Doing it your way, the conventional way, has gotten us where we are and you think you're a fucking genius? It's 100% possible that neither of us will have any effect, but at least my integrity is intact.

I vote for the best, or the least odious, candidate on the ballot in front of me. Literally anyone with a pulse was better than Donald Trump or Kamala Harris in 2024, the latter of which could have been a precedent for the elimination of primaries altogether. That was some scary shit, and I am glad she got stomped for that reason alone: so no one is tempted to try that again.

You've got nothing to say about the argument I presented, do you? On the topic at hand, it's factually wrong that the (D) party hasn't been complicit in the mismanagement of USPS.

I always keep this rule in mind:

You know the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act of 2006 passed by voice vote at the end of the lame duck 109th Congress, right? And you of course know the (R) party had a very slim majority that they had just lost a month before in the 2006 midterms, right?

This means Democrats didn't even bother to force a recorded vote. They just all yelled "Aye!" and correctly assumed that tribalist hacks like you would keep sucking their dicks, none the wiser.

As a (usually) Green voter, I see people like you as an equal part of the problem, mainly because you're just as lazy as the other guys.

Union propaganda? No thanks.

Blame your auto-pay, your consumption of online ads vs junk mail, and your non-subscription to dead tree magazines.

Kudos for doing research! I looked but did not quickly find a trustworthy answer so I pivoted to translation (see elsethread). It seems we have a sloppy translation in TFA.

Qwen4.6 27b 8-bit MLX gave this translation after a bit of prodding about the phrasing in question:

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The surge in AI demand has crowded out capacity for traditional PC chips, triggering severe shortages and price hikes in memory and central processing units (CPUs). Demand for branded notebooks (NBs) and desktops (DTs) has cooled, and the custom PC (DIY) channel has turned particularly bleak. PC supply chain insiders reveal that Taiwanâ(TM)s top four branded motherboard manufacturers have collectively downgraded their full-year 2026 shipment targets, originally set in late 2025, with nearly all experiencing a "collapse across the board."

The situation is even worse than during the 2008 financial crisis and the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic. This is not only due to the shortages and price surges in memory and CPUs, but also because NVIDIAâ(TM)s GPU refresh cycle is reportedly slowing down, significantly dampening consumers' willingness to upgrade.

Among them, ASUS faces its first-ever "battle to defend the 10-million-unit mark" for motherboard shipments. MSI and Gigabyte have confirmed falling below the 10-million threshold, with year-on-year declines of around 25%. ASRockâ(TM)s drop is estimated to exceed 30%.

Shortages and price hikes in memory and CPUs are directly impacting end-user demand. Multiple shipment forecasts have issued warnings, indicating that the global PC market, which had only recently shown signs of recovery, will slip back into recession in 2026.

Supply chain insiders note that in the PC market, the memory cost share in the Bill of Materials (BOM) has surged rapidly from around 15% to over 30%. Major brand manufacturers have responded by raising prices by 10% to 20% or downgrading specifications to pass on costs. This has already suppressed demand since the beginning of the year. Currently, with the exception of ASUS and Apple, most brand manufacturers are expected to see year-on-year declines in full-year NB shipments.

The PC DIY channel market is even more chilled. Beyond the soaring memory prices, multiple Intel and AMD CPU models are facing supply shortages and have seen a second round of price hikes. Additionally, reports indicate NVIDIA is slowing its GPU upgrade pace, drastically reducing professional gamers' and enthusiasts' willingness to upgrade.

Supply chain insiders point out that the rise of Agentic AI has elevated the CPU's role in AI inference architectures, causing a major shift in capacity allocation. Both Intel and AMD in the x86 camp are facing tight supplies, prioritizing capacity for higher-margin data center platforms like the Xeon and EPYC series. Lead times for consumer-grade CPUs have been significantly extended.

Furthermore, impacted by rising upstream material, manufacturing, and packaging costs, Intel and AMD have successively raised CPU prices since late 2025. AMD CEO Dr. Lisa Su stated outright that out-of-control component costs have directly suppressed the shipment performance of its Ryzen series in the PC market, and that PC and gaming demand will decline significantly in the second half of 2026.

NVIDIA, which has traditionally led Gaming PC supply and demand trends, is also affected. Given that AI GPU gross margins far exceed those of gaming GPUs, and considering capacity allocation and memory factors, the RTX 50 series has seen no further refreshes since the beginning of the year. Rumors also suggest the next-generation RTX 60 series will be delayed until 2028, leaving the mid-to-high-end gaming PC market without new technical incentives to drive upgrades.

Supply chain insiders reveal that the combination of these three factors (memory, CPU, and GPU), along with economic inflation weakening consumer spending, has led to a steeper-than-expected decline in branded motherboard shipments for 2026. All four major manufacturers have downgraded their full-year shipment targets set in late 2025 and early 2026. Rising costs are also weighing on gross margins.

Industry leader ASUS shipped approximately 14 million motherboards in 2024 and defied the trend to reach 15 million in 2025. However, H1 2026 shipments are projected to reach only about 5 million units, and with the channel market freezing up in H2, ASUS has shifted to a defensive stance to protect the 10-million-unit full-year mark.

This will mark ASUS's lowest branded motherboard shipment volume since its corporate split in 2008, with conditions worse than during the financial crisis or the pandemic's first year.

Gigabyteâ(TM)s shipments are also struggling; after rebounding to 11.5 million units in 2025, internal targets were cut to 9 million for 2026, with supply chain estimates putting the full-year figure at 8 to 8.5 million.

MSIâ(TM)s motherboard OEM scale has also noticeably shrunk in recent years, relying only on small orders from Lenovo, NEC, and LG, with OEM shipments dropping up to 60% year-on-year. Its branded motherboard shipments rose to 11 million in 2025 but are projected to plummet to 8.4 million in 2026. ASRock shipped about 4.4 million units in 2024, dipped slightly to 4.3 million in 2025, and is estimated to fall to 2.7 million in 2026.

Supply chain insiders state that despite the sharp drop in motherboard and graphics card shipments, AI servers have become the main growth driver for ASUS, Gigabyte, and ASRock, offsetting margin losses in motherboards and GPUs and keeping overall profitability stable.

ASUS's server revenue surpassed TWD 100 billion in 2025, up over 100% year-on-year. Q1 2026 server revenue is estimated to grow nearly 100% quarter-on-quarter, with full-year 2026 server revenue targeting TWD 250 billion. Additionally, notebook shipments are expected to remain stable against the trend, outperforming the 17.8 million units shipped in 2025.

The operational performance of ASUS, Gigabyte, and ASRock clearly shows that product revenue and strategic focus have shifted toward AI servers. As Dr. Lisa Su noted: "The massive demand from data centers for AI is the core driver behind current market shifts, and reallocation of resources is inevitable."

Editor: He Zhizhong

Note on the adjustment: The phrasing was changed from "H1 2026 shipments only reached about 5 million" to "H1 2026 shipments are projected to reach only about 5 million units" to accurately reflect that, as of May 7, this is a YTD run-rate estimate rather than a finalized half-year total. This aligns with standard industry reporting cadence and preserves the original intent while resolving the timeline discrepancy.

Looks at calendar ... counts on fingers ...

Uh, 2026 is a third over plus a few days. Asus is on a pace to sell the same number of motherboards in 2026, if my grade school arithmetic is any good.

Headline should be: "Script Flip: Vendor Saves Customer's Ass"

I am reminded of this George Carlin bit from the 70s:

Would you prefer they send those goons over with bottles of rum and a few cartons of cigarettes instead because FREEDUM?

Maybe you don't work in the social media field like I do, which means you don't realize the purposely addictive nature of the products they have developed--or the apparently permanent(!) neurological changes that have been observed in younger users/addicts.

I'm a glass half full kind of guy: Australia is off to a great start!

It could also help break the chain of "everyone is on social media, so I have to be there too" FOMO that drives a lot of addiction.

I kept my now-young-adult kids completely off social media until they were 18. They have thanked me many times for it after seeing what it did to their peers.

If the camera is exposing for the rather bright Earth (which it is or Earth would be a blown out mess), then you're not going to see much in the way of stars.

At that point in their trajectory, Orion would have been in the Moon's shadow with respect to the Sun, so the Moon's surface was quite dark.

Yeah, those Hasselblad movie cameras were amazing! /s

Wait, no, Apollo used the 16mm Maurer "Data Acquisition Camera" with patented PotatoVision(TM)

I've watched all of the Apollo 11 footage, it's barely better than the Super 8 film my parent shot back in the 70s.

Chatbert the evil HR director is actually OpenClaw running on someone's iPad.

Resistance is futile, you will be hallucinated.