Alberta Politics & Government Thread 3.0

[Looch City]

Why is everyone so MEAN to Danielle?? :’(

[ah123]

Interesting article on Smith…and her big flaw:

There's a lot to like! Smith is highly personable and charismatic. Very few individuals come away from a face-to-face meeting disliking this woman. That's what made her a good personality, a good columnist and talk-show host, and a good politician.

However, one cannot have observed Smith's career for any length of time without noting that she brings certain weaknesses to the table, as well. I'm going to venture— and I suggest that this will play out over her tenure as premier — that her most significant personality flaw is her lack of discernment. Smith is smart. She's perfectly capable of listening to people, and of processing reams of information and data — and sometimes coming to novel conclusions, or generating interesting solutions. The problem is that she has no apparent ability to sort good information from bad. This is a “crap in, crap out” problem.

https://theline.substack.com/p/jen-g...medium=reader2

[nik-]

I don't think she has a "crap in, crap out" problem at all. She's just straight up trying to exploit current wave of sentiment amongst some of the population for votes.

[Muta]

Since the run up to, and then the appointment of, Danielle Smith becoming Premier, I've definitely noticed some conservatives sliding their way back into this thread, lol. Welcome back!

Just curious - where were all y'all folks when the UCP was busy destroying our province the last 3.5 years? Nary a peep in here from several of you. Or was it only the emergence of Danielle Smith that was finally one foot too far across the line?

[TorqueDog]

Elementary school in Winnipeg, we started Kindergarten using the Apple IIe, which was replaced the following year by the Macintosh Classic. We used those all the way until junior high, when we were finally introduced to computers with COLOUR screens courtesy of the Macintosh Performa. High school, we started with original iMac G3s but those of us who took CompSci after grade 9 were treated to Wintel machines with C, C++, and VB6 IDEs. CompApps classes still ran with Mac.

Fun point about VBA macros, there was a piece of nannyware on the Wintel machines called 'Foolproof Security'. It was basically group policies on steroids (it ran in kernel mode) and prevented you from changing any sort of settings whatsoever, including setting the screen resolution back to something reasonable when Windows arbitrarily decided 640x480 was more than anybody needed. But you could fire up Word and write a VBA macro that would delete the boot driver for Foolproof, which would then leave the system wide open. Any time I'd use a machine that was running Foolproof, I'd "liberate" it.

[Fighting Banana Slug]

Originally Posted by TorqueDog

Elementary school in Winnipeg, we started Kindergarten using the Apple IIe, which was replaced the following year by the Macintosh Classic. We used those all the way until junior high, when we were finally introduced to computers with COLOUR screens courtesy of the Macintosh Performa. High school, we started with original iMac G3s but those of us who took CompSci after grade 9 were treated to Wintel machines with C, C++, and VB6 IDEs. CompApps classes still ran with Mac.

Fun point about VBA macros, there was a piece of nannyware on the Wintel machines called 'Foolproof Security'. It was basically group policies on steroids (it ran in kernel mode) and prevented you from changing any sort of settings whatsoever, including setting the screen resolution back to something reasonable when Windows arbitrarily decided 640x480 was more than anybody needed. But you could fire up Word and write a VBA macro that would delete the boot driver for Foolproof, which would then leave the system wide open. Any time I'd use a machine that was running Foolproof, I'd "liberate" it.

I think we have different definitions of "fun"

[Fuzz]

I had a blast the day I learned about the NET SEND command.

[GGG]

Originally Posted by calgarygeologist

Looking at the piece and thinking back to that time I don't necessarily think this is as extreme as it is made out to be in the Twitter post. I graduated high school in 2000 and computer literacy was really at a very early stage. At that time there wasn't much commercially available software that was easy to use and beneficial to young elementary school kids that would help with early learning. Based on that the argument that computers are not needed is pretty reasonable. Obviously the progression of technology and literacy exploded in the 2000s and the landscape was quite a bit different just a few years after this opinion piece was printed.

I’d argue at that time computers in schools was even more important. You had most assignments being typed by that point but you also didn’t have computers in every home. So you were expanding class divide by not providing access.

[Izzle]

Originally Posted by nik-

Is this Macman even a real person or is it a Rebel Media generated AI poster here to drag the forum into the pits of intellectual deficiency?

Macman, stickman, 14Roman and Yoho.... All behave like bots

[calgarygeologist]

Originally Posted by GGG

I’d argue at that time computers in schools was even more important. You had most assignments being typed by that point but you also didn’t have computers in every home. So you were expanding class divide by not providing access.

Not in elementary school were you having assignments typed.

As is apparent from a few of the comments on computer usage it was highly variable. I went to High School in the hood until 2000 and with the exception of a few reports/assignments being required to be submitted typed most of our work was done with pen and paper.

[Izzle]

Originally Posted by calgarygeologist

Not in elementary school were you having assignments typed.



As is apparent from a few of the comments on computer usage it was highly variable. I went to High School in the hood until 2000 and with the exception of a few reports/assignments being required to be submitted typed most of our work was done with pen and paper.

I think the larger point is that you definitely would've benefited by having computers in the classroom earlier on.

[GGG]

Originally Posted by nik-

Is this Macman even a real person or is it a Rebel Media generated AI poster here to drag the forum into the pits of intellectual deficiency?

I don’t mind posters like Macman. He seems to genuinely believe what he is arguing rather than just trolling for reactions. Those types of posters being rebutted with factual evidence adds value to the forum.

I don’t know why he hates Fuzz so much but outside of that I enjoy reading g where people get their perspectives frm

[Wormius]

Originally Posted by Macman

Nah, it’s the same thing. Especially since Fuzz does that on here daily, go up a few posts just today they compared social conservatives to slave owners.

Holy crap. You clearly know how to use the quote function.

[Fuzz]

It's fine to have people like that around, but Macman has engaged in slander, literally making sentences up and attributing them to me. That's not cool, and not adding value to the forum.

[Fuzz]

Originally Posted by Wormius

Holy crap. You clearly know how to use the quote function.

Ya, see that's another example of Macman not understanding how words work.

[BlackArcher101]

Originally Posted by Fuzz

Ya, see that's another example of Macman not understanding how words work.

Probably so use to seeing the politicians he admires lie outright day in and day out and get away with it, why not try it as well.

[Superflyer]

Wow reading about how schools in Calgary were just starting to use computers at the turn of the century is surprising to me. I graduated in 96 from small town BC. We had two computer labs with about 30 in each one as well as 5 computers in the library for general internet access and such. I was learning how to code in grade 10. I did not realize how behind Calgary was at that time.

[habernac]

We were doing computer classes in junior high, 1983 in Ft McMurray, not sure how Calgary was so in the dark ages.

[GGG]

Originally Posted by calgarygeologist

Not in elementary school were you having assignments typed.

As is apparent from a few of the comments on computer usage it was highly variable. I went to High School in the hood until 2000 and with the exception of a few reports/assignments being required to be submitted typed most of our work was done with pen and paper.

I’m the same era and even in elementary school we had the tiny macs where you learned to type and some basic coding in like grade 6-8. High School had a full computer lab with students typing up written work a lunch if they didn’t have computers at home.

It’s interesting how different peoples experiences were.

[calgarygeologist]

Originally Posted by Superflyer

Wow reading about how schools in Calgary were just starting to use computers at the turn of the century is surprising to me. I graduated in 96 from small town BC. We had two computer labs with about 30 in each one as well as 5 computers in the library for general internet access and such. I was learning how to code in grade 10. I did not realize how behind Calgary was at that time.

Originally Posted by habernac

We were doing computer classes in junior high, 1983 in Ft McMurray, not sure how Calgary was so in the dark ages.

It must be just us poor kids growing up in the hood. The poors are always left behind