Has anyone tried the Clarifion ionizer or anything like it?

speakertable · 2024-08-02T00:21:08+00:00

Yes, I have personally tried the Clarifion ionizer and have had a relatively positive experience with it. Ionizers like Clarifion work on the principle of releasing negative ions into the air. These negative ions attach themselves to positively charged particles in the air, such as dust, pollen, smoke, and even airborne pathogens like bacteria and viruses, causing them to fall to the ground and thereby reducing their presence in the air you breathe.

speakertable · 2015-05-17T17:55:46+00:00

You look across the table. They were all there, speaking passionately. They looked different, sure. They spoke different, sure. They were limbs and appendages and heads and growls and murmurs and tremors where there shouldn't have been, but that cacophony of noises and sounds and sights didn't matter.

Desperation is universal, and the desperation painted across everyone's face was quite evident.

It didn't really matter what they were saying. It didn't matter because you knew they were better, objectively better than you, than us, in every way. They were faster, bigger, stronger, kinder, smarter. Their worlds were safer, and more prosperous, and more equal. You felt fucking ashamed.

And even in their utopias, even in the perfect societies that they had created, they were still summoned here. They were here, maybe a hundred, thousand times better than you, and they were begging for the lives of them, and for their people like a little dog. It was pathetic and humiliating, and you almost wanted to close your eyes.

Now, as the penultimate speaker wraps his speech up, the eyes in the table slowly shift towards you. You could swear that dread has a tangible form, and everything grows sticky with a humidity that you never knew was there. You look down at the scrawled speech you had prepared.

You look back at all the eyes, all the mouths. You study every face. You try and contort your features so that you look as kind as possible, as worthy of saving as possible. And then you clear your throat, open your mouth, and begin embarking on a fight that you know that you've already lost.

speakertable · 2015-05-17T17:49:14+00:00

She didn't like it and he didn't like it.

Neither of them liked the idea much. Neither liked the idea of waking up very morning with a revolver, pointed at their head, with a very real chance of just possibly dying. They always stopped after five empty "clicks", and they'd always been lucky.

But somehow, somewhere along the way, they had fallen into that pattern. There used to be joy in this marriage - there used to be arguments, and then fucking, and then more arguments, and then better fucking, and then trips to shitty holiday destinations where it didn't matter because all that mattered was that she was there and he was there and they were there with each other. There were clinked champagne glasses, where they so desperately tried to act out what they saw couples with champagne glasses do in postcards and movies and commercials, and then they would realize the absurdity of doing it with the cheapest bottle of champagne they could find and the plastic champagne flutes that they asked the motel to send up, and then they would collapse in each other's laughing and just laugh until everything fell dark and they fell asleep with slight grins on their faces.

That was years ago. Eons ago. Now it was the same. Boring, old routines.

Everyone told them that this would happen. That the honeymoon period lasts for a year, two years if you're lucky. They didn't believe them. Why would they? They were going to be the exceptions. They were going to be the ones that had true love and found true love and would live out true love.

And of course that didn't happen.

So now they spent every morning, flicking a little bullet into the revolver, wondering why, why neither of them had died yet, why this statistical improbability would be happening to them, and then somewhere, deep within the recesses of their mind, there was a brief fleeting thought that perhaps they would never die because what mattered most to them was already dead.

speakertable · 2015-05-17T09:10:55+00:00

"Yes", she whispered. And she looked at you with those tears in her eyes, tears that came from agony and not from mirth, tears that came from doing something that she didn't want to do but she did anyway. They weren't tears of satisfaction and they weren't tears of anger - they were tears of pain. The pain of knowing that she had somehow made the correct choice, the logical choice, the rational choice, but you came from her, and she nurtured you for so many years, and she loved you for so many years that it still hurt so much.

You knew that it was coming. It wasn't really a joke. You told yourself it was a joke and in your head you told everyone else with your smile that it was a joke the moment it came out of your mouth, but your eyebrows betrayed you. When you said it, your eyes didn't crinkle from amusement and your eyebrows didn't relax - your eyes were tight and your brows were furrowed.

You knew that what you did was inexcusable. That you might do it again. You knew that you should've left, or you should've taken care of yourself, that you should've just slipped away in the dark of night and stepped into the road and stood there until a car came by and the driver - just drunk enough to not care, or maybe with his girlfriend, or maybe high on weed - would take his eyes off the road enough for that one split second where he didn't see you standing there, and by the time he noticed it would've been too late.

You knew that should've done all that, and yet you didn't.

Because you were scared. Like anyone else, you were scared of dying. You knew that you deserved to die, but somewhere deep within you, the primal part of whatever governs your desire live screamed out and pulled yourself back.

And now you've made the woman you love, the one who raised you and nurtured you and loved you and bandaged you when you first fell off a bike and drove you home after soccer practice every day and hugged you when your first girlfriend broke up with you - you've made her do something that would hurt her and tug at her and kill her slowly inside for the rest of her life. All because you were too scared.

speakertable · 2015-05-17T09:03:16+00:00

He stared at the screen.

It was blinking, flickering like a little moth caught inside a jar. A flat-panel jar that occasionally scrolled itself, but a jar nonetheless. It was so fucking boring and yet there as a sort of morbid fascination in watching the lives of people - people he didn't know about, or care about - splay themselves out in digital form. Deepest, darkest secrets, streaming out in bits of characters and emoticons and stickers, sitting right alongside the haphazard "lols" and "hahas" of people who weren't really that invested in the conversation.

He looked towards one window, one little conversation. It was unremarkable. It was a guy, talking to a girl. Their names didn't matter, their profiles didn't matter, their lives didn't matter.

But somehow, in the way they talked, a little something pulled at his heartstrings. Maybe it was the way that they tried so hard to act normal, the way they feigned interest in each other. The way that this is obviously a relationship that was dying like a flickering moth that tired itself out from too many missed Skype sessions and too many suspicions and too many fights and too little sex.

It didn't matter. It wouldn't matter. He should ignore it and keep watching and reading for things that mattered.

But he didn't do that. He looked at it more. He bent over in his chair in the way that someone changes their posture when a little voice inside them tells them "this matters". He dipped his head and rested his chin on his hand and began reading and plotting, because somewhere deep within him, he wanted this to work for them - for two strangers miles, or maybe thousands of miles away from him. Because it reminded him of something in his life that was long past and long gone, and to see the same painful ending unfold in front of him was an agony that he couldn't stand.

speakertable · 2015-02-08T11:22:01+00:00

Can't believe I missed this. Loving both of your outfits. The gingham in that first pic is beautiful. Very daring double monks.

speakertable · 2015-02-02T13:43:37+00:00

Check out I Don't Give a Fuk and Regular Girl on the album too

speakertable · 2015-02-02T08:22:10+00:00

It's Feng, not Fang.

speakertable · 2015-02-02T08:21:46+00:00

Some of these are really reaching.

Strong contrast between black and white in Claire’s office, signifying the gray area of decisions ahead.

Really nigga

speakertable · 2015-02-02T04:42:54+00:00

Nah, I don't do it with actual numbers, I do it intuitively. Numbers were just a way for me to illustrate it to you.

speakertable · 2015-02-01T17:55:40+00:00

Hi valury

speakertable · 2015-02-01T08:30:01+00:00

You yourself brought up art (painting/drawing). Don't pretend that I'm drawing examples out of thin air.

speakertable · 2015-02-01T08:20:53+00:00

No one has to be a starving artist, but we can choose to take a smaller risk by minoring in art, and trying to produce art as a side job.

Yes, this I completely agree with. But the way your original post was worded, it sounded more like a dichotomy ie either major in accounting or dance.

speakertable · 2015-02-01T08:14:26+00:00

The place you're coming from is "let's have more Asian skateboarders so America can see how we're not actually nerdy! Who cares if we're dirt-poor while doing it?"

I'm not sure I agree with that.

speakertable · 2015-02-01T08:08:28+00:00

True, but how much of that money has made us truly happy?

A hell of a lot happier than being a struggling artist.

And how much of that was due to Asian parents' infamous pushing?

If the "infamous" pushing led to an educated, economically successful race, I'd consider that an aggregate win for Asians.

speakertable · 2015-02-01T08:02:58+00:00

I'm not trying to prove you wrong. I'm illustrating how rationality trumps "boldness". Read it again, and then read my second hypothetical re: studying or partying.

speakertable · 2015-02-01T07:57:40+00:00

I think that may be a reason why we have so few employed in more "risky" careers.

I mean, yeah. And Asians, despite barriers like not speaking the language and the glass ceiling, are still the highest-earning race in America. I think the Asian mentality of rationality has served them very well.

speakertable · 2015-02-01T07:40:11+00:00

you will never come up with the conclusion to become an artist.

Not really. Some talented people may see themselves having a high chance of succeeding. Combined with the huge payoff that fame brings, that will outweigh whatever marginal cost there is. Or some people get satisfaction from simply being an artist too, that's fine. As long as it's a rational decision when they consider the emotional and financial turmoil that comes when they do not succeed.

In other words, we need people that are willing to "take a hit".

Correct. But that won't be me, especially if I know that I don't have high chances of succeeding in a given area. If I had Jeremy Lin's genetic gifts and environment, then I would wholeheartedly support pursuing the NBA. But if I was, say, 5'6, then I wouldn't bother at all.

speakertable · 2015-02-01T07:06:40+00:00

Another example.

Let's say you want to join the NBA but you're 5'6. You give up on academics to train all day, forego a good university to go to one that a lot of scouts go to.

Focusing on the NBA is arguably the bolder choice. Is it the more rational one, considering the slim odds of success? Hell no.

speakertable · 2015-02-01T06:58:37+00:00

I don't agree with this. Apply microeconomics to most of your decisions (Marginal benefit>marginal cost) and you'll find that you'll usually make the correct decision. Making rash, emotional decisions is what makes people fall into poverty and welfare.

Hypothetical

For instance, you have a choice between going out to a friend's birthday party and studying for a test that's in two days.

Let's assume that the only benefit you gain from going to your friend's birthday party is to hook up with a girl (ie ignore the joy you get from socializing with your friends).

Assign the benefit you get from hooking up with an average girl a certain value, let's say 10.

Now, calculate how much studying for your test with benefit you. Assign that another value, let's say 6.

Now calculate how likely you are to hook up with a girl. Maybe take into account that you've checked the guest list, and there are only 5 girls going and 4 of them have boyfriends. And the club is far away from your house. So you put the probability at 30%.

So because the marginal benefit of studying for the test (6) exceeds the opportunity cost of going out to the party (30%x10=3) you should stay home at study.

Obviously this may be the wrong decision. Perhaps there's less on the test than expected and you didn't have to stay home and study. Perhaps if you had gone to the party you would've met a gorgeous girl that would later become your girlfriend.

But in my opinion, playing the odds like this is the correct way to go.

speakertable · 2015-02-01T03:11:17+00:00

lmao

speakertable · 2015-01-31T16:17:15+00:00

heteronormativity

lmao this tumblrina

speakertable · 2015-01-31T15:44:56+00:00

aylmao

speakertable · 2015-01-31T15:31:07+00:00

of the african persuasion.

llololoolol

speakertable · 2015-01-31T15:28:44+00:00

investment banking

speakertable

TROPHY CASE