Someone left this thing on a table in the lobby of my apartment building.

It's about 3-1/4 inches in diameter and it has a good ball bearing in the center and the name "SAMSARA" on the hub.

If I give it a good spin, it takes about 30 seconds to come to a complete stop.

 

Its a fidget spinner.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fidget_spinner

 

One of those fads among the young that sprang up in 2017, but now seems to have waned a little!
First seen in the 1990's.
Max.

 

Someone left this thing on a table in the lobby of my apartment building.

Is that table regularly used for sharing? We had such a table at the last place I worked. It was so fun and interesting to see what people left and what they took. Besides food books were common. I left books there pretty regularly and was sometimes surprised when I found out where they ended up. One such case was “All Four Engines have Failed” by Betty Tootell that I left one day. The story of a British Airways 747 flight (speedbird 9) that flew through a cloud of volcanic ash. Weeks later I noticed it propped up in my boss’s boss’s bookcase. Never could figure out what message he was trying to communicate.

 

Around here we have Take-a-book leave-a-book 'huts'.
Max.

 

Around here we have Take-a-book leave-a-book 'huts'.
Max.

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we have those in my city to. Alway thought was some local group.

 

Wish they had them around here, I have far to many novels and hate to just put them in the garbage.

 

Wish they had them around here, I have far to many novels and hate to just put them in the garbage.

Also here are many charities etc that will take them for book sales to obtain revenue.
Locally you can drop them off at any local fire hall where they will be collected.
Max.

 

Also here are many charities etc that will take them for book sales to obtain revenue.

The local library used to do that and I donated many books. Went to one of the sales near the end of the day and they were throwing the unsold books into a dumpster, never donated to them again.

 

I know the feeling. Books are valuable and important so thay should never be just thrown away. This experience changed my mind. 1975 I was teaching math in Nkroful, Ghana, West Africa for the U.S. Peace Corps This was a Secondary School of a couple hundred boys in a pretty remote village. We got books and other materials from a lot of sources including UNICEF and other charities. One day we got some boxes of books delivered. As I remember they were from an American Christian charity. I picked out one to have a look. “The Scramble Offense” by a high school basketball coach in Iowa.

I am sure that this was contributed by some well meaning Americans. But we didn’t have a basketball and certainly not a court and likely few kids had even heard of the game.

Please keep donating to your library but try to understand that some books do need to be thrown away.

 

It's a waste of time for those with nothing better to do... Yes, my wife is on the libraries board of directors and they try and sell books and if not it's dumpster time. I rarely buy new books and have several used book dealers that I do regular business with. Even they are selective as my wife has tried to give them books and they usually don't want them.

 

The local library used to do that and I donated many books. Went to one of the sales near the end of the day and they were throwing the unsold books into a dumpster, never donated to them again.

Are you sure it was a dumpster? I work for the local library, categorizing donated books for periodic book sales. At the end of the day some books were dumped into a “dumpster” which actually was a book collection bin for a company who collected books for redistribution (libraries, VA, hospitals, schools & prisons)

 

Is that table regularly used for sharing? We had such a table at the last place I worked. It was so fun and interesting to see what people left and what they took. Besides food books were common. I left books there pretty regularly and was sometimes surprised when I found out where they ended up. One such case was “All Four Engines have Failed” by Betty Tootell that I left one day. The story of a British Airways 747 flight (speedbird 9) that flew through a cloud of volcanic ash. Weeks later I noticed it propped up in my boss’s boss’s bookcase. Never could figure out what message he was trying to communicate.

The table is used for residents to get rid of items they no longer want, but someone else might want.

Practically everything has shown up on that table including books, clothes, small appliances, and sports equipment. Clothes are my favorite items and I haven't had to but anything in decades.

 

Please keep donating to your library but try to understand that some books do need to be thrown away.

I thought that since our library was always trying to raise money they would put the books in the stacks. They were only read once by me, and bought new from a book club and current titles. But they don't do that here, they buy what they say is a better bound book from the publisher, so all donations go to book sales.

I rarely buy new books and have several used book dealers that I do regular business with.

I very seldom now since retiring buy new, my go to is Thrift books. The few used book places around here have gone out of business.

Are you sure it was a dumpster?

Well it was a big green metal open top box in the parking area behind the library, so I assumed it was a dumpster.

 

my go to is Thrift books.

They, Better World Books, and Abe Books are 3 of the best. But start here https://www.gettextbooks.com/ and it will search ~1000 vendors and list hits by price. Also has a very thorough search engine by ISBN, Author, Title, Language, Edition, etc. It is usually my starting point when looking for books or subjects. Like a HUGE online card file for books. https://www.worldcat.org/ will locate the book in any library within a couple hundred miles of your location along with used sellers who have it available along with CDs, DVDs, Reseach Papers on the subject and much more. I also like Amazon since the have a "Look Inside" option for many books to see at least the Table of Contents and some chapter materials as a preview.

 

My first go-to is AbeBooks, many are used, some new at used prices, I scored a couple of very high priced text books at used price and was nicely surprised to see they came with the accompanying CD in the back.
Most of the used ones have been as new.
Max.

 

Most CDs I have gotten have been very dated and are usually geared toward National Instruments MultiSim which is not cheap (not free like LTS) so I haven't gotten any real use out of them. AbeBooks is definitely top of the list for used booksellers. I have had multiple issues with other dealers such as condition not as advertised, wrong book sent, never received, etc. however they have always made corrections to my satisfaction except for the lost time dealing with it. Never had a problem with AbeBooks.

Edit: I just ordered a book from AbeBooks on Assembly Language and they passed it off to another seller Discover Books who I absolutely loathe due to terrible experiences with previously. I'll hold my breath on this one and maybe Discover will deliver the goods this time.

 

I mainly went to AbeBooks because of some ebay sellers, such as one that advertises, Shipped From Florida, the book took about 3 weeks and came from Europe!
The guy was just sourcing the book, was a second-seller/drop shipping.
Max.

 

My son came home from the Post Office one day carrying this HUGE Royal Mail Bag holding 1 packaged book that I ordered from AbeBooks and was shipped from another vendor in England. A lot of the booksellers source each others books especially the large sellers such as AbeBooks and Biblio.

 

Although that has not yet happened to me on A.B's, I was a little tee'd off in the ebay instance as the seller did not even see the book, it came from another continent.
So far all have come from the sellers address advertised.
Max.