No, it is not dumb. My second link was just an example to a fix of one particular laptop where this issue occurred. I mentioned all this just to point to the issue that might be causing your problem. I'm afraid this probably does not fix it for you. Maybe it has been fixed with a more recent kernel. You could check which version you are running (by running uname -a from a terminal) and maybe update to a newer one if your distro allows that. Alternatively you could downgrade the kernel to a version before this issue was introduced (a 6.10 kernel should work okay). Of course downgrading should only be a stop-gap solution.

Yes. Apparently the issue happens with both internal mics and mic connectors where you attach your own mic. The seconds link I provided points to a fix for a specific laptop that fixes a non-working internal mic.

It is probably due to this change in the Linux kernel. That broke analogue microphone inputs on lots of systems. After that change, there were quite a few additional patches fixing those problems on individual systems (e.g. this one), but there are still lots of broken setups around. I have no idea what the original change was about exactly. It appears to have broken more things than it has fixed, but what do I know.

They don’t have DRM. That’s not the same as owning the game.

That's why I mentioned that you purchase a license. That has also always been true even if you "bought" a game as a physical copy in a store. A DRM-free game is still the closest thing you get to owning a game.

If you don’t back up the games or installers yourself, and GOG goes under, you lose access to your library the same as Epic or Steam going away.

I have heard this argument before, but I really don't get it. Of course you could lose your files if you don't download them. I'd say that's so obvious it isn't even worth mentioning. If you lose or destroy your physical copy of a game you also lose access to it. Pretty obvious.

Reminder that you do not own digital games

That is not universally true. On GOG for example you can download all your games, so things like this could not happen there. Sure, you still technically purchase a license and do not actually buy the games, but for all intents and purposes this is still the closest you get to actually owning the games.

The worst part is that Nextcloud isn’t even really in competition with Google. Setting up a Nextcloud server isn’t hard, but it’s not a trivial task. Sharing it outside your local network also requires a bit of skill, especially if done securely. That is to say, Nextcloud users probably tend to be more tech-savvy.

That's only true for those who self-host this. There are lots of companies offering Nextcloud hosting. That's probably why Google doesn't like Nextcloud. I'm not saying Google is right. Actually what Google is doing here is quite pathetic.

It's on April 1st, but nobody takes it seriously.

It is, but Signal and Matrix aren't really all that similar. Matrix's privacy is pretty atrocious. It stores tons of meta data about users all over the place. That's the exact opposite of what Signal does.

Ugh, Broadcom buying Intel would be terrible.

Missed opportunity there, not being able to select all the other available USB-PD voltages. Not every circuit runs on 3.3 or 5 V.

I understand their reasoning behind this, but I am not sure, this is such a good idea. Imagine Letsencrypt having technical issues or getting DDoS'd. If the certificates are valid for 90 days and are typically renewed well in advance, no real problem arises, but with only 6 days in total, you really can't renew them all that much in advance, so this risk of lots of sites having expired certificates in such a situation appears quite large to me.

Fairphone is actually worse than Google when it comes to updates. Even their flagship phone is still on Android 13. Even the Pixel 6 runs Android 15 at this point and with this news it is guaranteed to get at least Android 17. Google has always been offering 5 years of support for the Pixel 6 and 7 series. What they didn't promise until this announcement was additional feature/OS upgrades, but when it comes to that they were already ahead of Fairphone.

When it comes to alternative OSes, Google actually makes it very easy to install them. That's one reason why GrapheneOS and the likes chose Pixel phones as their primarily supported phones.