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Comment Government complicit in private censorship (Score 1) 93

Even if you define "censor" to refer only to public sector acts, the government can censor on behalf of a private person by enforcing exclusive rights asserted by said private person. In the case of iMessage and other closed platforms, the exclusive rights in question are often those granted under anti-circumvention statutes implementing the 1996 WIPO Copyright Treaty, such as 17 USC 1201 and foreign counterparts.

Comment XML and JSON schemas are for semantics (Score 2) 93

Both XML and JSON have a syntax, which describes what makes a document using those languages well-formed. However, not all well-formed markup is valid in a particular application. For example, you don't want "-567" or "butt" as the value of the "width" attribute in an "img" element in HTML. For this reason, applications of XML and applications of JSON have semantics, which further refine what is considered "valid" for that application. An XML or JSON schema can be used to quickly reject documents that are well-formed but not valid.

Comment "Application" dates to mid-1980s (Score 1) 185

Programs for macOS and its predecessor Mac OS have been called applications since the mid-1980s. Three usage examples for the short form "app" in Wiktionary come from computing books and magazines from 1999, which predates the iPod, let alone the iPhone. The term "killer app" in particular dates to PC Week in 1988.

Comment Re:no. (Score 1) 185

The Node.JS came up, and Javascript's status in the browser could not explain the existence of Node.

That one's easy. Running JavaScript on the server allows using the same code on the client to validate data in form inputs before submission that the server uses to authoritatively validate data in received submissions. Writing the code once and only once eliminates the class of errors where the client's pre-submission validation (in JavaScript) differs in behavior from the server's authoritative validation (usually in C#, Java, Perl, Ruby, Python, or Go).

Comment JS as bridge between WASM and DOM (Score 1) 185

JavaScript's main advantage was that it was the privileged scripting language in the browser. That advantage is disappearing now that runtime and toolchain support is increasing for WebAssembly.

JavaScript's main advantage remains that it is the privileged scripting language for moving values back and forth between the DOM and WebAssembly in the browser.

Comment Coke II (Score 1) 57

That and for a few years, Coca-Cola sold the new Coke formula as "Coke II" alongside "Coca-Cola Classic". However, not a lot of supermarkets would carry it because they already had too much shelf space devoted to Cherry Coke and a bunch of other new flavors.

Submission + - VPN Firm Says It Didn't Know Customers Had Lifetime Subscriptions, Cancels Them (arstechnica.com)

An anonymous reader writes: The new owners of VPN provider VPNSecure have drawn ire after canceling lifetime subscriptions. The owners told customers that they didn’t know about the lifetime subscriptions when they bought VPNSecure, and they cannot honor the purchases. In March, complaints started appearing online about lifetime subscriptions to VPNSecure no longer working. The first public response Ars Technica found came on April 28, when lifetime subscription holders reported receiving an email from the VPN provider saying: To continue providing a secure and high-quality experience for all users, Lifetime Deal accounts have now been deactivated as of April 28th, 2025.

A copy of the email from “The VPN Secure Team” and posted on Reddit notes that VPNSecure had previously deactivated accounts with lifetime subscriptions that it said hadn’t been used in “over 6 months.” The message noted that VPNSecure was acquired in 2023, “including the technology, domain, and customer database—but not the liabilities.” The email continues: "Unfortunately, the previous owner did not disclose that thousands of Lifetime Deals (LTDs) had been sold through platforms like StackSocial. We discovered this only months later—when a large portion of our resources were strained by these LTD accounts and high support volume from users, who through part of the database, provided no sustaining income to help us improve and maintain the service."

Comment Most 3rd-party Switch 2 games are Game-Key Cards (Score 1) 139

There will be plenty of legit carts with full games on them

Reports differ. "Most third-party Nintendo Switch 2 games are Game-Key cards" by Michael Freeman claims that all third-party Switch 2-only physical launch titles other than CD Projekt's Cyberpunk 2077 are Game-Key Cards, citing a post on X by Gematsu. "Nintendo Switch 2 Editions", or games compatible with both Switch and Switch 2, are less likely to be GKCs.

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