David Allsopp

@doublehelix.bsky.social

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

There a million things wrong with the EHRC guidance, as you all know, but for me the weirdest thing about it all is that its authors don't even seem to be aware of the possibility that someone asked to leave a "single sex" facility might refuse.

Britain, where the national equality body is a boobyhatch jam-packed with wingnut cranks who fervently believe their job is creating weapons for police to hammer minorities that the press hates and wants to harm.

KISHWER FALKNER AND AKUA REINDORF
Code of practice provides weapon to defend single-sex spaces
Organisations have long ignored the law on self-identity. The EHRC rules which take effect today will not end that but are nevertheless a victory
Kishwer Falkner and Akua Reindorf
Tuesday August 04 2026, 10.15pm BST, The Times

Over the last nine months, Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta has run dozens of paid ads that include explicit AI-generated child sexual abuse material (CSAM) and images of minors alongside sexually suggestive statements, according to details of the ads shared with WIRED.

Meta Ran Ads That Contained AI-Generated Child Sexual Abuse Imagery

More than 50 offending image and video ads were published across Facebook, Instagram, Messenger, or Threads, according to Meta’s ad library data. Some ran as recently as this week.

wired.com

Brilliant letter from Stuart Thompson to Jeremy Clarkson about his comments that benefit claimants should write weekly thank you letters to tax payers detailing how they spend their benefits each week.

Leaders of flag-raising group Raise the Colours Oxfordshire placed trackers on highway workers’ cars to find out their home addresses, the High Court has heard. RTC then attempted to intimidate the highway staff into no longer removing flags by repeating their addresses to them.

Flags on the Abingdon Road

Small drones are killing more civilians than ever before - and we need to act. Here’s my thoughts on what we need to do, like establishing a center dedicated to evaluating and investigating drone attacks, training investigators, and explaining how IHL applies to self-defense against drones:

What Can We Do About Drone Attacks on Civilians? Some Thoughts

Lately, I've been spending a lot of time analyzing, reporting on, and researching the horrifying global uptick in the use of small, cheap, short-range drones to intentionally target and kill civilians...

little-flying-robots.ghost.io

A short thread explaining trans exclusion in the law, and the Code of Practice, in response to a load of questions 🧵 Obviously this is necessarily simplified. I cannot write a legal textbook on Bluesky.

The Times, one of the leading voices when it comes to 'protecting women and girls' calling a man who assaulted his young pregnant girlfriend, said he would rape the kids if he was a teacher and called for child sex abuse porn to be legal, 'brilliant'

The Times full page - ‘Brilliant, provocative, inimitable’
Rod Liddle, who has died aged 66, combined a serious intellect with razor-sharp wit, writes Alex Farber

The Code is unworkable, but most importantly, it's unjust and discriminatory. 😣 Some useful suggestions on this site - what to say if "challenged" in a public loo. They can also be adapted for use if you see someone targeted - to support them as an active bystander. goodweeplace.com/guidance

Good Wee Place

goodweeplace.com

Sophie Molly@sophiemolly.co.uk · yesterday

A message to trans + people in the UK. Carry on using the facilities you feel most comfortable in from tomorrow. Your comfort matters. Your right to exist in public life matters. The guidance is completely unworkable and it will fail!!

I work at a public library. People who want to use AI seem to have no trouble doing so. People who don't want to use AI have a harder time. I crowdsourced and then finalized this document "How to disable or avoid intrusive AI" and then gave it a short URL: notoai.org Please pass along if it's useful

An aircraft passenger oxygen mask: a drop down passenger mask with air bag and yellow plastic mouth and nose cover, oxygen tube has been cut; Demonstration model used by flight attendant crew for passenger instruction. Has text on the side indicating that it's non-functional.

Every now and then someone takes a run at me along the lines of "I don't understand why you, a scifi writer, don't appreciate 'AI'," and I'm all, motherfucker, it's *because* I'm a science fiction writer I have the positions I have, how many times do we have to fucking yell "torment nexus," my dude