Tag Archive: lists

Dumb People, Smart People, and Smarter People

By Richard X. Thripp at 2008-10-02T23:10:17Z in Personal Development, with these tags: fun, goals, humor, life, lists, people, power, smart, truth, 8 Comments. 456 words.

Dumb people ignore the rules.
Smart people follow the rules.
Smarter people make the rules.

Dumb people live below their potential.
Smart people live up to their potential.
Smarter people live beyond their potential.

Dumb people can’t focus.
Smart people multi-task.
Smarter people obsess.

Dumb people eat meat.
Smart people never eat meat.
Smarter people eat meat when they’re starving to death.

Dumb people don’t go to college.
Smart people go to college.
Smarter people think college is a joke.

Dumb people become lazy and fat.
Smart people stay fit by going to the gym.
Smarter people don’t pay others to lift weights.

Dumb people can’t keep to a budget.
Smart people set a budget and stick to it.
Smarter …

17 Lessons from 17 Years

By Richard X. Thripp at 2008-08-21T09:06:50Z in Personal Development, with these tags: birthdays, courage, goals, humanity, lessons, life, lists, richard x. thripp, 0 Comments. 2,659 words.

This is my first post as a 17 year old. The pivotal birthday was 2008 August 17, a Sunday. My youth is just slipping away. :grin: I’ve written this list of seventeen things I’ve learned over the years.

1. Passion is fleeting.

I used to be fascinated with the color blue. Then when I was 6 I switched to red. Around 14 I switched back to blue again. Now I’m starting to like green (notice my website’s colors?).

Don’t count on being dedicated to writing, piano, blogging, or photography all your life. Don’t root yourself in material mediums, because it doesn’t matter …

How Not to Be a Photographer

By Richard X. Thripp at 2008-06-30T23:37:27Z in Photography Articles, with these tags: cameras, freedom, guides, lists, rants, 1 Comment. 932 words.

• Make sure everyone is smiling and pretending to be happy before taking the picture. Candid photography? Never heard of it.

• Don’t take photos of people; they don’t want you to take their photos anyway. Just stick to rocks and plants.

• Make your rocks blurry and your flowers over-exposed. Then claim it’s art.

• Pump up the saturation and contrast on that rose, so it’s just (255,0,0) all over. Then everyone will appreciate the beauty.

• Print your photos, then scan the prints at 600 pixels per inch. Now you have 48 megapixels!

• Never switch from auto mode. Only scary people use …

10 Reasons Why Photography Sucks and Isn’t an Art Form

By Richard X. Thripp at 2008-06-20T08:32:30Z in Photography Articles, with these tags: art, lists, myths, photoshop, rants, 4 Comments. 1,313 words.

The wishing well

“I wish photography could be an art form. I love it so much, but it’s just too easy. If only there were some way to mentally cripple the majority of the population from being able to take beautiful photos, or if I could make the craft so needlessly difficult to only be accessible to a tiny few. Maybe then I can trick others into thinking I have talent where there is none. Oh photography, why must you be so simple and uncomplicated!”

We’ve been tricked—all of us—into believing that photography is an art form requiring skill, …

10 Tips for Reference Dialogues

By Richard X. Thripp at 2008-05-10T07:00:26Z in Library Science, with these tags: librarianship, lists, reference, 0 Comments. 610 words.

The reference dialogue: books and a question mark

A cornerstone of library work is the reference interview (or interrogation if you’d prefer), as it is the principle persona for the library knowledge-base, and is increasingly the domain of library assistants and para-professionals. These are the ideas I’ve picked up from working in the public library sector.

1. Use the encyclopedias. Many students come in wanting books on obscure subjects. Especially in smaller libraries, there are no books to be found, but an encyclopedia article will do …

10 Ways to Get Your Camera Stolen

By Richard X. Thripp at 2008-01-21T10:54:38Z in Photography Articles, with these tags: cameras, lists, rants, satire, 2 Comments. 249 words.

Richard's picks:

1. Wear that “Canon EOS Digital” neck-strap proudly so the whole world can see what expensive equipment you have.
2. Take the camera on a plane; no need to keep it in your carry-on bag because you won’t be using it. If it doesn’t magically disappear, I hope you like broken glass.
3. Keep all your gear in your fancy new Lowepro bag, then leave it at a restaurant table to go the the bathroom. Don’t worry, it’ll only take a minute!
4. Use a lens with a big red ring around it.
5. Leave your big red ring and “EOS …

8 Tips for the On-Cue Photographer

By Richard X. Thripp at 2008-01-12T07:38:51Z in Photography Articles, with these tags: guides, lists, spontaneity, 0 Comments. 718 words.

Be prepared. — Photo by Richard X. Thripp

I was reading 5 Reasons to Take Your Camera Everywhere in 2008 over at the Digital Photography School Blog, and it really resonated. You need a camera with you to take any sort of photos—this is a point that is not stressed enough in photography guides and classes. I’ve produced my best work on outings not intended for photography: Sky of Fire, Two of Us Against the World, and Sky’s Camouflage, for example. The article is …

13 Indispensible Wordpress Plugins

By Richard X. Thripp at 2008-01-10T04:57:54Z in Technology, with these tags: computers, lists, thripp.com, wordpress, 2 Comments. 677 words.

I’ve broken my promise about focusing on adding photography, as I spent the last few days solving technical issues and making improvements around here.

Category URIs don’t have “category/” in them anymore, so you can get to the shop at richardxthripp.thripp.com/shop, which is what I’ve wanted for a while. I got this working with Top Level Cats.

The comment section for each entry has been totally redesigned. You can subscribe to comments (Subscribe to Comments plugin), preview comments without a page reload (AJAX Comment Preview plugin), and subscribe to an RSS feed for the comments on …

Write Concisely

By Richard X. Thripp at 2008-01-01T04:57:35Z in Personal Development, with these tags: conciseness, english, language, lists, new year, newspeak, rants, writing, 2 Comments. 296 words.

New Year’s Day. A time to make commitments for self-improvement and then break them a week later. I have one I’m going to keep.

My resolution is to speak and write concisely and correctly. While filler and disfluencies are excusable in speech, in print they are intolerable. Rewriting is writing, so the standards are higher because you can polish your work easily. “Kinda,” “sort of,” “like,” “more than,” and “less than” have no place in writing. If I ever use “in all circumstances that I know of,” yell at me to replace it with “always.” More …