SharpyWarpy's Forty Acres

Sharpywarpy's Forty Acres linux penguin
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This site last updated 01-20-08
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Here you will find no glitzy, flashing junk to make you think this is a fantastic web page, just (hopefully) interesting stuff, although I am basicly very boring. Why "...Forty Acres"? To accomodate truck drivers. Ask one, he'll not waste any time telling you. I drove a big truck for a while.

Jumping right in with some of my favorite topics. If you have a dial-up internet connection and need to surf fast for imformation without a lot of slow loading fluff, try Lynx. "Lynx" is a text browser that flies. It was designed by some folks at the University of Kansas for Unix, but you can also get versions for dos and Windows. The Windows version does not have provision for https but the linux and dos versions can do https. Go figure. There's a new text browser called "Links" that's supposed to eventually replace Lynx, although it probably never will. It can be used to display images almost like a regular web browser. Imagine that, a graphical web browser for the console. It can do https and javascript and handles frames pretty good. With options like displaying links to images which can be downloaded for viewing, multiple bookmarks, good forms capability and image map (ugh) navigation, both Lynx and Links are highly customizable. E. Stephen Mack wrote an interesting tribute to Lynx, you'll get a kick out of it and learn something about it's strengths if you read it. On an old machine the internet might very well be cruised best with these text browsers.

If you would like to play games online, you can forget dos because you can't do the java applets used by most online games. Zone.msn.com is a great java site for chess, hearts and other games, but it loads slow. Yahoo is a little better and can be accessed with Linux. I recommend you download a client for playing chess. It's a bloody game, chess. I lose a lot more than I win when I play online, I thought I was pretty good till I started playing online.

I mentioned Linux, an update is in order here. I've been using it now for about three years and I use it almost exclusivly except for firmware updates. I haven't had any viruses, worms or trojans. It's command line is pretty amazing, you can multitask with it by changing to new virtual terminals and long file names are not a problem, I'll never go back to DOS except to brush up on it now and then. The graphical environments are getting better all the time, there's KDE, Gnome, IceWM, Blackbox and several others that can match Windows XP or any other flavor of Windows without crashing nearly as much. The commands are different than DOS and everything is case sensitive, which seems crazy until you realize the possibility of having more than one executable or script ( batch file in dos ) by the same name, just different case, like "RunIt" and "runit" are two different commands. As far as the hype about Linux upsetting Microsoft, it will never happen because there will always be a huge audience requiring an operating system that needs very little user intervention out of the box. Linux is definitely starved for attention, but only for the setup. After it's all set up and configured it rarely needs anything. Heck, you don't even need to defrag. But by it's very nature Linux will always appeal to those of us who like to tinker and tweak.

Music has been a central part of my life, having studied or participated in a wide variety of the stuff in high school band, Coast Guard band, church choir and band and had a one semester course on the history of music in college. I've followed the progress of popular music rather loosly and do not have any idea what is happening to it, only that there is a large demand now for a lot of the old music from the sixties and seventies. I'm not trying to say the old stuff was better, some of it was pure garbage. I'm just saying it is being discovered by a new generation, much as any art might be uncovered after the demise of an artist. Here are my picks of some of the best music.

One of the greatest events of my generation was man's first walk on the moon in June of nineteen sixty nine. For a little while everyone in the free world celebrated the living of an ancient dream. I know some people who still don't believe it was done, but that's because they have a soft spot for the old fashioned opinions of what the moon is and the idea of its being an intangible object of childhood fantasy. To them, to touch the moon is to lose something. Nothing wrong with that, I guess, if you feel that way. Just don't try to tell me, I am a firm believer in the process of discovering all we can about God's creation. I'm not a scientist, but I do adhere to the scientific method. Unlike the typical scientist, however, I tend to draw closer to the creator with every new discovery, not farther away. Wanna see a picture of an Apollo lunar lander without its skin? (You're supposed to say 'oooo, yeah...') Rare photo, I double dog dare you to find one like it.

I consider my research paper from college my crowning achievement to date as far as writing. I didn't do one in high school, took an F on it, always felt bad about it. I hate writing. No, I mean I really, really hate writing. So when I went to college as a returning student at the tender age of thirty six, I decided to do a superb paper on the peace movement of the Viet Nam war era.I don't consider myself an expert on the subject but I was a teen during that tumultuous time, which should mean something.

I was an auto mechanic for twenty years. Had to give it up, miss it sometimes, but not when I have to work on my car. Ever heard the old saying about how it's always the barber's son that needs a haircut? It's because the last thing a barber wants to do when he is at home is cut hair. It's a love-hate relationship that has dominated a big part of my life, as I'm sure it has many people with the same interest. Seeing a pet or wildlife or a loved one killed by a car is enough to make me hate cars all over again and keeps me from loving 'em the way some nuts do. Nevertheless I have seen all aspects of cars and light trucks from bumper to bumper and it still amazes me how it all comes together to get us where we need to go.

I love bicycles, I have ridden them off and on through the years, gave up on riding them a few years ago when it became too uncomfortable for me. Then I discovered the recumbent style of bicycle, one on which you sit back instead of upright. The prices, however, were beyond my grasp, the cheapest one I like is about a thousand dollars. So, having the skills and tools required, I built my own recumbent. It's a short wheelbase with the cranks up front and the seat is slung and very comfortable. Don't laugh, it will probably extend my life.