J
jwz
jwz.org · Personal blog · on HN since 2007
Jamie Zawinski, a veteran programmer of Netscape and Mozilla fame, writes on software, the web, and his own projects.
What HN saysHN links it for his classic essays like the CADT model and Mozilla departure, and commenters note his site's distinctive referer-based behavior.
880HN people shared it
742linked it in comments
222stories submitted
10Kstory points
2 months agolast shared
2007people per year2026
Most-shared posts
- 1The Rise of "Worse is Better"132 people · 93 points · first shared 2007 · 32 comments on HN
- 2Jwz: The CADT Model113 people · 17 points · first shared 2010 · 1 comments on HN
- 3Reminder to HN: Think "how will this software get my users laid?"53 people · 119 points · first shared 2007 · 28 comments on HN
- 4Watch a VC use my name to sell a con34 people · 2.6K points · first shared 2011 · 292 comments on HN
- 5XScreenSaver: On Toolkit Dialogs22 people · 19 points · first shared 2008 · 3 comments on HN
- 6JWZ data dump? <!-- mail me if you find the secret -->22 people · 2 points · first shared 2011 · discussion on HN
- 7Engineering Pornography (2002)20 people · 253 points · first shared 2011 · 77 comments on HN
- 8And so I'm giving up the Mozilla project - Jamie Zawinski (1999)18 people · 91 points · first shared 2007 · 37 comments on HN
- 9Message threading (1997-2002)16 people · 164 points · first shared 2008 · 39 comments on HN
- 10JWZ - Tabs versus Spaces: An Eternal Holy War16 people · 12 points · first shared 2008 · 4 comments on HN
- 11Most significant "fork" in free software history.16 people · 5 points · first shared 2008 · discussion on HN
- 12Every day I learn something new… and stupid.15 people · 121 points · first shared 2010 · 113 comments on HN
- 13If you were involved in the OpenGL ES specification, you are an idiot14 people · 318 points · first shared 2012 · 213 comments on HN
- 14The Netscape Dorm (1994)14 people · 173 points · first shared 2007 · 28 comments on HN
- 15Jwz's guide to backups: "Shut up. I know things. You will listen to me. Do it anyway."13 people · 49 points · first shared 2008 · 25 comments on HN
What HN people wrote when they linked it
voxadam · 2024-05-31
That one had me vexed for a bit too. After a bit of stumbling around the web I think I finally found a definition by HN's favorite browser engineer, Bay Area club owner, and malcontent Jamie Zawinski.[0][1] According to Jamie CADT stands for "Cascade of Attention-Deficit Teenagers".[2]
WARNING: JWZ's site used to redirect to an unpleasant NSFW meme[3] from the late 90s when linked to from HN. Though, if I remember correctly that's been solved in recent years by HN. In case it hasn't please be sure to copy plaintext links to his site into a fresh tab to avoid the referrer.
[0] https://www.jwz.org/
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jamie_Zawinski
[2] https://www.jwz.org/doc/cadt.html
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goatse.cx
kome · 2023-06-08
let's try: https://jwz.org http://jwz.org https://www.jwz.org/blog/2023/06/and-its-a-great-looking-skull-plate/
edit: strange, it works perfectly for me.
himinlomax · 2020-03-27
To see how colorful, just follow the link to his website and let the referer header do its work: http://jwz.org
dexen · 2014-12-27
Looks great! On Linux, /dev/urandom gives better results.
Incidentally, this resembles jwz's homepage quite a bit: http://www.jwz.org/
yzzxy · 2014-12-09
I like
http://www.syedrezaali.com/output/
Nice showcase for his work, which is excellent as well.
http://acko.net/
Make sure to open some articles, especially the one on the website header (that's not an image).
http://jwz.org/
One of the bastions of the older internet, started in 1993. Design of the main site is pretty polarizing.
codeslush · 2011-11-29
I LOVE, absolutely LOVE his home page! http://www.jwz.org/ WELL DONE SIR!
lisdexan · 2025-11-05
>proudly display her Bluesky account
You have to be kidding me. A division director of FDA was extorting people mafia style, with links to a lawsuit with evidence and your first thoughts were: "she hurt me feefees with a article about inane culture war bullshit" and "how dare she display her twiter-clone account".
As always, https://www.jwz.org/ is right.
DonHopkins · 2025-10-25
I think JWZ enjoys people looking at his testicle.
https://www.jwz.org/
m463 · 2025-03-18
dTal · 2025-02-14
Why do you need an article? Just find a link to some page on http://jwz.org somewhere on news.ycombinator.com, and click it. Note that you will get a (really quite tame) NSFW image. Said image will explain jwz's feelings regarding Hacker News.
cullumsmith · 2024-11-07
My family uses a self-hosted Prosody instance with the Conversations app on Android and Dino/Gajim on the desktop. It works great.
Combined with JMP.chat, we even get SMS and voice calls from the telephone network to all our different XMPP apps. Truly feels like the future.
The technology of yesteryear seems to have more staying power. The protocols churned out by my generation seem destined for either VC/advertisement capture or death by CADT [0]. Maybe with the exception of Signal (so far...)
[0] https://www.jwz.org/doc/cadt.html
happymellon · 2024-08-07
It is rebased every 6 months, and those applications that do not follow semantic versioning can get an exception so they get full updates, to avoid the xscreensaver situation that Debian had.
https://www.jwz.org/blog/2016/04/i-would-like-debian-to-stop-shipping-…
NelsonMinar · 2024-06-28
That was my first thought.
A few days ago JWZ had a great take on where Mozilla is today: https://www.jwz.org/blog/2024/06/mozillas-original-sin/
mixmastamyk · 2024-04-26
As others have alluded, greater Linux is awash with too many choices for every component, like a walmart supermarket, not to mention CADT-driven development.
https://www.jwz.org/doc/cadt.html (cut/paste link)
BSD is closer to "omakase" in that sense. Pick your cliche... people "rowing in the same direction," "more wood behind fewer arrows," etc.
em-bee · 2024-01-26
(why not link? it's not like we don't know how to circumvent that)
https://www.jwz.org/gruntle/rbarip.html
about that list, i am sorry, but i don't feel that badmouthing anyone is healthy ever. doing that in a group is not catharsis but it is reinforcing bad attitudes, discontent or even hatred. that is not something i want in my company.
if any of my employees set up such a list or forum, i would tell them to stop that immediately, under threat of being fired if they didn't comply. not because of the risks involved, but because i do not want anyone to think that doing that is ok. it isn't!
Perhaps its best to just never say anything that you wouldn't want published.
nemo · 2023-10-20
Personally I'm doing great, I've used the internet to train for jobs and have quite a nice job now, and also I've used the internet to learn about all sorts of things that have been quite fulfilling for me. Still, we should be realistic about who is benefiting and who isn't, and be realistic about the effects of technological changes on externalities like the environment, politics, workers, and the marginalized where it's the Grim Meathook Future™.
https://www.jwz.org/blog/2005/09/the-grim-meathook-future/
jlebar · 2023-07-21
Two classics as relevant today as ever:
End to end principle: https://web.mit.edu/Saltzer/www/publications/endtoend/endtoend.pdf
The rise of "worse is better": https://www.jwz.org/doc/worse-is-better.html
oblio · 2023-04-14
> I'm so totally impressed at this Way New Development Paradigm. Let's call it the "Cascade of Attention-Deficit Teenagers" model, or "CADT" for short.
> It hardly seems worth even having a bug system if the frequency of from-scratch rewrites always outstrips the pace of bug fixing. Why not be honest and resign yourself to the fact that version 0.8 is followed by version 0.8, which is then followed by version 0.8?
> But that's what happens when there is no incentive for people to do the parts of programming that aren't fun. Fixing bugs isn't fun; going through the bug list isn't fun; but rewriting everything from scratch is fun (because "this time it will be done right", ha ha) and so that's what happens, over and over again.
https://www.jwz.org/doc/cadt.html
The article is 20 years old, it can vote now (and drink, in most places).
Jupe · 2023-03-10
Worth a read if only for the CADT reference (https://www.jwz.org/doc/cadt.html)
But, so much more as well!
bob29 · 2023-02-14
So PepsiCo can utilize others prior breeding work, but prevents others from using their variety’s to breed with ?
If everyone who bred a potato patented it, we all suffer as breeders would be limited in what they can work with.
http://www.jwz.org
dustyharddrive · 2023-01-21
Following an account discovered via WebFinger on your domain doesn’t provide account portability (https://www.jwz.org/blog/2022/11/using-your-own-domain-as-a-mastodon-h…
You can always host a lightweight ActivityPub server like honk (https://humungus.tedunangst.com/r/honk).
hobo_mark · 2022-07-17
All extremely true, but the damn friction when buying tracks there... (jwz put it best [1])
> If I put 6 albums in my cart and check out, you make me enter my credit card info SIX TIMES. This is insane. You realize this is insane, don't you?
> You have used Amazon, right? Click once, receive candy. You need to be like that.
(Maybe they fixed it? Haven't bought multiple items at once in a while)
Also I would gladly pay for SoundCloud if most of the money actually went to the artists (if any SC pm is still listening).
[1] https://www.jwz.org/blog/2014/10/shouting-into-the-void-this-time-band… (you will have to copy and paste the link manually because he loves to block HN referrals for self-amusement)
jasode · 2022-06-26
Fyi... if you're getting a bounceback... It seems the author doesn't want this on Hacker News.
The webpage html source:
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
...
<script async src="/assets/js/turnBack.js"></script>
...
which has this code to bounce you back:
const undesirables = [
"news.ycombinator.com/",
// "lobste.rs/" // does not work due to rel="noreferrer"
] ;
if (undesirables.find(site => document.referrer.includes(site)))
{
window.location.replace(document.referrer);
}
(The https://jwz.org domain by Jamie Zawinski is another example of a redirect when referred by Hacker News.)
EDIT to downvoters... I don't mind the downvotes but could you explain? If my information is inaccurate and doesn't contribute to the discussion, I'd like to learn what is wrong. Thank you.
schwartzworld · 2022-05-01
I really love JWZ's approach to linking to old related posts with "previously" https://www.jwz.org/blog/
easrng · 2022-04-18
Because you're visiting from HN and annoying HN users can be funny. See also https://jwz.org (NSFW when visited from HN)
bryanlarsen · 2022-01-26
I don't think "screw with" means "block" in this case. But there is one moderately famous blog that does block HN: https://www.jwz.org/
AceJohnny2 · 2022-01-15
Nice! I can finally locate LA's Scattergood-Olympic underground transmission line that was repaired in 1989 to much engineering prowess [1].
https://openinframap.org/#10.58/33.9452/-118.3529
I love infrastructure engineering. There's so much going on that allows us to take things for granted. Even the 2021 Texas power grid failure fared relatively well for how close it skirted absolute disaster.
[1] https://practical.engineering/blog/2021/9/16/repairing-underground-pow… (I should give Grady more money) People here may remember jwz's post on the topic in 2002, copying the emails from 1989 (note the following link may display something unsavory with the HN referrer, in which case copy-and-paste it): https://www.jwz.org/blog/2002/11/engineering-pornography/
jordigh · 2022-01-06
Seeing the other replies here, kids these days got no respect for their elders.
Hey, let me check if he still checks the HN referer and insults us if we follow links from HN to his blog:
https://www.jwz.org/blog/2022/01/today-on-sick-sad-world-how-the-crypt…
Edit: Aw, nope, looks like he got rid of it
toyg · 2021-11-29
That reminds me of this classic JWZ : https://www.jwz.org/doc/mailsum.html
(Note: you want to copypaste that link, not click it)
Datagenerator · 2021-11-28
That would be great. Another awesome screensaver is called substrate and included in the set 1) by Jamie Zawinski ( among the founders of Netscape and Mozilla ).
1) https://www.jwz.org/xscreensaver/