A number of businesses actually had accommodations for him - he would have simply had to ask, which is very much allowed under the ADA.

That's more or less my understanding of the law. A business doesn't HAVE to install a ramp, make doorways accessible, etc if they have always been that way prior to ADA becoming law.

If the business remodels or alters the front facade for instance, then that results in the need to bring things up to code/compliance or make alternate accommodations. A front door doesn't have to be made accessible if a side door can be made so at a cheaper price. A restaurant doesn't have to have braille menus if a waiter can read the menu. Etc.

Given that they're all probably not disabled, I'm wondering what grounds they have to sue in the first place.

I would imagine that most lawyers that file legitimate ADA lawsuits aren't disabled. They file them on behalf of someone who is. From the article:
Hansmeier registered the Disability Support Alliance in Minnesota in July 2014 and listed himself as the nonprofit's agent. Its members, all of whom live with a disability, include Wong, of Minneapolis, and three Marshall residents.

He's finding disabled people who get paid to complain, creating the "legitimacy" of the ADA complaint. According to the article, Minnesota in their infinite wisdom made it possible for a plaintiff to file criminal misdemeanor charges against someone for ADA violations with penalties up to 90 days in jail and up to a $1000 fine.

The goal should always be about accessibility to all, not making money through settlements because of inconvenience. Only the most egregious cases of non-compliance should result in any criminal charges, and even then it shouldn't be done on the behalf of the filing plaintiff.

Why does Apple feel the compulsion to plow money into an inferior map service?

Because Google is the competitor, plus they want full control over the experience. Is it a smart decision to rely on your competitor to provide a service to all your customers because you're too lazy and cheap to do it yourself? Whatever they paid for Coherent Navigation was less than couch change.

Your own link states that the turtle was used for meat and is legal game (with limits) where that one was killed. Sounds to me like it's in the same category of hunting deer, turkeys, or any other wild animal that's then used at least in part for food.

See metallicity.

...they've heard that he's an astonishingly talented guy but a gigantic pain in the ass and prima donna - very hard to work with.

So in other words, just like almost everyone else related to the entertainment industry.

That's the underlying goal of RepRap Printers, self replication. A decent amount of the components can be self replicated.

How much of that goes into R&D and factory tooling / production?

I would imagine a very very small percent of it. It's similar to other high end brand names where you are paying for a name and marketing, not actually physically superior products.

Oakley, Monster cable, Bose...you're paying for a name, it's perceived status, and all the marketing that got them to that perception, not a better product.

Erase your hard drive with a multi-pass secure wiping program before restoring the fresh image on it. Yeah yeah yeah it may not be perfect and theoretically some magical device might be able to pick up variations in temporal magnetic quantum flux in adjacent bits and recover data blah blah blah. But if they go to that level to recover your data, you were fucked anyways.

If they ask why it's such a fresh install, you just simply state that you access everything via VPN and you only travel with a fresh laptop in case it's lost, stolen, detained, confiscated, etc and you don't lose anything and everything on it while you're traveling.

I don't think there are many guys out there, video game addicts or otherwise, who would prefer masturbation to porn over sex with someone they like, trust, and feel comfortable with.

I see you aren't married...

I don't live in Australia to know what the practice is there, but here in the US it's not uncommon for a company to advertise one price, but then tack on a variety of fees, taxes, and surcharges to the final bill that actually pay for the service and cost associated with providing it.

"Oh your rate plan for your [cable|internet|cell phone|whatever] is 19.99. Your monthly bill is $82.45 after adding in sales tax, USF fee, phone number|IP rental surcharge, regulatory compliance fee, capital improvement fee, lobbying surcharge, fee just to fuck you because we can fee, CEO compensation package fee, legal defense fund for when we get in trouble for all these fees fee, fee to make more money fee, fee fi fo fum fee, and finally are you even listening any more fee."

By making the company include any of THEIR business taxes as part of the service fee, they can't just bury their additonal costs as a line item and pass it on to the customer without affecting the price of the package.

Is there a requirement that everything has to look as it always has, forever, especially when what's existing never met any standard to begin with?

You've not lived in a area subject to a draconian home owners association I take it?

They just simply don't keep up and don't have modern college training in the latest security threats and program hacking methods.

I have a modern college degree, BS in CS from Purdue. I can't recall a single class that discussed security as a topic, let alone dedicated to it. Fuck. I just realized the classes I took were nearly 20 years ago. I'm an "older developer" aren't I...

Did you drive to work today? I bet you exceeded the speed limit at some point. Or possibly pushed the limits on that yellowish-red light you ran. Have you ever sang a non-public domain song without paying a royalty (including Happy Birthday)? Jaywalked? Failed to register and/or vaccinate your pet? Not changing your address when you move?

Guess what. You're no longer law abiding. He doesn't have to change his attitude since he qualified his statement. If he said "the phone records of citizens are none of the NSA's business" then we can talk about his attitude if he were to be elected.

You also have to be careful because of these states where there are "mutual consent" laws about recording. i.e. in some states you can record a conversation surreptitiously, while in others, all parties to the conversation must know it's being recorded.

Most (all?) states allow video-only recording without two party consent. Two party consent typically pertains to the audio portion of the recording.