JUST FOR FUN - VIDEO: A love story in the streets:

"partir" (leaving) from joanna lurie on Vimeo.

JUST FOR FUN - VIDEO: This Land Was Your Land, This Land Is My Land

Nina Paley has created a short animated history of "of the land called Israel/Palestine/Canaan/the Levant": Who's land is it?

JUST FOR FUN - Video: Incredible Hyper-Time Lapse

The method is not super new but it's been catching on lately; videomakers call it hyperlapse. Essentially, moving the camera through space while shooting stills at regular intervals creates sweeping shots when played back as video. Many time-lapse videos feature camera movements -- just not camera movements this big. Covering a lot of ground seems to be the key to creating dizzying momentum. Check out the shots at 1:30 to see some particularly cool examples of what it looks like, and don't forget to watch full screen in HD! 

JUST FOR FUN: Video - Homer Gets Romneyed

JUST FOR FUN: Video - Conducting a musical train

JUST FOR FUN: Grafitti

"First animation clip from Tant and Unga of the "broken fingaz crew" from Israel."

Broken Fingaz -Graffiti Stop Motion from Broken Fingaz on Vimeo.

JUST FOR FUN: Does Money Make You Heartless?

Just saying . . .

CONSTRUCTION: Hammurabi's real estate code

The ancient Babylonian Code of Hammurabi included some stiff penalties for builders of unsound homes:

• If a builder builds a house for someone, and does not construct it properly, and the house which he built falls in and kills its owner, then that builder shall be put to death; and
• If it ruins goods, he shall make compensation for all that has been ruined, and inasmuch as he did not construct properly this house which he built and it fell, he shall re-erect the house from his own means.

Oh there's more, but it gets a little morbid. Too much death for me!

But where are the Realtors mentioned? Have we always been a self-governing body of good talkers? I'm certain that as long as people have roamed the earth, middlemen and "middle-women" have existed.

I'm guessing the ANAR (Ancient National Association of Realtors) must have hosted some really great parties for Hammurabi and his wives. I'm thinking wine, flatbread, something stuffed with mint ... oh, and belly dancers -- lots of belly dancers. And thank goodness! What else would you expect for your 10 sheaves-of-wheat dues?

But just think ... what if we had been included in the code?

Picture this: You're at the signing. You've got your client's sandal in one hand and a hammer in the other and you're just about ready to nail that size 11 footwear to his new door post ... when that pesky title officer notices that you've failed to procure the buyer's signature on page six of the inspection report. Bah! You hang.

Yikes!

I think we'd be a mite more particular about those paper trails, hmm? That final disclaimer

JUST FOR FUN: Video

JUST FOR FUN: Mental Health Break

JUST FOR FUN: Polar Bear cub's first day in the snow

JUST FOR FUN: What We Say And What We Mean

A fantastic animation of a Stephen Pinker talk on language:

JUST FOR FUN: Another way to have fun in a Vegas hotel room:

Locked in a Vegas Hotel Room with a Phantom Flex from Tom Guilmette on Vimeo.

JUST FOR FUN: What States Are Worst At

JUST FOR FUN: Girl Walk // All Day from jacob krupnick

Girl Walk // All Day from jacob krupnick on Vimeo.

JUST FOR FUN: The music of everyday objects:

Sampled Room from Mateusz Zdziebko on Vimeo.

JUST FOR FUN: Groovy Bear eats Psychedelic Mushroom

JUST FOR FUN: American Appetites

[The 916ml Trenta size is] more than the average capacity of the human stomach, and enough caffeine to stand in for a defibrillator.

JUST FOR FUN: Stop-motion graffiti genius Blu teases his DVD: