Astronauts and mosquitoes

Processing devices, even relatively low-end ones, are sent forth into the world in much the same way as we send astronauts into space. They are carefully packaged to protect them from the environment, accompanied by a great deal of baggage, given long-range communications abilities, and -in order to allow them to run at the performance limits of current process technology -equipped with substantial life-support systems in the form of heavy-duty cooling and ultra-regulated power supplies.