Back when I was a kid my parents had a player piano and one of the rolls was "Ramblin' Wreck From Georgia Tech" which was probably the one we used the most.
Despite not having attended Georgia Tech my father taught my siblings and me the words....
"I'm a ramblin' wreck from Georgia Tech and a hell of an engineer"
He did have an engineering degree but never worked as an engineer. I did eventually earn an engineering degree not from GA Tech too, but also never worked as an engineer.
You have been modded "Funny" but I think there is some insightfulness there:
"Nearly nine in 10 people say they are ready to make changes to their standard of living if it would prevent future climate catastrophe,"
Oh really?
Last things first - there's that huge qualification that they would do it "if it would prevent future climate catastrophe". Most of us don't believe we have much if any impact at all. If I do have an impact, it's terribly insignificant.
And we'd make changes to our standard of living? Wait a minute there - are you talking about any major changes?
Because I can only do so much. I already do try to make as little impact on the environment as I can. If someone wants to suggest an easy way for me to do better I'm all for it, but I'm not going to inconvenience myself too much. It's too warm in here right now. I could open a window, but I'm gonna turn on the AC instead! Seriously.
But I recycle every soda can that I buy! Well, that's good but I can only recycle as much as I already am.
So I do think it's at least sort of fake. Most of us aren't going to do any more than we're already doing. I do care about the environment, but to be honest I'm not willing to sacrifice my standard of living. I like my car and my AC and I'm not going to stop buying things because they come with too much plastic packaging. (Would I really refuse to buy a product just because its packaging wasn't eco-friendly?)
Quite frankly, the only things I can think of to do that would be more eco-friendly are too much trouble for me to bother with or would have very little impact if any.
So while it's probably true that nearly 9 in 10 people say they would change their standard of living to save the planet I think it's "fake" to think that nearly 9 in 10 people would actually bother to make any significant changes to their standard of living.
What would I give up? Nothing.
I think it's more likely that nearly 9 in 10 people are either dishonest or aren't seriously considering a lower standard of living.
--
Or to put it in simpler terms....if you told someone they could save the planet if they just recycled their empty soda cans they'd probably do it, but if you told them they'd have to stop drinking soda they would laugh at you - not that recycling aluminum cans is going to save the planet but I do it anyway.
It would probably be better for the planet and definitely better for my health if I didn't drink soda in the first place, but screw that!
As long as you can turn it off it makes sense for them to do. Some people do want this in their homes and why should you have to have a separate device if you want that functionality?
My phone or my computer is capable of doing what the Echo does.
What about those who pay for Netflix but aren't getting content in a timely manner (most series), see content disappear after a year (there's been a terrible purge here recently), or aren't getting the content at all?
They should stop paying for Netflix.
Personally I've shelled out for Netflix for years and while it doesn't show me everything I want when I want I'm pretty satisfied. And I like OITNB, but I really am not going to go out of my way to see it before its official release. If there were some deleted scenes I might be tempted but I haven't pirated anything since I cut the cord and had to torrent the last few episodes of Breaking Bad.
I actually felt a little guilty about that because it was available on iTunes at the time, but I didn't want to have anything to do with iTunes. And now the entire series is on Netflix. I could have just waited - and the last episode was worth at least $1.99 or whatever the price was on iTunes.
Seriously, it costs next to nothing. If you don't think it's worth $10 (or whatever it is) don't pay for it. I'm currently miffed because despite getting Amazon Prime too I can't watch the latest season of Hap and Leonard without paying $1.99 per episode.
Such are the problems of not paying $150 a month for cable TV.
And is $1.99 so bad? It's not really and didn't many of us clamor for a la carte choices? It doesn't get much more a la carte than paying per an episode and compared to what we'd pay to see a movie in a theater it's not a terrible price either.
I'm actually more disappointed in having to pay both Amazon and Netflix for my TV-watching experience because I can only watch one at a time, but there is enough exclusive content to make each worthwhile and I've got a long way to go before I exhaust all of their libraries - and by that time I'm sure a new season of Trailer Park Boys will be out on Netflix.
I wanted to play games so I had to type them in from Creative Computing magazine and various other magazines and books and of course they didn't always work because there were subtle differences in various versions of BASIC.
I eventually got my hands on an Apple ][ Plus on which I expanded my knowledge of BASIC and learned 6502 assembly language. The first programming class I ever had was in Fortran.
Like most of the good programming courses I've taken though it was not a class to teach a specific language, it was meant to be an introduction to programming and Fortran just happened to be the language we used. And that's the only time I've ever used Fortran.
Your attitude is all too common. It's becoming not only acceptable but expected to be spied on. As it turns out I'm not a terrorist or a criminal of any sort and although some people would judge me for some of the things I've viewed online I really don't have much to hide.
So why shouldn't I allow that information to be free? Wanna know what I bought from Amazon last week? It's actually none of your business.
And trusting someone because they're a "professional" is just about the dumbest thing you can ever do.
I have Bose QC3 headphones but am tired of wires. I know I could use it without the app, but is still a strike against Bose IMO.
The biggest problem I've have with these is the wire. It's cheap and tends to fray at the connectors. I'm on my 3rd cable and you can't just use any male to male 3.5mm cable because the plastic molding around the plug won't allow it to fit.
The 2nd biggest problem is feedback. I guess this is due to dust buildup as spraying compressed air into them seems to fix it. If compressed air is not readily available and I get them adjusted just right on my head the feedback goes away but it's tricky.
The 3rd problem is of course that it requires a battery to work at all. If the battery is dead, why wouldn't they make it work without the noise-cancelling abilities?
Obviously a wireless headphone will require batteries so I can live with that. I just have to have two batteries. Oh, the QC35 does not have user-replaceable batteries. It's a non-starter for me now. I have been listening to my QC3s so many times when the battery has died that not being able to pop in my backup battery would mean I can't use them much of the time.
I just read an article about "telehealth" by a local health care provider. I'd link the article, but they just send me this newsletter via snail mail and it does not appear to be online.
4 years ago they started doing this when a flood cut their patients off from services and they've been expanding it ever since. It mentions many benefits such as saving time transporting patients who may be having a stroke.
They cite a Harris Poll which (shockingly to me) showed that 74% of millennials would prefer seeing a doctor virtually and 71% of them want to use apps to share their health data.
My reaction was similar when I read the summary, but clicking on the link the channel lineup is actually deeper than that and if the "Coming Soon" channels actually do arrive, I might even consider it.
If they ever come to my area, that is.
It's interesting that the 5 channels mentioned in the summary are ones that I have very little interest in watching (zero interest for ESPN). Even when I had cable (an antenna isn't good enough for where I live) I hardly ever watched the other 4 mentioned.
Still, $35 is a lot IMO when I don't have any interest in most of the other channels either. And it seems at least 12 of them appear to be sports networks. I know that's a big draw for many people, but I have absolutely zero interest in those channels so I would still be subsidizing them.
Besides, I still haven't run out of things to watch on Netflix and Amazon Prime which combined are still cheaper.
Put sports in a separate optional tier, add the "Coming Soon" channels and drop the price by at least 1/3 and it might be an attractive deal to me.
And even though you can watch a lot of PBS content online, it wouldn't hurt to see if they could add that as well.
But does this mean I can have a manatee steak now?
They're often referred to as sea cows.
I love steak and I love seafood. Maybe this would be the perfect meal.
I'm glad they're off the endangered species list though. This is good news whether or not it means I can every eat one. I don't expect to see it on a menu anytime soon. They are cool creatures.
I'm pretty disgusted at the quality of the name brand stuff I buy at places other than WalMart.
Are shoes only supposed to last a few months even if you don't wear them a whole lot?
Thanks, Kohl's.
I've heard even Levi's jeans don't hold up like they used to but all my Levi's are at least 10 years old so they're still good. They didn't come from Walmart either. I don't even know if Walmart sells Levi's.
Walmart is okay for some things. I try to avoid produce from Walmart. It seems to spoil faster and if I only pay 54 cents per pound of bananas that's really not a noticeable savings over the 56 cents a pound I might pay at some other store.
A couple of years ago I bought a laptop from Walmart. That was a mistake. It was a good price but it had been sitting in their stockroom for so long that the battery was completely dead. It would only work if it was plugged in. The battery would not charge. That was after I made the mistake of buying a laptop at Sam's Club. I returned the laptop for a refund at Sam's before I even left the store. They had sold it to me as new, but it wasn't. And then they wondered why I was not happy with them.
I'm careful what I buy there now. In fact it pissed me off enough that I rarely ever go there anymore - but I still go to Walmart. Go figure.
The laptop I bought at Walmart was a Vizio and I must give credit to them because even though they had given up making laptops by the time I bought it they actually tried to fix it, but I decided to return it instead. This is in contrast to Toshiba who basically told me I shouldn't have been stupid enough to buy a Toshiba when I had a problem with their laptop.
I don't know of any manufacturer that I respect for consumer level computers anymore. I guess Apples are nice, but they come at a price.
I have two twitter accounts. Actually, I have one and my cat has one too. One of the true arts of twitter is keeping your post down to 140 characters. It's difficult sometimes.
I've also found that using fewer words on slashdot usually gets me modded up more than when I drone on and on endlessly.
I assume people get bored at some point.
And sending a message to too many people at once can get you in trouble. I once sent an e-mail to about 30 different people right after I left one job and then I went on a vacation. I got back home and logged in and found out my e-mail account had been cancelled due to reports of spamming.
I still don't know if my account was cancelled because I emailed 30 people at once or if one (or more?) of them just didn't like me and decided to complain. Would they really do that? Maybe.
I should probably just shut up now.
- I don't actually remember how many people I sent that e-mail to. It might not have been as many as 30 people. I had worked with all of them and most of them I really liked and respected. -- And nobody even replied. I don't know if they tried because my account was cancelled. Imagine that - losing an e-mail account because I emailed too many people.
"If I work extra hours to get this crisis resolved, they will see how awesome I am, give me a raise, and give me more say over my development priorities."
This one.
I actually came to say essentially the same thing.
I went several years without a raise. I finally got a bonus one year. It was so small it was practically an insult. The CEO openly told us that we were lucky to even have jobs as he laid off our co-workers.
I can't tell you how much schadenfreude I feel now that they are under criminal investigation now.
One of the execs has been charged with "crimes against the financial system” in Brazil.
I'm kind of surprised it isn't getting more press but I guess most of the corruption was in South America rather than their American assets. I'm sure it's just a coincidence that the family who runs that company shares the name of a Cuban dictator that was in power before Castro. Really, I am sure it's just coincidence. Batista is a common enough name.
See Operation Car Wash and Operation Weak Flesh for more info. Who makes up these names?
The last time I played around with Linux I really liked Mint too. I tried several others as well most of which I forget right now, but Ubuntu was one of them too.
I got it running in a VM with very few problems and tweaked the settings a bit until I was pretty happy with it.
It ran a little slow, but I attributed this to running in a VM.
I put it on a USB stick and booted from that so no VM. Every time I did that I had about 2-3 minutes where everything worked great and then it hit a wall. It wouldn't freeze completely, it just was like I imagine a dinosaur being caught in a tarpit.
I did manage to open up a shell and run ps -ef, but no processes seemed to be hogging anything.
I tried to find a solution on the internet, but gave up before I found one.
That was sometime last year. I'm about ready to try again. I may just buy a desktop that is known to already work with a particular distro of Linux rather than trying to make it work on the laptop I normally use.
What was really frustrating was that everything worked just fine in the VM and there wasn't a single thing that I do in Windows that I couldn't do in Mint. (obviously other people's mileage may vary on that).
I just want the system to stay out of the way and be stable and I feel foolish for all the Windows problems I experience. I either don't have the patience or am too ignorant to fix some of them.
Slashdot Mirror
FWIW, I've known a few people who worked for Walmart's IT department in Arkansas and they couldn't spell either.
It's not that they're not intelligent, it's just that some people suck at spelling.
Okay, well the spelling in the other post was bad but isn't' that what compilers are for?
These clouds won't be "fake". They'll exist in reality even if they are artificial.
Back when I was a kid my parents had a player piano and one of the rolls was "Ramblin' Wreck From Georgia Tech" which was probably the one we used the most.
Despite not having attended Georgia Tech my father taught my siblings and me the words....
"I'm a ramblin' wreck from Georgia Tech and a hell of an engineer"
He did have an engineering degree but never worked as an engineer. I did eventually earn an engineering degree not from GA Tech too, but also never worked as an engineer.
We totally got away with it too.
And we've done quite well at not being engineers.
You have been modded "Funny" but I think there is some insightfulness there:
"Nearly nine in 10 people say they are ready to make changes to their standard of living if it would prevent future climate catastrophe,"
Oh really?
Last things first - there's that huge qualification that they would do it "if it would prevent future climate catastrophe". Most of us don't believe we have much if any impact at all. If I do have an impact, it's terribly insignificant.
And we'd make changes to our standard of living? Wait a minute there - are you talking about any major changes?
Because I can only do so much. I already do try to make as little impact on the environment as I can. If someone wants to suggest an easy way for me to do better I'm all for it, but I'm not going to inconvenience myself too much. It's too warm in here right now. I could open a window, but I'm gonna turn on the AC instead! Seriously.
But I recycle every soda can that I buy! Well, that's good but I can only recycle as much as I already am.
So I do think it's at least sort of fake. Most of us aren't going to do any more than we're already doing. I do care about the environment, but to be honest I'm not willing to sacrifice my standard of living. I like my car and my AC and I'm not going to stop buying things because they come with too much plastic packaging. (Would I really refuse to buy a product just because its packaging wasn't eco-friendly?)
Quite frankly, the only things I can think of to do that would be more eco-friendly are too much trouble for me to bother with or would have very little impact if any.
So while it's probably true that nearly 9 in 10 people say they would change their standard of living to save the planet I think it's "fake" to think that nearly 9 in 10 people would actually bother to make any significant changes to their standard of living.
What would I give up? Nothing.
I think it's more likely that nearly 9 in 10 people are either dishonest or aren't seriously considering a lower standard of living.
--
Or to put it in simpler terms....if you told someone they could save the planet if they just recycled their empty soda cans they'd probably do it, but if you told them they'd have to stop drinking soda they would laugh at you - not that recycling aluminum cans is going to save the planet but I do it anyway.
It would probably be better for the planet and definitely better for my health if I didn't drink soda in the first place, but screw that!
As an ex-smoker, I don't see the point of having something thinner than a pack of cigarettes.
I carried those things around for years and learned not to crush them in my pockets.
As long as you can turn it off it makes sense for them to do. Some people do want this in their homes and why should you have to have a separate device if you want that functionality?
My phone or my computer is capable of doing what the Echo does.
I don't want one, but some people apparently do.
Interesting.
Without a teletype, a programmer would need to enter software into the Honeywell using the 16 buttons on the front panel, each of which corresponds to a bit. A pressed button represented a one, and un-pushed button signaled a zero. “The chances that you would get a program right doing it one bit at a time like that were so low,” Spicer said. “The first peripheral people bought for [the Honeywell] was a teletype so they could speak to it.”
But it came with a two-week training class to teach you how to use the thing.
- meh, don't worry, the compiler will catch any typos....or your recipe will just turn out bad.
"My hand is in your wallet" - Andrew Carnegie
A commonly seen play on the actual quote "My heart is in the work" at CMU during my years there.
What about those who pay for Netflix but aren't getting content in a timely manner (most series), see content disappear after a year (there's been a terrible purge here recently), or aren't getting the content at all?
They should stop paying for Netflix.
Personally I've shelled out for Netflix for years and while it doesn't show me everything I want when I want I'm pretty satisfied. And I like OITNB, but I really am not going to go out of my way to see it before its official release. If there were some deleted scenes I might be tempted but I haven't pirated anything since I cut the cord and had to torrent the last few episodes of Breaking Bad.
I actually felt a little guilty about that because it was available on iTunes at the time, but I didn't want to have anything to do with iTunes. And now the entire series is on Netflix. I could have just waited - and the last episode was worth at least $1.99 or whatever the price was on iTunes.
Seriously, it costs next to nothing. If you don't think it's worth $10 (or whatever it is) don't pay for it. I'm currently miffed because despite getting Amazon Prime too I can't watch the latest season of Hap and Leonard without paying $1.99 per episode.
Such are the problems of not paying $150 a month for cable TV.
And is $1.99 so bad? It's not really and didn't many of us clamor for a la carte choices? It doesn't get much more a la carte than paying per an episode and compared to what we'd pay to see a movie in a theater it's not a terrible price either.
I'm actually more disappointed in having to pay both Amazon and Netflix for my TV-watching experience because I can only watch one at a time, but there is enough exclusive content to make each worthwhile and I've got a long way to go before I exhaust all of their libraries - and by that time I'm sure a new season of Trailer Park Boys will be out on Netflix.
Tennishoes - run together just like that. Not "tennis shoes".
Sneakers was a game from Sirius Software.
I learned BASIC on an Orange Toaster
I wanted to play games so I had to type them in from Creative Computing magazine and various other magazines and books and of course they didn't always work because there were subtle differences in various versions of BASIC.
I eventually got my hands on an Apple ][ Plus on which I expanded my knowledge of BASIC and learned 6502 assembly language. The first programming class I ever had was in Fortran.
Like most of the good programming courses I've taken though it was not a class to teach a specific language, it was meant to be an introduction to programming and Fortran just happened to be the language we used. And that's the only time I've ever used Fortran.
Your attitude is all too common. It's becoming not only acceptable but expected to be spied on. As it turns out I'm not a terrorist or a criminal of any sort and although some people would judge me for some of the things I've viewed online I really don't have much to hide.
So why shouldn't I allow that information to be free? Wanna know what I bought from Amazon last week? It's actually none of your business.
And trusting someone because they're a "professional" is just about the dumbest thing you can ever do.
I have Bose QC3 headphones but am tired of wires. I know I could use it without the app, but is still a strike against Bose IMO.
The biggest problem I've have with these is the wire. It's cheap and tends to fray at the connectors. I'm on my 3rd cable and you can't just use any male to male 3.5mm cable because the plastic molding around the plug won't allow it to fit.
The 2nd biggest problem is feedback. I guess this is due to dust buildup as spraying compressed air into them seems to fix it. If compressed air is not readily available and I get them adjusted just right on my head the feedback goes away but it's tricky.
The 3rd problem is of course that it requires a battery to work at all. If the battery is dead, why wouldn't they make it work without the noise-cancelling abilities?
Obviously a wireless headphone will require batteries so I can live with that. I just have to have two batteries. Oh, the QC35 does not have user-replaceable batteries. It's a non-starter for me now. I have been listening to my QC3s so many times when the battery has died that not being able to pop in my backup battery would mean I can't use them much of the time.
Seriously I have never even played it. It came out after I had already reached peak gaming in my lifetime.
I'm installing it now and will soon see what all the fuss is about.
I feel like this guy except I'm on a nearly 20 year lag.
I suppose I'll get around to Half Life 2 by the time I start drawing Social Security
I just read an article about "telehealth" by a local health care provider. I'd link the article, but they just send me this newsletter via snail mail and it does not appear to be online.
4 years ago they started doing this when a flood cut their patients off from services and they've been expanding it ever since. It mentions many benefits such as saving time transporting patients who may be having a stroke.
They cite a Harris Poll which (shockingly to me) showed that 74% of millennials would prefer seeing a doctor virtually and 71% of them want to use apps to share their health data.
The State of the Connected Patient - 2015 (Press Release)
Download here
(I guess you can download it, but they want your email, phone and company name first. I didn't.)
In other news, Sensenbrenner vehemently opposed, and [is] still committed to repealing the ACA
I have never seen a movie theater with assigned seating.
That must suck.
If it needs assigned seating, it's probably going to be too crowded and you'll have people telling other people "you're in my seat".
OTOH, the last movie I saw in the theater was Shaft. I ain't saying if it was the original or the remake, but Richard Roundtree was in it.
And yes, I Know Richard Roundtree was in both.
My reaction was similar when I read the summary, but clicking on the link the channel lineup is actually deeper than that and if the "Coming Soon" channels actually do arrive, I might even consider it.
If they ever come to my area, that is.
It's interesting that the 5 channels mentioned in the summary are ones that I have very little interest in watching (zero interest for ESPN). Even when I had cable (an antenna isn't good enough for where I live) I hardly ever watched the other 4 mentioned.
Still, $35 is a lot IMO when I don't have any interest in most of the other channels either. And it seems at least 12 of them appear to be sports networks. I know that's a big draw for many people, but I have absolutely zero interest in those channels so I would still be subsidizing them.
Besides, I still haven't run out of things to watch on Netflix and Amazon Prime which combined are still cheaper.
Put sports in a separate optional tier, add the "Coming Soon" channels and drop the price by at least 1/3 and it might be an attractive deal to me.
And even though you can watch a lot of PBS content online, it wouldn't hurt to see if they could add that as well.
Mine does not do this.
Perhaps it's a feature of having an older roku (2XS).
But does this mean I can have a manatee steak now?
They're often referred to as sea cows.
I love steak and I love seafood. Maybe this would be the perfect meal.
I'm glad they're off the endangered species list though. This is good news whether or not it means I can every eat one. I don't expect to see it on a menu anytime soon. They are cool creatures.
I'm pretty disgusted at the quality of the name brand stuff I buy at places other than WalMart.
Are shoes only supposed to last a few months even if you don't wear them a whole lot?
Thanks, Kohl's.
I've heard even Levi's jeans don't hold up like they used to but all my Levi's are at least 10 years old so they're still good. They didn't come from Walmart either. I don't even know if Walmart sells Levi's.
Walmart is okay for some things. I try to avoid produce from Walmart. It seems to spoil faster and if I only pay 54 cents per pound of bananas that's really not a noticeable savings over the 56 cents a pound I might pay at some other store.
A couple of years ago I bought a laptop from Walmart. That was a mistake. It was a good price but it had been sitting in their stockroom for so long that the battery was completely dead. It would only work if it was plugged in. The battery would not charge. That was after I made the mistake of buying a laptop at Sam's Club. I returned the laptop for a refund at Sam's before I even left the store. They had sold it to me as new, but it wasn't. And then they wondered why I was not happy with them.
I'm careful what I buy there now. In fact it pissed me off enough that I rarely ever go there anymore - but I still go to Walmart. Go figure.
The laptop I bought at Walmart was a Vizio and I must give credit to them because even though they had given up making laptops by the time I bought it they actually tried to fix it, but I decided to return it instead. This is in contrast to Toshiba who basically told me I shouldn't have been stupid enough to buy a Toshiba when I had a problem with their laptop.
I don't know of any manufacturer that I respect for consumer level computers anymore. I guess Apples are nice, but they come at a price.
yes
I have two twitter accounts. Actually, I have one and my cat has one too. One of the true arts of twitter is keeping your post down to 140 characters. It's difficult sometimes.
I've also found that using fewer words on slashdot usually gets me modded up more than when I drone on and on endlessly.
I assume people get bored at some point.
And sending a message to too many people at once can get you in trouble. I once sent an e-mail to about 30 different people right after I left one job and then I went on a vacation. I got back home and logged in and found out my e-mail account had been cancelled due to reports of spamming.
I still don't know if my account was cancelled because I emailed 30 people at once or if one (or more?) of them just didn't like me and decided to complain. Would they really do that? Maybe.
I should probably just shut up now.
- I don't actually remember how many people I sent that e-mail to. It might not have been as many as 30 people. I had worked with all of them and most of them I really liked and respected.
-- And nobody even replied. I don't know if they tried because my account was cancelled. Imagine that - losing an e-mail account because I emailed too many people.
"If I work extra hours to get this crisis resolved, they will see how awesome I am, give me a raise, and give me more say over my development priorities."
This one.
I actually came to say essentially the same thing.
I went several years without a raise. I finally got a bonus one year. It was so small it was practically an insult. The CEO openly told us that we were lucky to even have jobs as he laid off our co-workers.
I can't tell you how much schadenfreude I feel now that they are under criminal investigation now.
One of the execs has been charged with "crimes against the financial system” in Brazil.
I'm kind of surprised it isn't getting more press but I guess most of the corruption was in South America rather than their American assets. I'm sure it's just a coincidence that the family who runs that company shares the name of a Cuban dictator that was in power before Castro. Really, I am sure it's just coincidence. Batista is a common enough name.
See Operation Car Wash and Operation Weak Flesh for more info. Who makes up these names?
Completely unrelated video: Car Wash
Dunno why, but I really appreciate that song even more now.
I believe it as much as I believe that if I get a permit for medical marijuana in Colorado it will remain private.
http://denver.cbslocal.com/201...
But I'm not too worried. I don't need a red card and since I live in CO everyone assume I smoke pot anyway. (and they'd be right)
The last time I played around with Linux I really liked Mint too. I tried several others as well most of which I forget right now, but Ubuntu was one of them too.
I got it running in a VM with very few problems and tweaked the settings a bit until I was pretty happy with it.
It ran a little slow, but I attributed this to running in a VM.
I put it on a USB stick and booted from that so no VM. Every time I did that I had about 2-3 minutes where everything worked great and then it hit a wall. It wouldn't freeze completely, it just was like I imagine a dinosaur being caught in a tarpit.
I did manage to open up a shell and run ps -ef, but no processes seemed to be hogging anything.
I tried to find a solution on the internet, but gave up before I found one.
That was sometime last year. I'm about ready to try again. I may just buy a desktop that is known to already work with a particular distro of Linux rather than trying to make it work on the laptop I normally use.
What was really frustrating was that everything worked just fine in the VM and there wasn't a single thing that I do in Windows that I couldn't do in Mint. (obviously other people's mileage may vary on that).
I just want the system to stay out of the way and be stable and I feel foolish for all the Windows problems I experience. I either don't have the patience or am too ignorant to fix some of them.