The Laughing Whale

@morgenlich thank you for being the one to finally give me the opportunity to explain this. Because it's not random! It's very silly and probably something we should stop doing, but it's not random.

There are two big reasons for why Canada uses such a strange context-based mix of imperial and metric units. First, Canada began to use metric units in the 1970s, a full hundred years after most of Europe, and well within living memory. And second, we buy a lot of our stuff from the US (or stuff from China that was made for the US market).

So, if the use context in question is one that you're more likely to have learned from an older relative (eg. sewing, woodworking, cooking, the household measurement of humans) you're probably using imperial units. Because that's what your grandma knows and she never figured out that fiddly millimeter business. Similarly, if what you're doing involves materials from the states (eg. paper) you'd better get used to those fractional inches. This is also why French Canada is more metric than English Canada, since they import more stuff in French from France.

However, if what you're doing is Official Stuff in any way - that is, if it's regulated by any part of the Canadian Government - it's going to be in metric. So it's kmph speed limits, Celsius outdoor temperatures, and kilogram industrial quantities. They're super strict and consistent about this, in part because of a famous near disaster early in the metrication process caused by a unit conversion fuckup.

MONONGALIA COUNTY, W.Va (WDTV) - The Monongalia County Sheriff’s Office Detective Division announces the continued investigation of the theft and destruction of multiple FLOCK cameras. Wesley Jackson, 20, of Gerrardstown, was arrested on July 16 for his alleged involvement. Jackson has been charged with damage, destruction or theft of equipment used by emergency responders and conspiracy to commit a felony, according to officials. The Monongalia County Sheriff’s Office says they remain committed to a thorough investigation and expects additional arrests. House Bill 2066 was passed in 2025 to make the charge ‘damage, destruction or theft of equipment used by first responders’ a felony offense and will have at least 1 year in jail. Jackson has already posted his $15,000 PR bond.

turns out the latter dominates when W > $2,777 which is pretty low! most people should take the million unless they're flat broke right now.

the reason is once you're not broke, losing the guaranteed $50k isn't catastrophic compared to the benefit of getting the optional $950k.

anyway that assumes logarithmic utility, if your utility was linear then you would always gamble on the million as it is higher expected value, while if you have isoelastic utility aka constant relative risk aversion (CRRA) (aka the Box-Cox transformation wtf??) or hyperbolic utility then you can tune your degree of risk aversion as needed.

but I think the intuition that the Kelly criterion provides is valuable as it suggests how to invest (and when to take out insurance!) such that it should hopefully grow your wealth over time with less chance of wiping you out entirely (call it the anti-SBF criterion).

I want to give a few general tips & things to know for your average perisex person for how to be a good ally to the intersex community!

Include our flag in pride projects!

Do not try to force intersex people into a binary like tme/tma or afab/amab. Even cis & trans. We're sick of it! Afab/amab should only be used to describe your own experiences, not other people's. Stop saying stuff like "amab anatomy" & "afab childhood"

We do not like being called biologically nonbinary and most of us are sick of that joke

Stop calling intersex animals trans! It may seem harmless but this is a mild form of erasure. Maned lionesses, male calico cats, antlered does, etc, are intersex! They are not trans! Posts about intersex animals may point people to learn about intersex people, which is a good thing for awareness!

Don't lump us in with trans people! Don't conflate transness & intersexuality. Yes there is overlap between our struggles but we are different groups!

Intersex people can identify as cis but our society will never see us as cis, we do not have cis privilege.

Do not listen to TERFs who call us "DSD", this stands for 'Disorders of Sexual Development" and is NOT the preferred term by the community. It's important to note that this is the current medical terminology for intersex people!! We are fighting against this label and do not accept it! We don't like "Differences of Sexual Development" either because it's the same acronym.

Not every intersex person has ambiguous genitalia. And of those of us who do, we don't "have both", we have something between male & female. And regardless you're not entitled to know what's in our pants lmao.

Use the terms perisex, endosex, or dyadic (they all mean the same thing, but perisex is the most recent & revised term. Endosex & dyadic are better known among older people) when talking about people who are not intersex. The same way you use cisgender when talking about people who are not trans. This positions intersex as a natural variation vs a deviation from normal.

Support intersex advocacy organizations like @interactyouth! InterACT is a wonderful group! As is InterConnect!

Most bigotry intersex people face is medical abuse, please recognize that! Many otherwise reputable medical sources are wrong about us and NEED to be challenged.

Do not reduce intersex people down to "cis person with a disorder" (like what the medical field does) especially in the context of the person in question being subject to transphobia. I see this so often with trans people saying "transphobia affects cis people too" only to show a headline about an intersex woman being harassed. Intersex people are an intended target of transphobia! It is not "transphobia backfiring on cis ppl". Remove phrases like "cis men with gynocemastia" from your vocabulary. Instead say intersex men.

PCOS is considered an intersex variation by the intersex community, but not by the medical establishment. If you are someone with PCOS, you ARE intersex due to your body's natural hormone levels! (You don't have to take up that label if you don't want to!)

I didn't know this had to be said, but do not say futa/futanari. I do not care that it's a popular porn category, it's a slur for intersex people in Japanese. It's the same as calling us a hermaphrodite, only worse because of the fetishization. There are better words you can use. (Ex bigenital)

YOU CANNOT TRANSITION TO BE INTERSEX! You can transition to have mixed sex traits, but do NOT say you are intersex! Please! This is co-opting! Use words like altersex, nonbinary or salmacian! Even post-transition, you are still perisex.

Please realize that we are being violently erased via the medical system. They need to mutilate us because our existence challenges the status-quo of bioessentialism. The only way a dyadic society can recognize our existence is as a "problem" that needs to be "fixed". This should piss you the fuck off. It should make you MAD. If it does, you're better than most allies. It's not an unfortunate "I'm sorry about that :(" this is a WHAT THE FUCK kind of situation. The subdued reaction everyone has to intersex people being mutilated and forced onto hormones is just so bleak to me. It's like nobody gives a shit. You never see intersex people because our dyadic society doesn't want you to. This is purposeful.

On what the male loneliness epidemic is really about. Given actual alternatives, women are opting tf OUT of "traditional roles".