stephaniepier

Small world, it's my hometown too! I had to do a double take when I saw the headline. My parents are still there but they're looking to leave. It's so different there than it was 20-30 years ago.

Well, and really I think it depends on the person rather than the degree. One of my friends majored in theater, which I'm sure many people see as a useless degree. She paid off her loans and bought a house within 3 years of graduating and owns a successful business teaching voice lessons over skype. On other other hand, I know someone who has a PhD in biochemistry who struggled to find a job for years. It's not fair to say "this degree is bad and this one is good." There are so many other factors.

Completely agree on #1. It's turned into just blindly walking around and hoping you run into something. My SO and I played this past weekend and saw a porygon on the "sightings" list. We covered as much ground as fast as we could but never actually saw it. Where's the fun in that? I'm still playing for now, but catching new things was one of my favorite things about the game and now it seems to be almost entirely based on chance as "sightings" are pretty useless.

Another thing that bugs me is uneven catch rate. Having something break free 7 times in a row then running away (even when using razz berries, ultra balls etc.) seems to be in place purely to annoy you. Then other times I catch a stronger pokemon the first try with a regular pokeball. Why???

This is absolutely done if the library has the time/resources to do so.

Right - "subjective assessment" being the key here. Hopefully each criteria is considered at least a little bit, but even experts are going to disagree on what's worthwhile to keep. Beyond that, many libraries out there have very limited time/resources to make weeding decisions.

Having worked in libraries for many years, weeding is a very contentious issue. Many patrons (and librarians!) have an emotional attachment to books, so to recycle them just feels wrong. Some libraries have resorted to putting their weeded books into locked dumpsters - there have been instances of patrons coming across a dumpster full of weeded books then going on a tirade against the library for "throwing away knowledge."

A lot of people don't realize the detailed process that goes into deciding to weed a book. When was it last checked out? How does it compare to other materials in the collection? How many copies of this book are available regionally, nationally? What's the monetary value of the book? Is the subject matter outdated, and if so, does it still have value? It's a very complicated process and unfortunately libraries simply aren't able to keep every book, nor should they!

As a compromise I've seen some libraries offer weeded books for very cheap or even give them away for free, which seems like a good way to please both sides.

I agree with you. My SO's family chose to stay at an airbnb for our wedding this fall so they could have kitchen access. On one hand it comes down to convenience - it's easier to buy a couple boxes of cereal and a gallon of milk and some sandwich supplies rather than find a place to eat 3 times a day. I suppose a hotel could have a mini-fridge, but that wouldn't be able to hold enough for them. I've stayed in a suite with a full-size fridge, but that was considerably more expensive.

There are 5 of them, so that's a factor too. It's easier to plan/use up groceries for multiple people over multiple days than if you're just alone.

I agree. Speaking from my own experience, I didn't even really understand what computer science was until I was in college (I'm female and from a small town). I had taken a "make your own website" summer class in grade school where we did some super basic HTML but that was it. Why would I choose computer science as a major when I was never really exposed to it and didn't even know what it entailed? I'm now starting to learn python on my own and I think computer science could have been a really good fit for me. I think encouraging kids is a great first step.

Agreed. I should have emphasized that usually quotes fix it. They don't seem to every time for some reason.

Interesting, I just tried that. It's been a long time since I've searched for Amazone (that was just the first example that came to mind) but I don't remember seeing that in the past.

Yeah that's the one I had in mind.

I agree, and Amazone probably wasn't the best example. My point is that even when I search for something in quotes Google still autocorrects it (not talking specifically about Amazone here that was just one example I've encountered in the past). This is especially true when I have to find a person whose name isn't spelled normally.

This happens to me frequently. I've also noticed that sometimes the "Did you mean [this]?" or "Search instead for [this]" don't show up anymore, which can be a big problem. As an example, it's difficult to find information on the company "Amazone" because Google insists on correcting it to Amazon. Usually putting things in quotes fixes it, but it's annoying when I know what I want to search for and Google keeps assuming I want something else.