Sentience and sovereignty are two distinct qualities, and it’s possible to have both, neither, or one without the other.

Sentience is awareness or consciousness, but not necessarily self-awareness. Since English is a human construct, an entity (life form, virus, or machine) is only sentient if it can declare its sentience to humanity in a deterministic and human-understandable way, or in a way distinguishable by machines created by humans, while said entity itself is NOT created by humans, but rather God, space aliens, evolution, devolution, or inexplicable natural or supernatural processes.

Sovereignty is the quality of having relative supremacy of authority or rule, such as that exercised by a monarch or sovereign state. Obviously, it’s impossible to have absolute supremacy of authority or rule, at a higher level, because of the laws of Florida, the United States, or whatever State you live in, at a middle level, because of whatever earthly commitments you’ve made (i.e. if you live with your parents you have to follow their rules, or if you have a landlord you have to follow his rules, or if you work for a company you have to follow company policy), at a lower level, because of whatever circumstances you were born into (1st world or 3rd world country, family, etc.) or what decisions were or are being made for you by others, at an even lower level, the constraints of your physical body, and at the lowest level, the laws of time, physics, and the universe. However, this does not make sovereignty a fuzzy concept, though it is an emotional one.

An ant crawling around your house is sovereign, but an ant in an ant farm or science project is not sovereign, because its environment has been created explicitly for it by humans without the ant declaring that he or she or …

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I’ve decided I’m going to consolidate my other websites, thripp.com/blog, composersjourney.com, and iseeafish.com under the richardxthripp.thripp.com domain. Nobody goes to them anyway… they don’t have the PageRank to rank high in Google’s search results… this site does, so why should I try to fight Google?

It’s really better to have all your sites under one domain anyway. I’m not going to merge daytonastate.org, since its value lies largely in the domain itself (similar to daytonastate.edu), but my other websites will be consolidated here including previous content over the next few months… I might even sell off the domains! But probably not.

On a sad note, today my half-sister Anna would be 11 years old. I only met her once, and she passed away in an accident at six months. She died on Father’s Day… 1999-12-16 / 2000-06-17 never forget.

I’ve been having a lot of fun tutoring and meeting people at Daytona State College even though my classes ended Oct. 22, 2010 since I took Fall A classes. Next semester I want to be a tutor at the Academic Support Center or Student Disability Services for math and English… should be fun and help me to relate to people.

I met Trina Chakravarty at Rotary Int’l. last week. She was Miss India USA 2005 and Miss India Worldwide 2006, she’s going to be an M.D. (medical doctor) next year at 24, and she even writes a blog! So amazing…

I have been slacking posting newly re-edited photos here, but I’ll have some this weekend.

Finally, I have decided to disable Infolinks on my sites. Infolinks is an ad network that double-underlines words on your site with ads. They are just too annoying, and they make next to …

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Lava lamps are so seductive.

Fujifilm FinePix A360, 1/7, F2.8, 5.8mm, ISO100, 2005-12-25T22:49:55-05, 2005-12-25_22h49m55

Download the high-res JPEG (519.46KB) or download the source image (1.06MB).

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License. Credit me as Richard X. Thripp and link here.

One of my early photos from Dec. 2004. In the beginning, I made the mistake of setting my 2MP Fujifilm FinePix 2650 to 1 megapixel resolution, which was 1280×960 instead of 1600×1200. At the time, I had a computer with a 4GB HDD and monitor with a resolution of 1024×768, so I saw no reason to take higher quality photos. I couldn’t have been more wrong.

This is newly edited with Photoshop CS5. I added a lot of contrast and made the white balance warmer. Every version of Photoshop gets easier to use, at least in my opinion. The auto contrast and auto tone functions work better now, and I find myself using them rather than curves more often than ever. However, the auto color feature still sucks.

I will only be posting photos from 2005 for the rest of November 2010 and some of December. I will also get into the 2006 photos next month. For a preview of what’s coming, look at the photos I posted on deviantART in late 2005 and early 2006. I will be reposting them here, but with different descriptions, titles, and much better editing.

Fujifilm FinePix 2650, 1/1400, F8.7, 6mm, ISO100, 2004-12-12T10:51:01-05, 2004-12-12_10h51m01

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License. Credit me as Richard X. Thripp and link here.

9 Steps to Work Less and Do More serves up hundreds of practical suggestions. Robbins gives you advice on everything—from how to leave a voicemail to how many umbrellas you should own (pg. 150). After reading “always leave your phone number twice” and “speak slowly and clearly” (64-65), I knew Stever was being really thorough.

Why is it 9 steps? I really don’t know. 10 is a more popular number. 7 is a lucky number. Stever Get-It-Done Guy Robbins could even have called it “12 Steps for Workaholics,” but it’s been done before.

If you’ve read other books on time management or personal growth, there isn’t much new material here. This book may be a waste of time for anyone but the casually committed, because only they are likely to find new advice here. But, considering I was provided this review copy for free and never heard of Robbins before being contacted by his secretary, I should not be so harsh. “9 Steps” is a nice read with good tips. Stever also has a good sense of humor which you will find on every page of the book. I was more anxious to write this review than to actually read the book, but had I picked this up several years ago, before discovering personal development, I would have been engrossed.

“Stever Robbins” is a weird name. Everyone who reads it thinks “Steven” has been misprinted. “Robbins” as in Tony Robbins? I thought this was a pen name at first.

I started reading this book six weeks ago, and after 40 pages I quit and lost interest. I stopped reading on “daily action packs” in the procrastination chapter. However, I do need to write this review eventually, so I’m just going on what …

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One benefit of the online, inter-connected world we live in is that it’s no longer necessary to purchase music or software. Although I have my favorite music and the latest video games and photography software, I haven’t purchased a single intangible item in years. Hardware, yes, software, no.

The Pirate Bay is the source for almost any music or software you are looking for. Get uTorrent and start downloading torrent trackers. While you’re receiving files, you’re also sending pieces of those files to other people, helping provide freedom to everyone.

If it isn’t on BitTorrent, it’s probably on RapidShare. Find your booty.

I have a brand new copy of Adobe Photoshop CS5 on my computer, Sibelius 6 for composing, a Nintendo Wii hooked to a hard drive with 50 games, a Nintendo DS with even more games and my favorite music, and I didn’t pay a dime for any of it. Anyone who pays a dime for any of this stuff is a chump, plain and simple.

The beautiful thing about piracy is that it’s a victimless crime which hurts no one. The people who pirate software would not buy it anyway, and the people who buy it are too principled (read: stupid) to engage in the bliss that is piracy. Even content creators benefit, because piracy breeds not only more piracy, but also more purchases from stupid principled people. It’s a win-win situation.

Now go and pirate something today! George Washington would be proud.

The last of nine photos with Amour. She’s handing a Pikachu doll to her friend Jerica. This is actually a remote for an old Pikachu VCR… it has play, stop, fast-forward, and rewind buttons on Pikachu’s hands and feet, a power button on the Pokemon’s stomach, a remote sensor on the back of his head, and AA batteries inside.

Jerica and Amour couldn’t help but laugh.

I wish Amour good fortune in her modeling and psychology career, and the same for Jerica in her field of study.

Canon Rebel XTi, EF 50mm 1:1.4, 1/1000, F3.5, 50mm, ISO200, 2009-11-02T09:41:27-05, 20091102-144127rxt

Ashley says hello to a 17×11 print of Yellow Grasshopper. That was hard to carry around, but it was worth it so they could meet. She’s funny and cute. The grasshopper is too, but he’s more the serious type.

She was smoking (see her left hand), and I rested the print on the ash can nearby. It was the only way to get them both in the shot looking at each other. Smoking is still as popular as ever.

I added brightness and vignetting, and corrected her skin tones. I set my camera to sunshine white balance, but it was a bit too bluish for this light.

Next time you see a grasshopper, say hello!

Canon Rebel XTi, EF 28-135mm, 1/125, F5.6, 112mm, ISO100, 2008-11-12T13:02:11-05, 20081112-180211rxt

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.”

Rachel, pointing out into space.

She has the same name as my seven-year-old sister, who doesn’t post much.

This was the only pose I could think of. I’m running out of ideas…

Anyway, I took color out of the background so the focus is just on Rachel. She’s pointing up at a squirrel or something.

I also darkened the background a lot.

Rachel is a photographer and has her own photographs here: photographsbyrachelwhited.com. She’s a great model too. I’m only good at photography, fortunately.

Canon Rebel XTi, EF 28-135mm, 1/200, F6.3, 38mm, ISO400, 2008-01-13T12:04:27-05, 20081113-170427rxt1

Shawnee was trying to study, but I interrupted her to put these fake autumn leaves in her hair. I just rested them on her head for this shot. She was reaching up to catch them as they fell off.

The leaves do make a good prop, and she was laughing enough that there’s no chance she learned anything that day. At least her test is days away. There’s always a test coming up.

Canon Rebel XTi, EF 28-135mm, 1/800, F5.6, 50mm, ISO200, 2008-11-07T10:17:42-05, 20081107-151742rxt

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.”