That lists countries, not politicians.

Europe offered Iraq food for oil.
USA offers rebuilding their infrastructure which they first bombed for Iraq oil. Of course Hussein wouldn't go for that so Hussein had to be killed.

Brands, groups, interests, fads, trends - be it fashion, mathematics, religion, cars - these all are "unoriginal". And if you exclude *all* except for the ones you created yourself - no, you won't have any topics in common to talk with your friends about, no shared interests, nothing to keep you together.

Pinkie Pie got me into baking. I got quite good at cooking. From the level of "eggs on bacon" level to "beef and mushroom spicy pasties in puff pastry" level.
Actual need got me to learn sewing using a sewing machine, although Rarity was a significant contributing factor.
I actually managed to hunt down and watch moonrise inspired by Princess Luna. It's harder to observe than you''d think.
The show in general got me back to my pasttime hobby of writing, after good 10 years of writer's block.
I managed to last third winter in the row without succumbing to hopeless depression.
I've made a few new friends.
I won a poetry competition.

All thanks to ponies.

Humans are social creatures. They have a need to belong, to be in a group. If you exclude all 'brands' from your identity, you become a loner. Also, people of exceptional talent create exceptional, popular works. Its unlikely your talent is as exceptional, and so few of the things you create from scratch, as "your own brand" can be better than you can find if you seek.

So, instead, people find things they like and gather around them. They build upon them, make them better, expand on them, add personal touches. Very few can create something both original and notable enough to create a following after their own brands. Most find common theme to unite them as a group - follow something established. Are they all losers?

Please note: the brony society is big and rich and can provide quite a bit in means of social interactions and interests.

The fact the social interactions don't involve beer and sports on TV doesn't mean they are adversely affected.

So, you have a hobby: say, art involving metalworking. You can try going with your original ideas and get maybe 20 people interested in your custom minted coins. Or you can mint an Equestrian Bit, get featured on Equestria Daily and get thousands views and quite a few orders.

You have a hobby: hiking. You can gather a company of hiking friends and discuss routes and equipment on your trip, and eventually seek common subjects, maybe hi-tech gizmos. Or you can gather a bunch of hiking bronies and sing pony songs on campfire stops, discuss fanfics, and joke about pony stuff.

It's only when ponies replace other hobbies they become a problem. If they add to them, they are nothing but a boon.

Note: five hours a week regardless of what system you have. And the game can't be too graphically intensive because the GPU will be busy mining...

Unfortunately, what people don't realize is that taxes actually do pay for things. I've literally been told by people, here in the US, that taxes are just "wasted" or "stolen" money and don't really do anything. When I ask them if they've ever driven on a public road, or attended a public school, or occupied safe and well-inspected buildings, or taken safe and well-controlled flights, they launch into rants about "inefficiency".

We live in a society, and we're supposed to care for one another, especially those most vulnerable. "I've got mine and %$)@*% you buddy" is not a recipe for a stable or pleasant society, certainly not one that I'd want to live in. And that's said as one who's at least to a reasonable degree got mine--as many of us here know, developers don't make bad money. But that doesn't ultimately mean much if society isn't kept stable and healthy.

It reminds me a great deal of Monty Python's "What have the Romans ever done for us?" sketch. Substitute "gubmint" for "Romans", and you've essentially got the same scenario.

And it boggles my mind that people think private companies bent on making as much profit as possible will provide services at a lower cost than an entity which need not make one.

Why do you think the Occupy movement scared the holy hell out of them? It wasn't because they set up tents in a few parks.

Really, neither side cares too much whether you favor the puppet on the left or the puppet on the right, so long as you're busy demonizing the other side and staying divided. That's just your required participation in the Two Minutes' Hate, citizen. But when someone came along and said "We know who's pulling the strings, and we're all here to talk to the puppeteer", well now, THAT had to be stopped.

Most users would be mining on CPU power, and that means very poor chance to get any results while wasting enormous amounts of electricity.

You should look at the Mining hardware comparison. Summarizing: Best Xeon setups get 66Mhash/s and most common desktop setups go 1-10Mhash/s

Meanwhile, FPGA mining devices reach 1000-10,000Mhash/s and ASIC ones get order of 10,000-60,000 at powers like 600W.

Now to get power comparable to a single ASIC rig you'd need roughly 1000 customers running 24/7 or 33,000 customers running 5h a week.

33,000 CPUs running at full power, zero energy saving, to produce results comparable with a 600W appliance. This is to stay moderately competetive and get *some* ROI.

While the cost is distributed between the customers, the real cost - the amount of energy wasted - is staggering.

You select the target with your iris and eye gestures, recognized by cybereye or goggles. Target gets a highlight/targetting frame.
You move the gun so that the reticle (based on gun-mounted camera) on your HUD enters the defined targetting frame.
The moment the gun detects the match (reticle enters the frame = the gun is aimed at the target), it fires, hitting the highlit target.

This is how a smart gun is supposed to work. Not some shmancy safety feature.

Upon pushing the trigger a display on the gun prompts:
Are you sure you wish to fire this gun?
[ok][cancel]

Still, they'd have an awfully difficult time restricting charcoal, raw iron, or diesel oil. Moreover, owning a gun-producing factory is perfectly legal but prohibitively expensive. They restrict stuff to make things they want restricted prohibitively difficult to obtain (be it due to price, availablity, or legal requirements). We proceed into territory of more ubiquitous, common, necessary in day-to-day- life. The point where these meet is what is legal and obtainable - push it one way oranother and the reach changes. It's a moving frontline, banning more is just as hard as getting into more generic territory with manufacture.

If you want to make a smoothbore single-shot, sure, that's easy. Now if you want a rifled barrel, a bolt and bolt carrier for semi-auto gas-operated rifle... a simple garage-style lathe won't be enough, and you'll need a lot of skill with non-CNC equipment.

It's all about availablity. This whole endeavor is so that you wouldn't need three years of training in metalworking to make a functional semiautomatic gun.

Remember, slippery slope: a massive ban of everything would be difficult. OTOH, tightening the screw gradually, restricting them part-by-part would be much more "doable" - note how nowadays modding of AK-47 is a special puzzle of what parts must be domestically produced and what you are not allowed to include. IIRC, getting a pistol grip for it is nearly impossible. That way, regulation by regulation, this could be done without getting the public outrage.

I wonder how viable electric primer - spark-based maybe? - would be.