That’s Murder Clown inc., pal. We all know that corporations can do no wrong; why else would they have all that $$$? What would we do without all that money flowing into the political theater? Have the people’s voice heard? And for goodness sake, take a moment to think what that would do to all the Murder Clowns at all those corporations! Who will think of the Murder Clowns, who, I ask of you!?!

On the face of it, it would seem so, but despite those big numbers, the bigger picture they fit into says no. The AI bubble is poised to burst and have an effect on the economy orders of magnitude greater than SNAP can or will. Right now, the top 7 companies on the stock market are all AI related and account for about 30% of US GDP. Cerebralhawks has the gist of what is going on, i.e., this is all a standard part of the dictator handbook. I would posit that this isn’t about politics so much as it is about the realities of the two economies mentioned colliding. The “real material economy” is constrained by physical limits and laws, such as oil is a finite resource and thermodynamic efficiency limitations, whereas the ability to make more money is limitless. I think that the rise of tRump, his dictatorial policies, and the rise of right-wing authoritarianism worldwide are all symptoms of the real problem, which is that the days of cheap energy that enabled the “golden years” of capitalism in the post-WW2 era are gone, never to return. When capitalism falls on hard times, fascism and authoritarian policies come to the forefront as a last ditch effort to maintain the status quo.

Yes, everyone should prepare for the worst eventuality. Societal collapse has happened many times throughout history, and while the commonality in those collapses is the extreme inequality of wealth distribution, our particular coming (happening?) collapse is unique in that unlike past times we live in society that spans the globe, and is full of people who do not have the knowledge or ability to be self sufficient. As such, most people won’t benefit, like happened in past collapses. After the fall of Rome, people got taller and healthier. This seems to be attributed to relief from the tax burden of the state. These days, with most our population in large cities, and with so many of the world’s natural resources either used up, or replaced by humanity and our foodstuffs, most people would not be able to capitalize on that same relief. So, yeah, buckle up, cause the next couple of decades is gonna be a wild ride very much unlike anything humanity has experienced before.

Very good points. I apologize for making assumptions. There’s a lot of anger out there, mine included, keeping people from being their best selves, and my assumption is symptomatic of that. No excuse; sometimes explaination is necessary, IMO.

I like to think of the “economy” as two economies, the real material economy, and the fiscal or money economy. The former doesn’t really seem to matter to economists, as they believe that enough money can solve any problem, hence they only reference the latter “economy”. So, to my way of thinking, as SNAP amounts about 8 billion $ a month and the US GDP as defined in the “fiscal economy” is around 2,542 billion $ a month, it’s a very small drop in a very large bucket, in those terms at least. I would imagine that with the stock market being so enamored with AI right now that there won’t be any appreciable reaction there to the slight change in Walmart’s bottom line. The General Merchandise side of such super-stores is vastly more important to profits than the grocery side due to very tight margins on groceries, so probably no perceptible change there. I think the biggest effect would be on those few small and local grocers, as they are more “real economy” based, so a decline in their sales would further exacerbate the “business as usual” of them being forced into insolvency by competition from big box stores. The biggest consequences I forsee from the lack of snap benefits os a speeding up of what is already a well established pattern. One more thing attributes to the opinion asked for in the original post that I am finally and at last getting around to; the top 10% of earners account for 50% of consumption. So with all that crap in mind, I think that until the people at the bottom are squeezed hard enough that they are forced to turn from single person shoplifting to organized group theft, looting I guess, that there will be no real change in grocery prices.

I was employed as Loss Prevention at a big box store once upon a time. It’s a big part of the training.

Very good points.

It is interesting that you seem to assume that your average person who will be unable to purchase food with SNAP will be stealing food. People also have the option of not paying other bills to afford food, or going to food banks. The majority of theft in the retail setting comes from employees. Also: Is it worse to steal to eat, or to steal to make your bottom line look better? Wage theft grossly outpaces losses from theft year after year. Maybe stop villanizing the disadvantaged folks in our society, and put that anger towards the people who have stolen so much from the majority that they put the disadvantaged in the position they are in.

Preach on, my brother or sister in Silence, and all hail the Mainframe!!!

I’m IT around these parts, and I needed a good smile and a chuckle this morning. Thank you!!!

PSA: Please, please, puuuulease, READ THE DOCUMENTATION!

Did someone say militant propaganda?

Gotta disagree. We start flying in spaceships bound by real physics as we understand it, albeit with better tech, doing normal human stuff, like blowing each other up, and then each book progressively unfolds another layer, literally logarithmicly more alien than before, while also expanding the scope of the Expanse.

The Expanse series.

They are co-linear. You may draw a curve that intersects both points, but they are still co-linear. Those two points, the line and curve can come together to define a portion of the circle, and/or a portion of the arc known as a segment. Those two points also define a line segment, 2/3 of a triangle, 1/4 of a square, etc. They can define an entire circle if one point is the center point. Or they can be completely as unrelated as possible, making them merely colinear.

Oh, thank goodness. I thought that poor Sparrow had just exploded.

3M makes a set of bluetooth hearing protection ear muffs/headphones called 3M Pro Protect. They have speakers and a microphone that allows you make phone calls while wearing them, and also hear your surroundings, but they cut out loud sounds, like running a big machine, very loud yawns, or coughing. There is a button that switches the volume of ambient sounds between four volume levels and completely off. They offer a noise reduction of something like 26 decibels, so they are pretty quiet when you shut the mic off. I am sound sensitive, and these have been a real godsend. They may very well dampen your reaction to triggers. Finding the path forward is the Way. You’re doing great!!!

You do you the best way you feel you can. You aren’t alone; everyone has their own coping methods, all unique to themselves. Whatever runs through your head isn’t anyone’s business but your own, unless you choose to make it otherwise. Thank goodness for that. You are doing great!

Somewhat, but primarily it cuts on the bottom. The most special thing about a rabbet plane is that the blade cuts just as wide as the body, whereas a normal plane will be at least 1/8" from whatever the side might be riding on. The blade is a slight bit wider than the body, and depending on how you set the blade, can protrude enough to slightly scrape the side. My Lie-Nielson rabbet block plane actually has little spurs on both sides that you can put down to make a clean cut, say on the shoulder of a tenon, or the bottom of a routed v-groove that is full of fuzz. The ability to cut precisely into corners is what gives the rabbet plane it’s versatility, and that whacky shape of the #92 is what makes it my favorite. It seems that no matter the position, there is some comfortable way to grip that body. It really has an amazing feel to the hand. It is very evident when you pick it up that it was meant for the human hand to create with. I’ve been building doors, entry systems, free floating curved staircases, and anything and everything else that can be made of wood for most of my life at this point, so that’s the base for my advice. I don’t sell tools, I use em, and I love to be able to share some of the things I’ve learned in the thousands of hours I’ve spent working wood. It is a dying art; there aren’t a lot of people who know anything of mortise and tenon, or cope and stick, and knowledge of how to build and accommodate to wood movement is practically nonexistent. This knowledge that has served humanity for millenia is down to a handful of folks, most aging out, dying, and that valuable skill die with em. There’s nothing else that compares to working wood, and to me at least, there’s not much better than making a piece that you know will last several lifetimes, if not indefinitely when cared for.

The captain is referring to the fact that if your guide, or shooting board is riding under the sole of the plane, the plane will damage the shooting board because the blade goes from edge to edge, unlike a typical plane which has small pieces of the sole on both sides of the blade that prevent it from cutting too deeply into the shooting board. With a rabbet plane you run any guide on the side to prevent the guide’s destruction. The Captain is correct that a traditional shooting board does not work as well with a traditional shooting board setup, however even this can be ameliorate by simply skewing your plane at a 25° angle to your forward motion, and the sole will then be partially out of line with the blade, and act as the small pieces of sole on either side of the blade to limit the depth of cut.

Yes. A machine planer will not remove warp, twist, or bow from wood, it just takes the wood to a very certain thickness repeating whatever shape the wood riding on the bed has. You need a machine called a jointer to quickly straighten and square stock before it is run through a machine planer. A jointer is a machine with a steeper learning curve than a planer, but it will not be as steep as learning to eyeball and flatten stock with a handplane.

Yeah, you are on the right track thinking about riding the side of the plane on a guide. This is typically called a shooting block, and is not limited to 90°. You can make a guide of any angle and those wide sides make it really easy to maintain consistency.

Yes. See my other, more lengthy reply in this thread:)

This person has it right. I’d still recommend this for your use case, as typical planes cannot work on joint adjustment or endgrain very well. The #92 is not going to be the best plane for flattening or trueing stock, a larger plane would do that more easily and quickly. The #92 can do a lot of things better than others, and it has a few tricks normal planes connot do, like cutting all the way into the corner of a joint, or evening out the profiles of two joined pieces (like a joint in crown mould). The body of the plane is square to the sole, making 90° easily achievable by riding the side of the plane on an adjacent 90° surface. As a huge help on the learning curve of woodwork, the small blade, at only 3/4" wide will be much easier for a beginner to sharpen than a two inch wide blade. Sharpening a plane well is the only way to have it work well for you, less effort, less tearout, and of course, the wonderfully unique and not often seen finish produced by a sharp plane cutting the grain as opposed to sanding breaking that same wood grain. I have about a dozen handplanes, including a couple Lie-Nielson (their 1-1/4" rabbet block plane is my second favorite), but the #92 gets more use and has more functions than the rest combined. I could talk about my sweetheart for days, but what you probably want to do is scoot down to Woodcraft and get some planes in your hands. What works and feels best for me may be, or may not be for you. I can say confidently that if you get to use the #92, you won’t be disappointed.

WoodRiver Medium Shoulder Plane - # 92. I’ve had one of these for years, and it’s my favorite go to plane. Great for adjusting joints of all kinds, and about a billion other things.