I am just taking a little break from studying here to regroup and get ready for some more pounding of material. I have for quite some time wanted to digitize my VHS tapes. No, not old movies, I would just re-purchase them on DVD if necessary. I have some old recordings and such that are much rarer. I was doing a little research on the best way to do this, because during my 2 week break before school starts up again I am going to be huddled over a VCR trying to do away with magnetic tape. That got me thinking, why not go a step further and convert the DVD collection to files as well. I am a little obsessive when it comes to minimalism. My ultimate goal would to have all my forms of media accessible through the computer; books, movies, comics, school works, everything. I know some people like the tangible feelings of books and whatnot, but that is just not me. I want to be mobile and not sacrifice any of my stuff. I am just thinking how easy moving would be if it was me, my clothes, and my computer. Anyway, I did a little math and I have roughly 216 DVD discs full of movies. I could probably encode them between 1 and 1.5 gbs per file and not be upset at the quality loss. That leaves me at roughly between 216 gbs and 324 gbs. That is actually not too bad. I’ll just purchase a few HDD’s, throw them in raid and let the magic fly. That would make skimming through my movies a breeze and I would have to deal with individual discs. The one thing I wish would happen would be the digitalization of textbooks. I have to lug like 3 hardback textbooks around during the year and 1, it makes me look like a hunchback and 2, it will eventually turn me into a hunchback. All I want is a PDF of my books. I would carry a notebook and my laptop and that is all. It would be glorious. Alas, textbook companies are not keen on that idea due to projected money losses. I would even pay the outrageous prices for the PDF even though all the costs would be in digital distribution which would be quite a bit less. I guess piracy would also be a concern, but damn what a utopia that would be for me. Simplifying my life is something I have found to be quite the productivity enhancer. I have discovered RSS feeds lately and it makes surfing the web a very quick venture. I just browse my iGoogle and that’s the day’s news. Anyway I need to get back to studying, but I was just bouncing some stuff around. Wish me luck!
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