The New York Observer

Seeking a professional opinion on the Bravo reality series Gallery Girls, we asked the London-based art dealer, curator and writer Kenny Schachter to weigh in. After his recap of the first two episodes, we weren’t entirely certain he would stay in the game. But today we received his thoughts on episode three. Stay tuned (we hope) for further musings on the program from Mr. Schachter, whose writing has appeared in books on architect Zaha Hadid, and artists Vito Acconci and Paul Thek, and who is a contributor to the British edition of GQ and Swiss money manager Marc Faber’s Gloom Boom & Doom Report.

I set out this week to suspend disbelief (yes, a paradoxical prospect given that we are dealing with a reality show) close my eyes and hold my nose, take a giant leap of faith and try my very best to find something redeeming in the third installment of Gallery Girls (here, GG). But based on the evidence of this program, it seems that a serviceably watchable, remotely entertaining television show about art is just too good to be true, and despite the sheer focus and determination with which I attempted to seek out the merit in this enterprise—and, reader, I tried, I really tried—my efforts were in vain. Read More

Freedom may just be another word for nothing left to lose, but it was also a way of life for one Queens peacock—or, at least, it was until today. DNAinfo reports that the wayward bird has been captured after nearly a month on the lam—a bitter reminder to New Yorkers that freedom is fleeting. Read More

It’s hard to be heads down when it’s hot out. Exhortations to “just keep shipping” trigger fantasies of sailboats; Friday afternoon happy hours just aren’t as appealing as sangria on a terrace in Spain. Besides–is there any surer sign of a healthy startup sector than tech stars taking lavish vacations?

Google engineer Morgan Marquis-Boire and Ph.D. computer science student Bill Marczak introduced New York Times readers today to FinSpy, one of the scariest spyware packages you’ve probably never heard of. Mr. Marquis-Boire and Mr. Marczak have been on FinSpy’s trail, mapping all its nasty flavors, since earlier this year. The software suite is available to law enforcement for legitimate investigative use, but the researchers have found it is also being used by oppressive governments to track the communications, activities and personal connections of political dissidents.

In a report  linked by the Times, Mr. Marquis-Boire and Mr. Marczak detail how they first learned of the spyware as a Trojan payload attached to emails sent to Bahraini human rights activists, then began peeling apart its other, much creepier uses–tracking everything a target does with a smart phone. Pretty much any smart phone. The researchers’ list of what FinSpy Mobile can do is chilling: Read More

Avraham Tischler, a 21-year old underdog candidate for the State Senate in southern Brooklyn, has suddenly surged to over 27,400 followers as his September 13 primary date fast approaches. A cursory survey of dozens of the followers showed all of them to have no activity and no followers, a hallmark trait of fake, automated accounts. Furthermore, the Twitter tool StatusPeople estimated 100 percent of his followers as “fake.”

The number stands in sharp contrast to his generally inactive account. Mr. Tischler, who started his campaign account earlier this summer, has only made 23 tweets, and the only interaction others have had with his profile in recent days was political blogger Yossi Gestetner noting the giant leap in followers. The exact point when he accumulated these followers was unclear, but a Google cache from last month shows him with six followers. Read More