For my best graphics work, click the "web design" link. Also, please note that I designed this website many years ago, and I haven't found time to redesign it!

Read my Personal Statement to UT

Name: John David Richter

Age: 23

Hometown: Hot Springs, Arkansas

School: Washington University in St. Louis, Class of 2010

Major: Political Science with minor in Economics----hopefully pursuing Computer Science at UT

Favorite Music:

Bright Eyes, Billy Joel, Muse, Ben Folds, Sufjan Stevens, Nickel Creek, Death Cab for Cutie, Postal Service, Green Day, Weezer, System of a Down, The Shins, The Beatles, REM, Ratatat, Daft Punk, Why?, one hit wonders, bluegrass in general, '90s music, Les Miserables, Wicked (musical), Akron/Family, John Mayer (sometimes), James Taylor, Aphex Twin, YoYo Ma, and more....

Favorite shows: The Daily Show and The Colbert Report

Interests: computer science, local and international politics/development, biking, graphics/web design, innovation, writing, film

Role Models (off the top of my head): Warren Buffett, Mark Twain, Bill Gates, Sergey Brin, Steve Jobs, and many more

Favorite Quotes:

"I have been impressed with the urgency of doing. Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Being willing is not enough; we must do." - Leonardo Da Vinci

“Innovation is not the product of logical thought, although the result is tied to logical structure.” - Albert Einstein

"Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more vioent. It takes a touch of genius-- and a lot of courage-- to move in the opposite direction." - Albert Einstein

The most beautiful think we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and all science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead: his eyes are closed." -Albert Einstein

"We succeeded in taking that picture [from deep space], and, if you look at it, you see a dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever lived, lived out their lives. The aggregate of all our joys and sufferings, thousands of confident religions, ideologies and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilizations, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every hopeful child, every mother and father, every inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every superstar, every supreme leader, every saint and sinner in the history of our species, lived there on a mote of dust, suspended in a sunbeam.

The earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that in glory and in triumph they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of the dot on scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner of the dot. How frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds. Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the universe, are challenged by this point of pale light.

[...] To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly and compassionately with one another and to preserve and cherish that pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known." - Carl Sagan

"Destiny is not a matter of chance, it is a matter of choice; it is not a thing to be waited for, it is a thing to be achieved.” – William Jennings Bryan