Sounds like a Left Ventricular Assist Device (LVAD). Interestingly enough, with the older implants there is no detectable heartbeat under a stethoscope due to the way the pump functions. Pretty surprising when you’re expecting to find one, and has led to it being unoficially dubbed VLAD in reference to the creatures of the night.

So if you don’t need to create an account, how do you know you’re talking to who you think you’re talking to?

You use your email provider’s credentials to log into the app, which then creates an IMAP folder called delta-chat which houses all those conversations.

You’d verify it’s your mom by starting a chat with “[email protected]” she’d verify it’s you by making sure it’s coming from “[email protected]”

A very small group of spoiled children with outsized wealth and political power*

having to do a firmware update on my soldering iron

You don’t. It works perfectly fine OOTB. Can’t speak for the Pinecil v2 with Bluetooth and the companion app but I have v1 and the software been stable and bug-free enough I’ve never even given a thought to updating the firmware on it