Burn baby, burn!

First off, let me set one thing straight. This is NOT a review for the song "Disco Inferno." As part of an upcoming move, I have been sorting and purging stuff that I do not plan to take with me. Part of this has included elimination of stuff that, quite frankly, I just don't need. Since I acquired a laptop last semester that contains a DVD burner, and I realized that my desktop TV tuner can rip VHS tapes to digital format, I decided to buy some blank DVDs and start creating my digital collection.

To start my process off, I connected an A\V switch box to my desktop using a standard RCA video cable and a headphone to Stereo RCA audio cable. Next, I used a standard RCA A\V cable to connect the A\V switch to the VCR that I would be using to copy my VHS tapes.

Second, I opened my TV tuner software on the desktop. This allowed me to take the physical VHS cassettes and make video files that a computer could read.

Third, I used a utility that is included in Windows Vista/7 called "Windows DVD Maker" to burn my discs. This was another utility that streamlined the process considerably well, with only three steps to its disc creation process.

Once the disc was inside the computer, there was a slight waiting process. Eventually the bar filled up to one hundred percent and the computer decided to return the disc to me.

Eventually, once the disc was finalized, I was able to label it, (and not by the color of its label, but by the content of its characters!) - that is to say, I gave the disc a clever name, and described the video footage contained therein.

Today I lost faith in humanity.

So, I get home from work, and log in to Facebook. Shouldn't be to out of the ordinary, right? Just a typical day, right? Wrong. Anyway I'm browsing through my news feed, when I suddenly notice that Apple is announcing a new MacBook. Naturally, I just brush it off because Apple's hardware life cycle seems to be about the same as any decent Linux distribution (about 6 months). I had also heard about USB 3.1 type C and heard that Apple might be adopting it. Again initially the announcement didn't phase me that much.

I even saw a picture of it and it still didn't phase me that much. Just another Apple product that has had a few more inches shaved off its aluminum body with a lathe, which didn't phase me either (honestly, I could have done that myself in high-school shop class). Oh no, the worst was yet to come. Once I saw how all of one's devices would be connected to it, any convincing that Apple could have done to get me to join them went right out of the window when I saw this:

Yes, that's right. your eyes are not deceiving you. Apple has lost all common decency to make it easy for a person to connect devices to their computers. For a little history: in the old days, when a person bought a computer, IBM compatible machines (or "PCs") were empty boxes that you had to add components to. The advantage that Apple had over their competitors was that everything was right there and you could connect it in minutes, if not seconds, whereas a PC had to be gathered up and connected together either by plug shape (or by color if your computer was a Pentium 3 or newer). They even used to boast about it on their commercials [1].

Now, as I look at the above picture, and realize that Apple is taking a "1980" approach to desktop connectivity (buy PC now, add more later), it leaves me convinced that they have lost any conceivable advantage that might have been previously owned or within their reach.

For more information on what the crap I am referring to, please read this article: http://www.theverge.com/2015/3/9/8177087/macbook-port-adapter-accessory