Headlines from October 8, 2013

Let me be frank with you. Your question is full of misstatements. Q&A with Assad.
See also: Pictures from 2012-2013 by a photojournalist embedded with a Free Syrian Army militia in Aleppo. #tmn
Banksy parodies Syrian rebel videos as part of his monthlong New York residency. #video
Related: Banksy converts a New York delivery truck into a mobile garden—complete with fluttering butterflies and a real waterfall.
History is very close at hand, buried in shallow trenches all across the landscape. Dispatch from a garden in Afghanistan.
The government shutdown may have become a boon for one kind of online dating site—those that help users find sugar daddies.
Milton Friedman’s advice to young people: Consume more, save less.
The human is faster. The human has a more pleasing, less buggy interface. Cashiers vs. computers.
Brewing company plants bright red beer-filled fridges all over Europe that are only accessible to Canadians.
Discoverers of the Higgs boson—often called the “God particle”—win the 2013 Nobel Prize in physics. #science
Related: A step-by-step explanation of the Hiss boson. #interactive
See also: “In the Event That You Have Accidentally Swallowed the Higgs Boson.” #tmn
Australian scientists discover certain male marsupials’ “long and laborious sex sessions” are detrimental to their survival.
Thomas Edison invented talking dolls that had the voices of real girls; however, most were damaged in shipping and they ended up sounding like demons.
Monks, he says, should return to meditation, and tougher penalties should be meted out for mischief.
The Longform Guide to the Music Industry.
Pro-shutdown House Republicans are holed up in a conservative narrative that isn’t entirely crazy—but it’s close enough.
Surowiecki: For small businesses and entrepreneurs, the benefits of Obamacare are enormous.
Area family putting a little money away to one day blow on single health scare.
Ironic detachment isn’t high on my list of worrisome problems the United States faces.
Pyongyang tells U.S. to expect a “horrible disaster” over planned military exercises with South Korea and Japan.
Rebuffed as an alternate venue for the 2018 Winter Olympics in the South, North Korea hopes its ski resort will lure luxury travelers.
Smoking weed in North Korea: It’s entirely legal, dirt cheap, and totally weak. #drugs
The beautiful, creative Detroit outsiders never see. #photos
I had to narrow my field of vision to a player’s feet or hands or shoulders. Welcome to baseball scout school.
The most dangerous places in New York City, according to the movies filmed there.
Facebook’s Menlo Park employee housing will offer every amenity imaginable except human day care—dogs are covered.
Of the 100 things you need to do before you die, you don’t need to do any of them—so stop.
Hollywood Stuntz is a person, not a biker gang, and he’s making it known he wasn’t at the rally that ended in the beating of Alexian Lien.
We are all Gregor Samsa, we are all Tan Mom. Howard Stern, my literary idol.
Bowie is among us. Right here / In New York City. In a baseball cap / And expensive jeans. via #poetry