Adjustment Day is a parody, at least I hope it is, of a United States dystopia. The concept is rather ambitious, but the author rises to the task. The prime conspiracy theory behind the book is that throughout history, civilization has periodically weeded out young men of 18-24 through war and whatever other means available to keep society from returning to the dark ages. Who does this in the U.S? Why, your government, of course.

In this version of the conspiracy, the young men turn the tables. Most of the book is about what happens after Adjustment Day. I've only read Fight Club and Choke by Palahniuk before this. All I can say is the cynicism and nihilism of those two books seems increased tenfold in Adjustment Day. Do you have a conservative conspiracy theory that you think about from time to time? They're all in here. I'd even bet that the author comes up with some you've never heard before.

In a satire that is as biting as The Sellout, Palahniuk presents several characters who live through the aftermath of the event, including the originator of it. But instead of nobody talking about it, (like in Fight Club) everybody is talking about this new bizarre movement/social-political revolution. As you go down this rabbit hole of irrational rationalization, it's easy to lose sight of what is going on. Scenes and characters are switched at the beginning of random paragraphs, causing me to back up every few pages.

A good example of Palahniuk's treatment of infrastructure is given by a new form of money that comes out of the movement:

Officially, the order called them Talbotts, but everyone knew them as skins. Rumor was the first batches were refined from, somehow crafted from the stretched and bleached skin taken from targeted persons. People seemed to take a hysterical joy from the idea.
Instead of being backed by gold or the full faith of government or some such, this money was backed by death. The suggestion was always that failure to accept the new currency and honor its face value might result in the rejecter being targeted. Never was this stated, not overtly, but the message was always on television and billboards: Please Report Anyone Failing to Honor the Talbott. The bills held their face value for as long as a season, but faded faster in strong light and fastest in sunlight. A faded bill held less value as the markers along the edges became illegible.

Because the money had a shelf life, people had to work all the time. At the top of the hierarchy were the young men who had put their lives on the line during the Adjustment Day revolution. They would get the money from some source and give it away to their workers and people they knew, spending it all as fast as they could.

If that sounds ridiculous, you haven't even scratched the surface of this world. Chief among the topics are racism and prejudice toward everyone you can imagine. All in all I found the book a little tedious. Palahniuk puts the crazy theories in the mouths of people who voice them so convincingly that it becomes surreal. If you're a fan of the author you might like it. But practically every paragraph seems engineered to be offensive in some way, to someone.

Let's just hope Chuck is making all this stuff up.

I freaking love Halloween. The costumes, the candy, the temperature, the pumpkins, and the whole aesthetic. I'm just testing the waters here to see how everyone else here feels about it and what ya'lls plans are.

EDIT: haha, while my title is technically correct I meant "best" holiday, not next

English Premier League - Matchweek 7

English Football League Cup (aka Carabao Cup) - 1/16 Finals

LaLiga - Matchweek 6

LaLiga - Matchweek 7

Serie A - Matchweek 6

Serie A - Matchweek 7

Bundesliga - Matchweek 5

Bundesliga - Matchweek 6

Ligue 1 - Matchweek 7

Ligue 1 - Matchweek 8

For my mom's 80'th birthday we're spending a week in the place she grew up: New York City. We're going to spend some time wandering her old neighborhood and seeing how it's changed, and we'll do some of the touristy stuff since I haven't been to NYC since I was a kid. We have general plans about where we'll be, but a lot of open time to do whatever strikes us as cool.

Tildestrians, is there anything you think really shouldn't be missed? We're going to Coney Island and the Museum of Natural History for sure, but if there's anything you think is amazing I'd love to hear about it.

Hi there,

Big companies are spending big money on allowing consumers to control everything from their TV, smart speakers, lights, microwaves, etc with voice commands. But do people really want that?

I'm curious because I very much do NOT want to interact with computers vocally. I find it's slow and prone to error, not unlike writing out long passages on a smartphone. It functions, but it's not a great experience and remains a novelty for me.

Bought both kids Echo Dots which is a smart speaker with Amazon's Alexa assistant. It's cool, really innovative. But after a couple weeks both remain unplugged in my kids' rooms - totally lost interest. The only person who I've seen really use a voice speaker is an elderly gentlemen for whom it was the easiest way to interact with a computer (using it specifically to play music and get news).

My friend swears that teens commonly use Siri on their phones to look up information. I can only think of one person I've seen actively use the voice controls and that was an older woman who wanted show her friends how Siri could "rap."

So I was curious how many of you find yourself frequently interacting with computers via voice commands. I personally feel very awkward and self-aware and get easily frustrated because it reminds me so much of the terrible automated attendants on 800 numbers.

Edit: You all are confirming my suspicions. Anyone under age 25 use the voice commands often? I feel like this is all just the first step in designing AI interfacing