Yahoo has a few services that are better and easier to use than the alternatives. I love their yellow page service, and use it almost every day. It works much better than Google or Switchboard when it comes to searching for businesses near a certain address, and then getting quick driving directions. I have Yahoo's site bookmarked with my home address, and with just a couple of clicks, I can find the nearest Thai restaurant or the address of the closest pet store. Whenever I try Google's service, I seem to get bogged down with fancy maps (that take forever to render and are hard to read) and extra information that I don't need. With Yahoo, I can get what I need and I'm on my way in just a few minutes, with a driving directions printout in hand.

I also use Yahoo's mailing list service on a daily basis. I belong to more than 20 mailing lists run through Yahoo, and although I have my complaints about Yahoo Groups, their mailing lists work much more easily than any of the alternatives.

Maybe Yahoo should accept that they're not going to compete with Google when it comes to web searching, and try to compete in other ways - as much as I love and use Google, there are a lot of things it doesn't do perfectly, especially if you're a "non-techie".

I'm a chemist - a recently laid off and unemployed chemist - and the job market for chemists is brutal right now. Unless you are extremely lucky, this is a problem you're going to be facing throughout your career. You'll be laid off. She'll be laid off. At some point, you may both face the problem of having to relocate to find jobs. It's the reality of the job market for chemists.

I don't want to say "ignore love". Maybe love is worth sacrifice. But if you want to have a long-term career in chemistry, you will need a strong foundation. The right postdoc, where you can get strong references and make good contacts, is essential. That may mean Toronto, or it may not. There are certainly options in the Bay Area (it's not as if she's moving to the middle of nowhere.) But the decisions you make about your career now are going to affect you for years to come. If you stay in your field, people will still be asking you where you did your postdoc when you're 50.

You need to discuss this with your girlfriend. Even if you decide to go to SF with her, it's an issue that will probably come up again later (maybe when she graduates and starts looking for a postdoc). Lots of two-scientist couples have the same issues, and there's no one answer - but you have to talk it over and decide what you want to do and what sacrifices both of you are willing to make.

Suppose new roommate had brought her boyfriend with her. Otherwise it's the same situation - she says she needs the boyfriend for moral support or whatever, he's hanging around when roommate isn't there, etc. How would you handle it? I've never had a roommate with a live-in Mom, but I've had ones with boyfriends who never left and who drove me nuts, and that was just as annoying. (Personally, I'd rather deal with the mom. But I have vivid memories of walking into the living room and finding the slacker boyfriend laying on the sofa, naked and scratching his balls. Ewww.)

It seems like there are two issues here - you have two new roommates when you only expected one, and you think it's "weird and freaky" for a girl to bring her mom with her. I think you'll have better success if you deal with it in the same way you'd deal with a roommate with a live-in boyfriend, or live-in girlfriend, or a sister who has moved in. Her relationship with her mother really isn't your problem. If you don't want a perpetual guest, than frame it that way. Come up with rules about guests and how long they can stay.

The letter writer said: "It's truly horrifying for me to understand, viscerally, that someday I and everyone and everything I love will be gone forever.

Faith might be one answer to this dilemma. But there are others. How about focusing on things that will last after he is gone? He might find it comforting to contribute to something that will be there, and be remembered, in the future. Plant a tree, build a school, raise a child, write a book - whatever is most meaningful to him. Something that will last when he and his loved ones are gone.

He spoke about atheism and faith, but he described his problem as "losing his sense of purpose". Faith is one way to gain purpose, but there are others as well.