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Comment by michaelcampbell | Hacker News Reader

Why is it at every tech conference you see a vast preponderance of Mac's? Are conf goers not representative?

1. They're probably not representative

2. You probably notice macs more because of their uniform branding, compared to a mish-mash of different looking other laptops.

3. Is it not enough to watch and listen to a keynote without pulling out a laptop?

4. The Mac may be a "lie".

4a. Dual booted, is it running macOS, Linux, Windows, *BSD?

4b. Is it running a VM (or more than one)?

4c. Is it used as a very expensive terminal with SSH to a different *nix OS or a remote desktop system?

At various times, all those have been true of mine.

I dunno, I kinda dislike Macs. At least Windows has the decency of not even pretending to be Unix-like. Other than the fact that it has a bash-like shell, and some token support for Posix APIs, the Mac is just as proprietary and opaque (I'd argue even more so) as Windows. At least Linux allows to poke around its innards and explore with nothing but a terminal.

Yeah and they have doubled down on things like the command key that inhibit adoption by wannabe former Windows users. NIH, or just plain cultural stubbornness prevents them from allowing the system to welcome new users. The Mac differences are not superior and it feels crusty and sub-par to me. However, the Mac doesn't track...so it wins. I bounce back and forth between Mac and Windows daily. I hate them both really.

> … Other than the fact that it has a bash-like shell, and some token support for Posix APIs…

Strongly recommend reading this response by Terry Lambert on getting OSX to POSIX compliance.

https://www.quora.com/What-goes-into-making-an-OS-to-be-Unix...

> Why is it at every tech conference you see a vast preponderance of Mac's? Are conf goers not representative?

The prevalence of MacBooks at tech conferences is in my experience a very US-centric thing. I rather associate ThinkPads with tech conferences.

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