Mint is very good. Seriously. If I had to daily drive Linux on the desktop, I’d use Mint. But even Mint is a far cry from a Mac in terms of usability and software compatibility.

I’d also have to go back to x86-64 to use Mint, and that’s a big step in the wrong direction. I’m sure that won’t always be the case, but at the moment, the ARM Linux situation is still quite fragmented.

I use a Mac precisely because it lets me do what I want. Linux is endless configuration and poorly designed UIs, Windows is an incoherent mess that needs to be wrestled back to a usable state with every major update. Mac does what I need without any fuss.

Truth be told, I have a PC for gaming and a Linux server for Plex, *arr, and home automation. But when I need to get work done, it’s the MacBook. No question.

We are absolutely worse off in the real 2024 than what “Past Tense” depicted.

• Vin asks Sisko for a “UHC card” when trying to identify him. A universal healthcare card. In the real 2024? Still no universal healthcare in the US.
• The famous billionaire’s role in the story of “Past Tense” was to get residents of the districts access to “the nets” to tell their story. In the real 2024, Elon Musk would just take to Xitter and advocate for crackdowns.
• Once on the nets, the resident’s stories actually swayed public opinion. Can you honestly imagine the stories they told making a dent in the zeitgeist, even if they trended on YouTube and TikTok?
• Sanctuary districts exist too, they’re just on the border and privatized.

Ira Steven Behr set out to depict a horribly dystopic 2024, succeeded, and undershot.