The ability to prove the origin of something over "Source: dude trust me bro" is critical to a great number of people.
But sure, let's stick with "yeah nah, this piece of paper says what's in the box is in the box so it must be legit" because FOSS is gonna get salty about this.
It's especially important for physical devices that are shipped. To
make sure that nobody stuck a couple of extra "implant" chips in your
new laptop, or phone.
You can hear plenty about the use of xrays (and how unwieldy that is)
to verify electronic circuits in some CCC videos. I commented about
some of the challenges of false negatives in another version of this
thread (which was strangely posted three times by MIT? Is reposting
daily until you get traction acceptable behaviour - may have to try it
myself some time :)
Sounds like Apple is building this (in time) and simply putting out pithy statements so the ilk of Tim and his "omg, why don't you let us have you built for free crowd!!11!!111!!1!!" can all pile on and reveal their hand.
> Despite the name, heat pumps do not generate heat – they move heat from one place to another.
Literally nothing about "pump" implies it generates heat. That being said...
> In colder climates, an electric heat strip can be added to the indoor fan coil for additional capabilities.
That would just be... electric heating, but with more steps? I mean, at that point you just have a heat pump _and_ electric heating; a hybrid system. It's better, sure, but it's not really just a heat pump anymore.
In those hybrid systems, you only need the electric heating elements when the temperature outside is extremely cold. In the average winter season, my auxiliary heat, the electric furnace, runs less than a dozen times a year. The rest of it is all handled by the heat pump.
> That would just be... electric heating, but with more steps? I mean, at that point you just have a heat pump _and_ electric heating; a hybrid system. It's better, sure, but it's not really just a heat pump anymore.
I have a geothermal system (a ground-sourced heat pump) that also has electric resistive heating as a backup. I I've had to use it twice in the ~5 years I've lived in this house. The first time it was something like -15°f outside, so we just figured that was beyond what the system could handle. The second time, a year later, it wasn't quite as cold out and we had someone come look at it who found that it was low on refrigerant. (I've only been here 5 years, but the system was at least 15 years old.)
So, I've been happy it to have it there as a backup. From what I understand, it's also fairly straightforward and inexpensive to add to the system.
It's ubiquitous in some regions in the US. I suspect where it's not is both very mild climates where you hardly ever use it, and severe cold where until recently heat pumps were not sufficient. Also probably old buildings.
Your Dilbert era was scary with how accurate it portrayed real life.
And your Coffee With Scott Adams era was impressive in explaining the goings on of life.
You will be missed!