, the Pogues official account quote tweets him, saying: "Fuck off you little herrenvolk shite"
2024 US Open Rally Length (122/127 matches played for men and women) For a rally length of 0-4 shots, men 69.3%, women 67.7%. For 5-8 shots, men 20.4%, women 22.1% 9+ shots, men 10.3%, women 10.2%
2024 election results for Clacton Farage's Reform UK got 46% Conservatives 28% Labour 16% Liberal Democrat 4% Green 4% (smaller parties omitted)
Guy standing in what appears to be an elevator presses a red button labelled "Yaaah! Get it off me!". A trapdoor slides open in the ceiling above him and a wide variety of creepy-crawlies falls towards his head.
“...Greyhald Spold knows that Death is looking for him, and has spent many years designing an impregnable hiding place. He has just set the complicated clockwork of the lock and shut the lid, lying back in the knowledge that here at last is the perfect defence against the most ultimate of all his enemies, although as yet he has not considered the important part that airholes must play in an enterprise of this kind. And right beside him, very lose to his ear, a voice has just said: DARK IN HERE, ISN'T IT?” ― Terry Pratchett, The Light Fantastic
Bryan Johnson on twitter advertising so-called longevity drugs on his website, immortals. Nassim Nicholas Taleb quote tweets him, saying "The problem with Bryan Johnson is attribution: we'll never know which drug, or combination of drugs, did him in"
A google trends graph of the usage of the phrase "bomb thrower" showing that it has barely been used since 2004, though there was a spike of around 100 usages in November 2008
A black t-shirt bearing the words: Easily distracted by archery and cats. Also features a couple of small paw-prints.
Legolas in Lord of The Rings, captioned "They're taking the hobbits to Isenagard-gard-gard-gard!"
The sentence "I did my own research", but with three footnotes clarifying that what they mean is they watched someone else's shitty YouTube video
Historical Fact: The Seax was so culturally significant that entire tribes identified with it. The Saxons (the Germanic people who settled in England) likely derived their name from the knife they carried. To be a Saxon was to be a “Man of the Seax.”
Two red buttons meme. A heroic man in a red costume mops his brow as he agonises over the choice between one red button marked "TERF is a slur" and one marked "TERF membership cards".
Dr Veronica Ivy @SportIsARight, tweets in October 2018 Lots of men saying "Well maybe I'll just become a woman and win races." DO IT. NO REALLY. I dare you. Legally change your name and all your ID. Document suppressing your testosterone for at least a year. Submit medical documentation to USAC. Toe the line and race. I'LL WAIT. Live your entire daily life as a woman. Be out to your co-workers and company. To your friends and family. Live as a woman. Good luck with that. Maybe you'll see just how hard it is and that NO ONE does this to win races. Oh, and I'll support you. GO ON THEN. We're waiting. I WILL EVEN PAY FOR YOUR RACE ENTRY FEE. Go on. Prove us all right. I really mean this. If you can prove that you've done this, I will pay for your race entry fee. Are you men saying this man enough to be a woman? Or are they just empty bluster thinly veiling your transmisogyny?
Lee Hurley tweets in March 2024 James O'Brien thinks a man can just say 'I'm a trans woman' and then they can play whatever women's sport they want when THAT ISN'T HOW ANY OF THIS FUCKING WORKS @ciara2001 replies Funny how all the people who say this, never actually do it to prove how easy it is? David Allsopp @doublehelix replies Several years ago, Veronica Ivy issued a challenge to do this (in track sprint cycling, following all the hormone rules of course), and offered to pay the race fees etc. No takers, naturally.
Blackadder to Samuel Johnson: Oh, well, in that case Sir I hope you will not object if I also offer the Doctor my most enthusiastic contrafibularities
An extremely cute young pet rat, white with a brown head and markings down her back, nestled in a bed of pink paper shavings and red and white fleece
Sterling Archer, the animated secret agent, wide-eyed in surprise and saying "uh, phrasing!"
Kirsti Miller @KirstiMiller30 tweets in 2022 (part of a long thread): What you will find, if you actually take a look at Lia Thomas’s page on Swimcloud is that she performed rather exceptionally when competing in male swimming from 2020 and earlier.
Sullivan has also publicly supported Lia’s participation, saying: Many of those who oppose transgender athletes like Lia being able to participate in sports claim to be “protecting women’s sports.” As a woman in sports, I can tell you that I know what the real threats to women’s sports are: sexual abuse and harassment, unequal pay and resources and a lack of women in leadership. Transgender girls and women are nowhere on this list. Women’s sports are stronger when all women — including trans women — are protected from discrimination, and free to be their true selves.
Cartoon by Jonathan Rosenberg. Set in Secret Castle 97/B-0 Press room, problematic space, the prose zones. J K Rowling and Graham Linehan hold a press conference. JK: I come to you today on behalf of the League of Disappointing Authors with a demand Glinner: We have demands! JK: We have only one demand: that you listen to our appeal for decency with an open mind. Glinner: Or your ear also open. JK: Cancel culture is out of control on the internet. People are literally being cancelled out of existence. Glinner: I no longer exist. JK: Shut the fuck up Graham Glinner: I'm just trying... JK: I said shut the fuck up. Nobody gave you permission to flap your ham flaps. JK: We all know that hate speech is bad. But this isn't hate speech being shouted down. This is love speech. Glinner (leaning into frame sideways): For example, we love to tell trans women they're men. JK: (casually shoving Glinner back out of frame): If it was hate speech, could I say this with a lovely English accent? No, of course not. This is the way polite people sound. What I'm trying to say is that the free speech of people like me needs to be protected from the free speech of people like you. Glinner (leaning in again, smoking his pipe): Our future meals
Internet Hippo tweets in 2017: Oh, you're upset about a thing? Well, would you be mad if the situation were different in a way I designed in my head just for this argument?
The logo of the Renew Party UK, subtitled New Party, New Hope. It's a light blue rectangle with two red right-angled lines like try-squares, one top left, one bottom right, both pointing inwards. A masterpiece of bad graphic design.
Sir Humphrey Appleby from Yes Minister, with a speech bubble coming from his mouth and encapsulating the quoted skeet
A Ferengi (a Star Trek alien with a ridged nose, huge ears blending into a prominent browline, and a double-domed forehead) saying "Females" but with 2 letter F's and 4 letter E's for intonation.
A Ferengi (a Star Trek alien with a ridged nose, huge ears blending into a prominent browline, and a double-domed forehead) saying "Ffeeeemales"
A valley full of lush jungle plants including a huge Gunnera plant, tree ferns, and cabbage palms
HBomberguy erupting through floral wallpaper around a hole in the wall he has just hacked though with an axe
The picture above of Susan Dalgety, which has the top of her head cropped off, but I've taken the lower half of her face, flipped it vertically aligned with the centre of her spectacles, and put it on top to make a weird face with another mouth on her forehead.
Snippet from the old British Yellow Pages phone directory, which says: Boring See: civil engineers
Certificate of whataboutery. This tweet has been certified as 100% whataboutery. Congratulations on this prestigious award.
A rather impressive trophy of a gold eagle, wings raised high, talons reaching out forwards, on a black and gold plinth on an octagonal wooden base. A small plaque reads 1973-2023.
The pump mechanism inside a cheap tyre inflator: a switch which activates an electric motor with a small pinion gear, driving a larger gear for greater torque. The large gear has a crank pin connected to a plastic crank rod which drives a single piston which pumps the air, presumably through a one-way valve.