Link dump II: Interesting, spiff, and/or silly

• I agree that this seems inevitable in retrospect, but I still love it: Craig's List TV captures great stories around unusual trades... I suspect that those who have never used the service would be surprised at the humanity of the interactions it enables.
  
  
• An interesting discussion of how blogging changes the way you write and think. Beyond that, it changes your views of what is possible, in writing, in dialogue, in changing the world. Worth a read even if you're barely a participant in the social Internet.
  (via Medley)
  
  
• There are groups who perform Shakespeare with original pronunciation, which apparently both is fully comprehensible and restores many of the original rhymes. The sample clip reminds me most of what we'd consider some lower-class British pronunciation variant. I had no idea that we even knew how the English language sounded 400 years ago, so this boggles me on many levels.
  
  
• This is a review of Social Network that made me want to see the movie -- not because I care about Facebook much at all, but because of the way the movie itself offers a variety of critiques not only of its subjects but of the larger social context in which they generated their empire.

  If they didn’t intend to make a movie that was interrogating toxic masculinity and its effect on women, they managed to make a movie where that theme is the main one that everyone who leaves the theater appears to be discussing. At a certain point, the thing that is most notable about "The Social Network" might just be the thing that the movie is about. Or at least one of the things.

  Worth reading the piece for its thoughts about movie- and TV makers, and what they're trying to make their audiences feel, as much as for anything about this film itself.
  
  
• 7 Essential Skills You Didn't Learn in College -- a course guide for adult survival, including such overlooked necessities as Statistical Literacy and Waste Studies. Brilliant.
  (via kottke)
  
  
• Inspired: an airbag equivalent for bicyclists that eliminates the choice between street safety and looking presentable for the rest of the day. The video with the crash dummy is really astounding.
  (via boing boing)
  
  
• A cartoon that demonstrates the laws of physics in everyday life, especially when there's a small child in the picture. I laughed, I cried...
  (via kottke)
  
  
• Fantastic: a Sesame Street video teaches kids to love their hair, even if it isn't straight and blonde. Something most caucasians rarely think about, and just about every little black girl has struggled with; such a simple idea to put this out there. Yay!
  (via Free Range Kids)