Archive: 2008 February
This is Energizer’s current lineup of budget AA/AAA battery chargers. I was fortunate enough to have Margaret Welch of Blick & Staff Communications send me these on Energizer’s behalf, and I’ve had plenty of time to try them out.
All three work with AA and AAA; with AAA, there are smaller contacts that flip down to accommodate the batteries’ smaller lengths. None of them are made for the forgetful person needing power for their camera at the last minute; to fully charge four 2500 mAh AA batteries, it takes 5 hours, 6.5 hours, or 8.5 hours (from left to right, respectively). However, if you rotate sets, or let them work overnight, these are perfect for use at home or when traveling. If you want a charger that works quickly, Energizer offers a 15-minute charger (Amazon.com), and it has a fan, so your batteries shouldn’t get too hot. I didn’t get one for this review, but customer opinion is positive.
From left to right, as labeled on the packages:
Energizer CHFM1: e2 Rechargeable
Energizer CHDC7: e2 Rechargeable Compact Charger AA/AAA
Energizer CHUSB: e2 Rechargeable USB Duo AA/AAA Charger
These newer chargers turn off automatically, not based just on a timer, but rather they detect when batteries are done, which extends the life of your investment.
In case you’re in the dark, you can use these to power any AA or AAA Nickel-metal hydride batteries, even if they are a different brand. This includes the new 
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A house of red bricks stands alone against an impending storm. This is my neighbor’s yard; the clouds formed into an ominous circle right before the rain. The phone pole was not optional, as I couldn’t compose the frame as such while excluding it, but I’ve come to like it; its crookedness keeps the level horizon from becoming boring. I made a decision in post-processing to not give color to anything except the red house, and a tiny bit of green to the grass, which gives punch, and makes this conceptual; the house is unique and alone. Hope you enjoy it; I don’t do many landscapes, but this one I’m proud of.
This was challenging to edit; all the elements were there to start, but needed to be perfected. I burned in the clouds, telephone pole, trees, and edges of the frame, then remapped the tones through curves in the Lab color-space, including the contrast and color channels. I had problems with the shadows remaining dark-red, but corrected them by desaturating everything but the house, grass, and trees in the center. I debated placing the colors as more yellow or blue, but found this compromise to be the most natural and compelling.
Buy a 4*6 copy for $0.95 (USA only). Lustre finish. After adding, go to your shopping cart.
Canon Rebel XTi, EFS 18-55mm, 1/25, F3.5, 18mm, ISO400, 2008-02-26T17:55:09-05, 20080226-225509rxt
Download the high-res JPEG or download the source image (Canon Rebel XTi RAW file).
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License. Credit me as Richard X. Thripp and link here.
The sky turned purple in this sunset, so I got this photo of the clouds with some bare trees in front. The clouds were darker above, which you can see at the top of the frame.
I darkened the clouds at the top, shifted the colors to be more purple, and improved the contrast.
Canon Rebel XTi, EF 50mm 1:1.4, 1/80, F2.2, 50mm, ISO400, 2008-01-05T17:53:56-05, 20080105-225356rxt
Download the high-res JPEG or download the source image (Canon Rebel XTi RAW file).
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License. Credit me as Richard X. Thripp and link here.
This dark sunset is from my front yard. The division between light and dark was fascinating, and there were bright red highlights on the clouds, but by the time I’d fetched my camera they’d diminished to this. Still looks good, though.
Buy a 4*6 copy for $0.95 (USA only). Lustre finish. After adding, go to your shopping cart.
Canon Rebel XTi, EF 50mm 1:1.4, 1/125, F2.2, 50mm, ISO100, 2008-01-04T17:44:56-05, 20080104-224456rxt
Download the high-res JPEG or download the source image (Canon Rebel XTi RAW file).
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License. Credit me as Richard X. Thripp and link here.
A speeding car is the foreground for a stunning sunset outside my home. I’m breaking some rules here: the horizon is tilted, and the sky is over-exposed, but it’s worth it because this is different and creative. Right? 
Editing: burning on the sky and dodging on the car, plus more contrast with the curves tool.
Buy a 4*6 copy for $0.95 (USA only). Lustre finish. After adding, go to your shopping cart.
Canon Rebel XTi, EFS 18-55mm, 1/30, F4, 30mm, ISO100, 2008-01-01T17:45:45-05, 20080101-224545rxt
Download the high-res JPEG or download the source image (Canon Rebel XTi RAW file).
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License. Credit me as Richard X. Thripp and link here.
I took this shot from right underneath a street light; the subject is quite interesting yet overlooked. Developed this from black-and-white film; it was sunny out yet I managed to get a dark sky.
Buy a 4*6 copy for $0.95 (USA only). Lustre finish. After adding, go to your shopping cart.
Canon Elan IIe, EF 50mm 1:1.4, Kodak TRI-X 400 35mm film, 2008-01-28, common-geometry-rxt
Download the high-res JPEG.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License. Credit me as Richard X. Thripp and link here.
My website was down from 15:00Z to 22:00Z today (10 A.M. to 5 P.M. EST). This was the fault of my host, Netfirms, as they lost power today, and their backup generators failed. More about this here. So, while they claim to host one million websites, for seven hours today, they hosted zero (even their own was down for most of that time).
I get the most traffic on Saturday, so this was quite disappointing for me. I called them and was told I could write to csmgr@netfirms.com, and they may consider compensating me. Here’s what I said:
Hello,
My name is Richard X. Thripp and I’ve been a loyal Netfirms customer since August. I’ve been using your web hosting service extensively in the past two months, and have found it be good for hosting my Wordpress photo-blog/shop at http://thripp.com/.
I was shocked finding my website to be down this morning, and read online that you’d suffered a power outage, which is why your phones and website weren’t working either. It was from 10 A.M. to 5 P.M. EST today, Saturday, February 23, that my site was inaccessible. This was a bad time for me, as I’d just completed a print-based advertising campaign that went out to over 2000 people this week, and during the day on Saturday is when my website is busiest normally.
I called in and was told to email you to discuss compensation. It’s not so much the lost sales and ad revenue that bothers me, but rather the distrust and confusion among my clients and readership. The outage came at a bad time for me, so whatever you can offer will be appreciated.
Thanks,
Richard
[The "print campaign" started at the beginning of the month; I gave away over 2000 4*6 art prints, with my website on ...
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Implicit-Association Testing: Does it Have a Place at Your Next Job Interview?
Essay by Richard X. Thripp.
2008-02-20 — http://richardxthripp.thripp.com/essays
PDF version (80 KB).
We live in a society of increasing equity of race, yet there is still something missing. A student surmises: “The modern-day racism that we face takes the form of subtle attitudes that tear a person’s self-confidence apart if they are not able to transcend that” (qtd. in Weller 69), showing that subconscious bias is the primary form of racism that is still with us. Seeing our legislative efforts, such as the abolishment of the “separate but equal” laws with the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and policies of affirmative action in university admissions promoting equality through the 2000s, one may think that “racism” has been completely eliminated in modern America—the very word conjures up blatant acts of discrimination, such as whites murdering blacks in crimes of hate. Unfortunately, most of us continue to unintentionally associate whites with good and blacks with bad, as shown in implicit-association testing, first introduced by Project Implicit of Harvard University in 1998, where seventy percent of the 700,000-plus test-takers (“Race Attitude”) have shown a bias for whites, contrasted with twelve percent favoring blacks (“Race Breakdown”).
Implicit-association testing is an experimental method that tries to reveal biases that are not shown in traditional questionnaires. Project Implicit “has attracted an enormous amount of research interest and debate” (Klauer et al. 353), with the test for racial bias being the most prominent. In one section of the website’s race IAT, the phrases “African American or good” and “European American or bad” appear on two sides of a computer screen. Pictures of black faces, white faces, and words such as “glorious” and “horrible” appear one-after-another, with the test-taker instructions …
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Victor Frankenstein: Trodden Hero or Veiled Villain?
Mary Shelley’s masterpiece analyzed. Essay by Richard X. Thripp.
2008-02-20 — http://richardxthripp.thripp.com/essays
PDF version (80 KB).
Victor Frankenstein suffers decision paralysis in any time of crisis. While valiant in his struggles to create life, he immediately becomes the coward, assuming his creation to be a menace and running from it in terror: “one hand was stretched out, seemingly to detain me, but I escaped and rushed downstairs” (Shelley 51). It’s hard to trust Victor to be a reliable narrator, when he claims helplessness with such vigor, for example, in the second encounter with his monster, he recounts, “I thought of pursuing the devil, but it would have been in vain” (70). When the creature kills little William and frames Justine, Victor does nothing to save her from her unjust execution: “a declaration would have been considered as the ravings of a madman and would not have exculpated her who suffered through me” (76). He is merely pacifying his conscious with a shallow justification.
This aversion to action is a persistent theme throughout the novel. These examples just scratch the surface:
• “I could not answer” (83).
• “The being finished speaking and fixed his looks upon me in the expectation of a reply. But I was bewildered, perplexed, and unable to arrange my ideas sufficiently” (146).
• “I would have seized him, but he eluded me” (172).
• “I was unable to pursue the train of thought . . . and I wept bitterly” (189). Frankenstein finds solace in crying over his dilemma.
This is his flawed argument for destroying the female monster: “she might become ten thousand times more malignant than her mate and delight, for its own sake, in murder and wretchedness” (169). Has Victor not already heard …
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A fellow at Daytona Beach College who made the perfect photography subject (sunglasses are always good). It looks like he’s trying to back away, which is the reason for the humorous title. The background is clutted unfortunately, but at least it reveals that the camera is tilted.
Buy a 4*6 copy for $0.95 (USA only). Lustre finish. After adding, go to your shopping cart.
Canon Rebel XTi, EF 50mm 1:1.4, 1/500, F2.8, 50mm, ISO100, 2008-01-16T10:05:13-05, 20080116-150513rxt
Download the high-res JPEG or download the source image (Canon Rebel XTi RAW file).
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License. Credit me as Richard X. Thripp and link here.
You can use the model’s likeness for anything not defamatory. You are one of my “licencees.”
