Macs and the Psych Department

Myradon · Mar 25th, 2006, 11:46 PM

In my first year at the university I noticed that the psych department was littered with apple stickers. Seriously the rainbow colored things were every where. all right so one day after dropping off an assignment i noticed a prof. setting up an airport base station.

me: Excuser me sir, if I may trouble you, why does every professor in the psych department use a mac?

Prof.: Well I became interested in them in the 80's when i was an under grad, they seemed pretty exciting back then. as for why everyone else uses them, you'd have to ask Dr. V

I let a few semesters pass, and again I was in the psych department. As I waited for a friend to finish a talk with one of her profs there was Dr . V . now Dr. V is considered to be one of the more brilliant professors in our department, and having spoken with him he does seem to be a clever person but I've never had the opportunity to attend a class he instructs. So there he is, heading to the coffee room.

me: Excuse me Dr. V, I've noticed most of the the profs in the department use macs. Why is that?

The key points I recall were as follows.

"it's a better engineered machine..." "I'm the resident computer guru and I refuse to offer support for PC's..." 'Remember PC stands for Piece of...."

So there we have it. Is it superior programs, or more usable statistics computation? No, it's because Dr. V doesn;t like them, and that's good enough.

incidentally, I have an acquaintance who had me look at his computers numerous times. Recently he took my advice which at the time was "buy a new computer". He was dead set on Xp, and i heard nothing for about 3 months. Turns out he has a power mac. he said
"It seems to do everything I need really well, and I'm using a book, mac for dummies and that seems to cover everything"

So moral of the story. The Brilliant Psych Professor will refuse to help you if you use windows, and my acquaintance who had various problems ranging from drivers to viruses is doing well with an old power mac. Perhaps, these are indeed easier computers.

JPL · Mar 26th, 2006, 08:16 AM

I use both platforms and I still maintain each has their place. With Apple you have the hardware manufacturer controlling the software this allows for strict compliance. With PCs you have the numerous, unrelated hardware manufacturers being controlled by the software (OS) manufacturer some stuff works some doesn't.

There is no question that Macs have much fewer conflicts and the majority of add ons are truly plug and play. Conversely, on the PC side, that is generally the exception. I have found that if you buy quality components, read expensive, PCs perform better than the norm.

I have built several PCs, and the ones that worked well were expensive, comparable to the cost of a Mac, the el cheapos were nothing but a pain. PCs also require proper setup to fight the attacks from the internet, so far Macs do not. As Macs are now becoming more attractive to the casual PC user this may change.

I think the change to Intel chips along with Appel's more reasonable price points will go a long way to converting PC users over. As this conversion grows so will the internet problems and that security gap will lessen.

Macs have become ELEGANT works of art and PC users are starting to get it. The iPod may have initiated a mini revolution.
viva Apple

iMatvei · Mar 26th, 2006, 06:27 PM

Here at UQAM (Université du Québec à Montréal), it seem to be 50% macs for the psychology labs.

FeXL · Mar 27th, 2006, 10:16 AM

	Quote:			Originally Posted by Myradon
	...now Dr. V is considered to be one of the more brilliant professors in our department, and having spoken with him he does seem to be a clever person but I've never had the opportunity to attend a class he instructs.

Dr. J.V? Long blond hair, wire rim glasses? Is he still there?

Took a team taught Psych 1000 from him, 'bout a million years ago. Can't recall which 1/3 he taught... Definitely a bright fellow. A bit full of himself, dynamic speaker, good instructor.

Psych secretary used to use Macs as well, back when she was still in the Geography department. Not sure if she still uses one now or not.

highapostle · Mar 27th, 2006, 11:53 AM

Macs in the Psych department at U Toronto are pretty much non-existent, with the exception of one lab that I had a chance to work in that was using iMac G5's. This was not too long after they were released, so it was great to be working there.