Great link there ..... and it was wonderful to see the theory of Dark Suckers revisited too (cutting edge stuff, follow that link and have a read if you haven't done so yet).
I first read about Dark Suckers many many years ago, back when I was a Tech in training with Telecom. I have tried to educate people about dark suckers for years .... sadly, with little success.
I have always tried hard to explain to people that elecrical circuits, especially high end elecronic componentry, works on the little known "smoke principle" too. Any tech worth his salt knows this to be true, but like much of the REAL knowledge in the world it's kept out of the common press.
For those of you unfamiliar: electricity is basically the property of "charge" that is created by numerous electrons all moving in the same direction. What is basically unknown by many is that once you harness elecricity in most modern electronic devices the flow of electricity is also matched with a flow of tiny, but powerful, smoke particles too.
The proof of this is simple, easy to understand, and irrefutable: it does not matter what you do, once your electronic device has developed a fault that has let the essential smoke out, it will NOT work again until it is repaired.
Why are computer CPU chips so much more expensive than smaller integrated circuit chips, which are more expensive than capacitors, which are more expensive than resistors, etc??
Smoke!!! The more smoke a component holds, the dearer it is!
It's very very complicated pumping all that smoke into such tiny devices you know!
Even vehicle engines suffer from this problem, to a smaller extent as there is little electricity used under the bonnet compared to the amount of petrol consumed (electric cars however!!!) but consider: even a healthy car is always releasing very small amounts of smoke constantly while running. Manufacturers know this, governments know this - thats why it is accepted that ANY car engine has a limited lifespan - even slowly losing smoke meas that one day they will run out.
As a car engine gets more and more worn it loses it's smoke quicker and quicker, and should it develope one of those catastrophic smoke leaks whereby it all comes out in a huge cloud at once - forget it! Modern cars, more electronics - more expensive to repair!