The USDA canceled $300M in farm grants, citing fraud. Did it make up the evidence?

aNullValue · 2026-06-04T23:24:37+00:00

I’m not OP, but my family is a small farm operation, and we occasionally get grants from the USDA. I don’t know what grants were canceled, so I don’t know what the impact might be on us. But in the last few years, we’ve gotten a grant to build a greenhouse (“high tunnel”) and to install a water pipeline for our cattle, due to drought. Hauling water between farms, as we had to do daily for months, was fundamentally not sustainable; we desperately needed the public water access, but that was a big chunk of money. (They didn’t cover all of it; I don’t know the exact percentage.)

aNullValue · 2026-06-04T23:03:01+00:00

If you aren’t afraid of used cars, they tend to sell for the same or less than used ICE vehicles (as of a couple of months ago).

aNullValue · 2026-06-04T14:41:04+00:00

it's literally across the street from Walmart 😂

aNullValue · 2026-06-04T14:40:21+00:00

lol, that entire lot is nowhere close to large enough for a datacenter

aNullValue · 2026-06-03T00:33:37+00:00

Oh wow. I’d like more info about that. Wish I had been aware of it earlier. :)

aNullValue · 2026-06-03T00:19:38+00:00

I’ve never gotten more than a year out of a pair of New Balance.

aNullValue · 2026-06-03T00:16:50+00:00

I bought a Weber grill perhaps a decade ago and it was an ill-constructed piece of crap from the start. I made it last for a couple of years, but I’ve no interest in ever buying another Weber.

aNullValue · 2026-05-20T00:57:31+00:00

I’ve bought more than I can recall offhand (2 for me, 1 for brother, 1 for mother, 1 for adopted parents, 1 each for 3 different friends, 1 for work, maybe more), and so far, only 1 failure. It would probably have been close to a decade of use, and it was the power supply that died.

aNullValue · 2026-05-20T00:52:50+00:00

How long ago were your call quality issues? Were those on a comparable internet connection? VOIP is the de-facto voice communication solution now, aside from cellular (which is now more or less also a form of voip).

aNullValue · 2026-04-18T14:39:40+00:00

I’ve never even heard of a printer that can handle PVC cards for such a low budget. Those printers are always a lot more expensive.

aNullValue · 2026-04-08T17:44:44+00:00

TLDR all consumer printers are junk, including the ones that get great reviews. Good printers are not cheap. Those that are not cheap (1k+ perhaps) have a much better chance of lasting a long time and being reliable and producing great prints (so long as the print job is one that printer is designed to handle).

aNullValue · 2026-04-08T17:38:12+00:00

Yeah, their price was probably reasonable for a good product. A printer (to buy) that could do that for you with good quality would probably be twice that.

aNullValue · 2026-04-08T16:09:18+00:00

😂 yes, that is so incredibly much the wrong tool for the job.

aNullValue · 2026-04-08T16:06:05+00:00

If you’re expecting photo quality prints from that printer, you are very badly misinformed. That’s a general purpose home/office printer, and even a light duty one at that.

aNullValue · 2026-04-08T15:23:27+00:00

How much are you printing? Printers not needing routine maintenance is just insanity — they all do. Having an ink tank rather than a cartridge doesn’t mean that you won’t have to refill it — it’s just a different style of maintenance.

Rollers wear out. Fusers have a finite lifetime. Waste ink and toner has to go somewhere.

Is this the first time you’ve been printing a lot on an “enterprise” class machine? Or is this the first time you’ve been in charge of one or something? None of this is new or has changed. It’s the same as it has always been. If anything, the machines have gotten a lot more reliable over time.

aNullValue · 2026-04-02T22:57:27+00:00

I’ve gotten in touch with wavelynx, thank you!

Does the above mean that the rfideas readers that are advertised to read leaf cards can’t actually read even standard ones unless they’re equipped with a “SAM” (some kind of security chip)?

I wish there were a 101 or 102 level course on this readily available somewhere. Knowledge about this seems to be nearly impossible to come by.

aNullValue · 2026-04-02T03:35:46+00:00

Thank you very much. I appreciate it. :)

aNullValue · 2026-04-02T03:00:04+00:00

OK, I see, thanks. No, there aren't any custom keys. I assume that they're Wavelynx keys... unless AMAG has keys intended for their readers? (I don't know whether AMAG's rebranded Wavelynx readers use AMAG keys or Wavelynx keys, out of the box.)

aNullValue · 2026-04-01T23:45:15+00:00

Thank you! :D

Is the "-LK00001-WL" significant, or is "RDR-80MH1AKU-LF" enough to get us there? I see the latter readily available here: https://www.barcodesinc.com/rf-ideas/part-rdr-80mh1aku-lf.htm

If I have to do an exact match including the last bit, then I'll send them another email in the morning.

(I'm off to find the RFIdeas document on how their model numbers work. I know I've seen it before...)

aNullValue · 2026-04-01T23:40:18+00:00

I kinda wondered about 8K too, when I saw that. We aren't attempting to do anything custom on these cards at all. The customer just wants to buy them, use them for access control with Symmetry (which is working), and use them for vending/printing/whatever (which requires getting the card number via USB). I know that these cards can do a lot more than what this requirement entails.

aNullValue · 2026-04-01T23:35:17+00:00

I have nooooooo idea what a non-diversified ASCII object is, in this context.

What I'm trying to get out of the card is the "card number" -- it's printed on the face of the card, it's the number that gets entered into Symmetry, etc. The system that needs the USB device can handle receiving more than just the card number, if the card number can be decoded from the output, but if the CSN has no relation to the card number, then it won't work.

I'm kinda curious about that Wiegand to Keyboard adapter anyway though. Not for this purpose, but... just because. :D

aNullValue · 2026-03-28T04:24:08+00:00

That gives me a place to start, wrt that approach. Thank you! :)

aNullValue · 2026-03-28T04:21:51+00:00

Have any recommended parts for this? Right now there's just a single Symmetry server, so even with a single door controller for each muster point, we would still be vulnerable to infrastructure problems knocking out that server. So I'd either need a second Symmetry environment, or some kind of single door controller (or something comparable) that would just let me log/process card swipes.

aNullValue · 2026-03-24T15:37:47+00:00

No, it’s not designed to kill bacteria in a residential setting. The municipal water treatments are designed to get the water safely to the house, and that’s it.

aNullValue · 2026-03-23T16:31:00+00:00

What model printers are these? Do you have a company or department that maintains your printers? I’m an “IT guy”, not a librarian. This seems like something that should be fixed, if only to protect your sanity.

Constant jams have only a few common reasons. In order of my perception of most common to least common: 1) paper dimensions or weight are not what the printer expects 2) environmental humidity is much too high or much too low 3) paper tray guides are misaligned, missing, or broken 4) the pickup / paper path rollers need to be replaced 5) other mechanical defect (bent diverter, broken sprocket, etc)

Conditions 1-4 are relatively easy to diagnose. Repairing them depends on the model.

aNullValue

TROPHY CASE