Christopher Butler
chrbutler.com · Personal blog · on HN since 2014
Christopher Butler is a designer who writes about design, the internet, technology and digital life.
What HN saysHN commenters praise his writing as a fine distillation of the times and include him on lists of favorite personal sites.
26HN people shared it
4linked it in comments
149stories submitted
2.3Kstory points
4 months agolast shared
2014people per year2026
Most-shared posts
- 1Personal Machines and Portable Worlds3 people · 41 points · first shared 2023 · 7 comments on HN
- 2Good Design Comes from Looking, Great Design Comes from Looking Away3 people · 10 points · first shared 2025 · 2 comments on HN
- 3AI is a front for consolidation of resources and power2 people · 549 points · first shared 2025 · 448 comments on HN
- 4The Internet Is a Bad Name2 people · 16 points · first shared 2021 · 6 comments on HN
- 5The Best Interfaces We Never Built2 people · 9 points · first shared 2025 · discussion on HN
- 6The Problem with Design Is Designers2 people · 6 points · first shared 2021 · 1 comments on HN
- 7Developing Digital Disgust2 people · 6 points · first shared 2025 · 1 comments on HN
- 8This is Not Good Design2 people · 4 points · first shared 2021 · discussion on HN
- 9The only meaningful act of protest in 2018 is to delete your digital accounts2 people · 4 points · first shared 2018 · discussion on HN
- 10Evidence That People Won’t Scroll Doesn’t Exist2 people · 3 points · first shared 2023 · 2 comments on HN
- 11What Eyes Want2 people · 3 points · first shared 2022 · discussion on HN
- 12What I Want from the Internet2 people · 2 points · first shared 2023 · discussion on HN
- 13You Can Be a Great Designer and Be Completely Unknown1 people · 257 points · first shared 2025 · 120 comments on HN
- 14In Defense of Text Labels1 people · 243 points · first shared 2025 · 155 comments on HN
- 15The National Design Studio is a scam1 people · 196 points · first shared 2025 · 53 comments on HN
What HN people wrote when they linked it
rolph · 2023-04-23
edit [snipped re guidelines]
i also love wood, and appreciate the craft, craftsmanship, and aesthitics.
heres to hoping you get good traction.
i just enjoyed this too:
object — A 20 Year-Old Sketchbook
https://www.chrbutler.com/2023-04-22
rektide · 2023-05-09
This is a great article & accurate in so many ways. We are lucky to have such great writing & distillation of the times as this; a fine treasure. This pairs very well & adds a lot of context to "What I want from the Internet"[1], which was submitted yesterday & which I am also very aglow over.
Both the rise of platforms & the smartphone are tightly interwoven around a new connected axis of computing emerging & being useful. McThrow somewhat generously includes the web in his "personal computing" vision but alas, even as a huge web fan, it's pretty clear that the brief "intertwingularizing" moment (which was extremely pro user) was giving way to Service as a Software Substitute (SaaSS), to a de-personalized experience. The relevance of desktop faded, and relevance faded because users were well served by new connected services. Software effervescing, sublimating up into the cloud made it easier to share, made it easier to access to demand, freed us from worrying about backups.
I think this is one of the critical junctures that Linux and the rest of the Desktops has failed to internalize, as a new need: the need to be connected. The need to be more than just isolated personal, the need to be available, the need to be connectable. I don't know quite what this future looks like or what it implies, but the "Linux on the desktop" spoke of competition with an outmoded, fading mode of computing. What was really needed was a further push onward, was a backbone for inter-app systems…
surprisetalk · 2025-01-06
Cool people:
• https://tracydurnell.com
• https://www.benkuhn.net
• https://schmud.de
• https://brandur.org
• https://bytes.zone
• https://cassidoo.co
• https://www.chrbutler.com
• https://sive.rs
• https://fasterthanli.me
• https://akkartik.name
• https://www.todepond.com
• https://blog.gingerbeardman.com
• https://gwern.net
• https://interconnected.org
• https://jacobfilipp.com
• https://johnnywebber.com
• https://maggieappleton.com
• https://bernsteinbear.com
• https://pketh.org
• https://rachsmith.com
• https://sonnet.io
• https://stevenscrawls.com
• https://www.bookofjoe.com
• https://winnielim.org
---
Cool directories:
• https://blogs.hn
• https://ooh.directory
• https://deadsimplesites.com
• https://peopleandblogs.com
• https://nownownow.com
• https://blogroll.org
• https://kagi.com/smallweb
chrbutler · 2023-05-08
Hmm, there is an RSS feed.
https://www.chrbutler.com/feed.rss