Aside from all the very valid criticisms everyone else has pointed out, there's one thing that always made it totally unusable for me... When you open the app, the very first thing it does is show your front-facing camera?? What kind of unhinged behavior is that, are they trying to ruin my day?!
The 40 hour work week was a goal set by people working way more brutal hours, not infrequently 7 days a week. People fought really hard for decades to change it, and when I say "fought" I mean literally. Many of them were murdered by the state or corporations for it. But they got there.
May I introduce you to the 4/4/4 movement?
This kinda conflates hate for the unethical practices of the company with hate for the quality of their products, which seems unfair. As a company they're definitely bastards. There was a long, long period of time where their products were pretty unquestionably top-notch compared to everything else out there. However, for a while now everything has been going really downhill. Then recently it's really accelerated, especially with them leaning into AI. These days I hardly even miss them anymore.
I apparently agree with most people that the liberal comments aren't contributing anything and should be removed, but this also seems like it must be a pain in the ass to moderate. It's a shame there isn't some way to just reduce the number of them showing up here in the first place... Don't want our mods getting burnt out afterall.
I think my biggest suggestion might be to try to avoid the huge industry of companies selling "makerspace" stuff to libraries, i.e. GlowForge, etc. All of it is wildly overpriced and underpowered, at the supposed tradeoff of having a lot of support. It's a bad trade, the support isn't worth it.
Try to build your own open source equipment, like Voron for 3d printing, OpenFlexure for microscopes, all the Precious Plastics designs for plastic scrap processing, etc. Building these from scratch is ultimately cheaper. Also, it means you'll know how to fix anything that could possibly go wrong, since you know it inside and out
Don't worry about not having the necessary skills/experience. It's all very learnable by anyone, and also there are definitely members of your community with those skills willing to help out. On that note, you really want the community running this thing more than the library admin. They know what they want/need.
Pay attention to the environmental and health consequences of this stuff EARLY ON, before you invest in something terrible. Use easily compostable materials like PHA and hempwood, or post-consumer recycled stuff like PETg from used soda bottles. Get into making/recycling your own materials if/when you can.
That's what i can think of for now, hopefully that's at all helpful.
I work in a makerspace, that's in a public library.
I'm like a 3-ish, and I do. I equally enjoy adult books though, if that helps or complicates whatever you're trying to suss out.
I use Reflow Filaments's PA-CF from recycled fishing nets all the time, it's WONDERFUL stuff. Might be using the same source?
I got the game as soon as I saw this post, and have been playing it off and on for the last few days. The UI isn't just bad, it's like kinda pretty broken! At least on my GrapheneOS/Pixel 7 Pro, anyway. The game is also really really confusing?
...All that said, I actually really like this idea, and I'll keep playing in hopes the rest improves over time. Also in hopes that anyone else in my area joins in lol, it's pretty quiet here.
I don't have a lot of mod experience, but I am bi and frequently online. If this is a "the more the merrier" type situation, then I'd be happy to pitch in as well.
I'm pretty perpetually broke, all my family and friends eat meat, and I live in good ol' purple state Pennsylvania (not Philly or Pittsburgh).
In my personal experience, being at the very least vegetarian IS easy, even in my far-from-ideal conditions. I want to take people at their word when they say it would be hard for them, but it's kind of incomprehensible to me. I even still eat at restaurants! Honestly I don't even really cook that much, 'cause I'm lazy and don't have a lot of free time. When eating out, you just try to do your due diligence to avoid getting any hidden meat, and if you wind up with some anyway, well at least you tried. I will admit it's somewhat harder when I'm visiting rural Alabama, but not even by that much really. More on the level of minor inconvenience than anything. It's not even more expensive, meat costs a fortune compared to like... beans.
Sounds pretty good! It's printed out of PHA (polyhydroxyalkanoates). This is a food safe naturally occurring material synthesized by bacteria, and it is fully biodegradable in a reasonable time span, in any biome, with no microplastics. Design from SolidZone, material from Filaments.ca Regen collection. Once the world figures out how to get sustainable pinene resin working, I want to try running a vacuum resin stabilization on it as well.
I have voted twice a year, ever year, for the entire time I've been old enough. That said, I really can't remember the last time I actually expected any meaningful change from it... Electoralism is a bandaid at best, and a distraction at worst. At least in the U.S., maybe it's different elsewhere.