1) This is another shining example of technical writing.
not sure what sort of "tube" they mean This could be a type of pipe (flexible or not) or a transistor type tube. Context of the whole article should help you translate the word meaningfully.

No, Eta, I don't have you on ignore. I was writing my post when both you and IP posted. Since insel's post was long enough to take up the window space, I didn't see yours until much later.

2) Any person who is well known should expect that people will talk about them and if they don't know the truth, they'll make it up.