1Password faced immediate backlash from customers this week over a $300,000 pledge in support of a Linux distro created by David Heinemeier Hansson, who has regularly published overtly racist blog posts that include comments calling for deportation of ethnic minorities in Europe. The popular password manager is now a “distinguished corporate patron” of Omacom, the nonprofit foundation that oversees a popular Linux distribution known as Omarchy.

Archive: https://archive.is/osNh3

As described in today's Morning File:

‘Factually Innocent’: How police in Wisconsin and Halifax, a determined prosecutor in Nova Scotia, and a credulous provincial judge worked in concert to wrongly convict Brandon Klayme of vile sexual crimes against a child

This is a followup on the case of the Nova Scotia man who was convicted based on a misread username. There was a lot more wrong with the case.

The article came out from behind the Halifax Examiner's paywall today.

People ask this kind of thing in r/halifax, so I guess I'll give it a shot here.

A couple weeks ago I had one of the mold remediation places deal with moldy caulking around my tub, and they only replaced the moldy bits, and didn't do a very good job of that. I've been working my way up to trying to patch the worst bits, but the more I look at it the worse it gets. Does anyone have a suggestion for who could properly replace all of the caulking around the acrylic tub, walls, and ceiling? It's a lot of caulking.

Before the restock, the original OEM Steam Deck LCD battery kit cost $84.99, while the battery alone cost $79.99. After the restock, the OEM battery kit with iFixit's tools included costs $134.99, and the battery alone costs $129.99.

The article is behind the Halifax Examiner's paywall for now, but they have a section about it in today's free Morning File (it's not in the headline there).

But before debate even started on Morse’s motion [to send the letter], Coun. Trish Purdy asked for a point of order, saying issues around guaranteed basic income aren’t under municipal jurisdiction.

Mayor Andy Fillmore supported Purdy’s point of order, saying any decisions about a guaranteed basic income are up to the federal government with assistance from the provinces.

Fillmore pointed to section 70 of Administrative Order (AO) One that says “a motion in respect of a matter which is not within the jurisdiction of the Council shall not be in order.”

Municipal solicitor John Traves said while Fillmore is correct about the point of order, if two-thirds of councillors want to disregard the rule, they could do so.

Objecting because of the rules. OK, sure. But:

Purdy doubled-down, saying she wants council to always focus only on issues under municipal jurisdiction.

“What are we now? The giver of all magic money to all people?” Purdy said.

Still, she said while she doesn’t support a basic income, she thinks it will become a reality because of artificial intelligence (AI) in the labour force.

“I’m going to resist it until the very end,” Purdy said. “I have so many red flags about this.”

Purdy said if her children needed money, she’d tell them to go get another job.

“You get three jobs, you get five jobs. You don’t sleep; you make money, you save it, and you figure it out,” Purdy said. “That’s where I come from with these things.”

Fillmore said he does support universal basic income (UBI), adding he has attended and spoken at the BIG-NS conference in the past when he served as the MP for Halifax.

According to his LinkedIn page, [Nova Scotia Independent Energy System Operator CEO Johnny] Johnston started and built his career in the methane industry. For over 21 years, he worked for National Grid plc, a British company that also owns utilities in the northeastern U.S.

By 2016, Johnston worked at National Grid’s SVP Gas Business Enablement, where he “Led the envisioning, development and delivery of an industry leading multi-$100M transformation, to deliver a step change in how National Grid serves its 7 million customers, how its 5,500 front line employees manage their work, and its engineers manage more than $10B in gas assets.”

After leaving National Grid, from August 2023 to August 2024 Johnston was a board member of the American Gas Association, which says that it “represents more than 200 energy companies that provide natural gas [methane] service to 189 million Americans.”

Memory-maker Micron has found a way to keep prices for its products sky-high for another five years, by signing 16 “strategic customer agreements” (SCAs) that include a floor price the company says comes with “a very robust gross margin for Micron, well above our peak quarterly margins in any past cycle.”

Micron CEO, president and chairman Sanjay Mehrotra explained the SCAs in prepared remarks delivered during the company’s Q3 earnings call. He explained that Micron has signed 16 SCAs, most of them covering 2026 to 2030, and that they involve a commitment to buy a certain quantity of product and pay for it in a pricing band that has a floor and a ceiling price. The floor price covers the historically high gross margins mentioned above, and the ceiling price means those who commit to an SCA are insulated if memory prices go even higher.

Just the three big revenue streams that Houston cancelled — $272.4 million for HST (that benefits those with the money to allow them to be big spenders), $160 million for income tax bracket changes, $40 million for bridge tolls (that primarily benefit people in HRM but have to be made up for by everyone in the province) — add up to $472.4 million.

The cuts save the provincial government just $304.9 million.

With the tolls now gone, the province is budgeting $120.1 million for Halifax Harbour Bridges.

No matter how you slice and dice it all, the fact is that Houston-the-professional-accountant seems to have badly messed up the province’s accounts.

While mired in controversy from all sides, the Walt Disney Company has unveiled price hikes for Disney+ and its other streaming services today.

As of October 21, Disney+ will cost up to 20 percent more, depending on the plan you have. Disney+ with ads is increasing from $10 to $12 per month, while the ad-free plan is going from $16 to $19 per month. The annual, ad-free plan will go from $160 to $190.