Similar story. It started as a tidied up Debian fork. Then since about 12.04 LTS it turned into a tidied up Debian unstable fork with all the bugs in it. As a server only and LTS only user, I had no end of problems from there on with unstable kernels, duff and buggy packages, update roulette and terrible support.
We're on Debian 7 now and it's rock solid, relatively bug free in comparison and the support is good. Just where I want it to be.
The best outcome for me was that it caused Debian to rethink their release cycles a bit.
I, like many people here by the looks, spent a good deal of time removing them. We had one issue where the page response with an AJAX Manager (or whatever it was called) was 5x as slow than a full page refresh. Turns out it was POSTing 2Mb of crap for some reason.
I'd rather eat my own poop that use their software again.
Oh, I know much of it like the back of my hand, and have spent plenty of time doing outdoorsy stuff, and have found myself in a few genuine survival situations, and I'm here to spout crap opinions on the web still, so...!
It's mostly handy for "was it the one with the serrated leaves, or the one with the smooth leaves which is toxic?".
Most people I know buy second hand TIs which aren't expensive. They are around the $20-50 (GBP conversion) mark here in the UK.
The Pi is not exactly a good proposition for a calculator either based on form factor and power usage. Also you really do need a tactile input system for calculators as they help avoid costly and confusing mistakes.
I'm not sure why there is so much hate for TI to be honest; they are very functional, very robust, have very good battery life and good resale value. I myself however use a $20 Casio 115/991ES PLUS.
I'm not sure there is really hate for TI calculators, but rather a general sense of "wtf are we paying for" when they've been the same spec and the same price for 20 years. No one really thinks they're bad calculators, but really they should be $20 by now, with a $100 color version or something to round out the high end.
The Earth's magnetic field and poles do change slightly, but it's not the end of the world as those guys would suggest. It's quite interesting really purely from a science and navigation point of view.
I think they are actually referring to geomagnetic reversal, believed by some to be a likely cataclysmic event, in which the poles could reverse entirely and it is supposed that the protective field would have a dramatic reduction in power for enough time to cause serious problems.
This site is literally talking about the entire planet being forced to rotate 90 degrees due to a rogue planet passing nearby. This sudden rotation would supposedly cause the crust of the planet itself to slip and rotate due to inertia.
Well, we see evidence for magnetic reversal in the geological record. It happened before, and a lot. Also, the strength has gone down to about 5% before. This much I'd take as fact.
What is not clear is the effect this has on the biosphere. Calculations have been made for different magnetic field strenghts during the reversal and it seems that radiation can go up. By how much and how much of a problem that would be.. well. Speculations plus calculations.
The effect on the biosphere likely isn't vast. We can't see much effect in the fossil record and reversals have happened a lot.
Far more interesting--as in the case of climate change--is the effect on the economy, which is much more finely tuned and sensitive to change than the biosphere.
The hypothetical timescale of 1000-10000 years is based mostly on the low resolution of the data and the seeming implausibility of much more rapid mechanisms, but as the Wikipedia article suggests there are data that point to much higher rates.
Furthermore, the current theory is most consistent with a multi-polar field during the reversal, which would make magnetic compasses awkward, although probably not unusable. I used to sail in an area that had a large local magnetic anomaly (22 degrees over the course of a few nautical miles) and compasses weren't completely useless, just a tag tedious to use.
So if a magnetic reversal is about to occur there is likely to be a market for a "smart compass" or "compass as a service" that updates daily to your local conditions. Never a wind so ill it doesn't blow somebody good.
Just for clarity, they know the poles change slightly, the "end-of-the-world" view is based on the theory that once they shift a certain distance, there is a pole swap... not a shift, that causes all kinds of havoc on the ecosystem. I have never seen any good papers on the subject though, so am inclined to agree with your skepticism.
We're on Debian 7 now and it's rock solid, relatively bug free in comparison and the support is good. Just where I want it to be.
The best outcome for me was that it caused Debian to rethink their release cycles a bit.