Gawker Writer Slave To Consumerism, Hates Self

One of Gawker's latest slew of nondescript hires, Leah Finnegan, wrote an odd polemic taking Chloe Sevigny to task for using a "15-year-old Macbook." Her point being, well, at the end of her word salad I'm not sure what her point is. Something about Chloe being pretentious for using a fashionably unfashionable fashion. As usual, what's left unsaid is more interesting, that Finnegan can't stand to see someone opt out of the upgrade merry-go-round and so that person must be attacked.

The worst part of it, though, was Finnegan quoting Gizmodo's Editor-in-Chief Brian Barrett on whether it was possible a human could have such an ancient machine in today's world. Now, Finnegan doesn't have to know anything. She writes for Gawker. But Barrett's supposed to be an expert. This is his area. So what does he say?

"Honestly that thing is several factors shittier than a shitty phone," he typed in a Slack message. "I would say if she does have a 14-year-old MacBook I hope she does not need to use it very often."

Barrett continued: "Assuming she has a 2000 PowerBook, she has half the disk space you'd need to run Chrome and probably half the RAM, but I don't think she even has the hardware you'd need. Basically Chrome alone would destroy her computer."

For the record, Chrome never existed on PowerPC. And for the record, a 2000 Powerbook can run TenFourFox 31 (equivalent of Firefox 31) and, if RAM is limited, have even better luck with Iceweasel and Linux. As to Barrett's point that the Powerbook is worse than a "shitty phone" by several factors, I don't see too many people using three-year-old phones much less 15-year-old phones like people still use their Pismos.

So go to Brian Barrett for all of Apple's latest press releases, but don't expect him to know what he's talking about.