In the absence of legislative patches, a court can quickly target a very specific patch. In the computer world, this is known as a hotfix: a fast software update designed to fix a particular bug or vulnerability. The term comes from the fact that, traditionally, these updates were applied to systems that were up and running: hence “hot.” It’s more risky; the software could crash, with whatever problems could result from that. Hotfixes are normal today—updates to your operating systems are applied while they are running, and a lot of stuff is running in the cloud—but when the term was coined,
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