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March 14, 2007 - Comments Off on Karakuri (Mechanism)

Karakuri (Mechanism)

Wadokei (Japanese clock)While reading Naruto the other day, I noticed that the author, Masashi Kishimoto, had previously done a series titled Karakuri, which was translated as “Mechanism.” I had no idea what type of mechanism Karakuri were/are, but since I love anime, automatons, and answers, I had to know more. Here’s what I found:

Karakuri ningyo are mechanized puppets or automata from Japan from the 18th century to 19th century. The word “Karakuri” means a “mechanical device to tease, trick, or take a person by surprise.” It implies hidden magic, or an element of mystery. In Japanese, ningyo is written as two separate characters, meaning person and shape. It may be translated as puppet, but also by doll or effigy. (Wikipedia)

Japan’s love of robots lies in the history of the Karakuri Ningyo. Until now there has been little interest from outside Japan regarding the Karakuri Ningyo craft, and its influence on technology and the arts. (Karakuri.info)

The Japanese Karakuri puppets utilise subtle, abstract movements to invoke feeing and emotion. There are three main categories of Karakuri. “Butai Karakuri” are puppets used in the theatre, “Zashiki Karakuri” are small and can be played with in rooms and “Dashi Karakuri” puppets perform on wooden floats used in religious festivals. Traditionally Karakuri appeared in religious festivals, performed re enactments of traditional myths and legends and entertained the public with their sophisticated, symbolic and graceful gestures. (Karakuri.info)

More information:

Published by: jeffreybarke in The Design Mechanism

March 6, 2007 - 8 comments

mini AJAX

Mini AJAX is a “handy, lightweight” set of AJAX functions recently adopted by theMechanism. While Tim Morgan’s script is well-documented and easy to plug into an existing application, we did find it a bit limiting that it only returns string data (responseText). Since we’re typically accessing XML, it would be nice to have the option of using responseXML.

So, we modified mini AJAX by adding two new methods that do just that:

ajax.getxml(strUrl, strFunc)
strUrl—the URL to query (can contain arguments after a “?”)
strFunc—the function to call once the response is returned
This method uses a GET request to query the specified URL and return a response as an XML DOM object to the specified function.

ajax.postxml(strUrl, strFunc, strArgs)
strUrl—the URL to query
strFunc—the function to call once the response is returned
strArgs—a string containing arguments to be passed to the URL
This method uses a POST request to query the specified URL and return a response as an XML DOM object to the specified function.

20070315 update—Updated mini AJAX after I discovered a function name conflict in Internet Explorer 7. This conflict only occurs if one is using mini AJAX in tandem with Prototype [which we do all the time]. For some unknown reason, this hadn’t been a problem for any of the other browsers [Safari, Firefox on Mac and Firefox, Opera on PC], but it caused the script to fail ignominiously in Internet Explorer.

The updated version of mini AJAX can be found here.

Published by: jeffreybarke in The Programming Mechanism

February 19, 2007 - Comments Off on Locating Google Earth KML/KMZ files using Google search

Locating Google Earth KML/KMZ files using Google search

From AnyGeo, via Donna:

There's an easy way to search for all KML files available on the web: using Google Search, simply enter the following string to search for a KML file for Brooklyn:

filetype:kml brooklyn

or

filetype:kmz milwaukee

Note the vast number of results… you can refine your search or add even more detail if you'd like better results. Similarly, if you'd like to locate an AutoCAD DWF format file, try this search string:

filetype:dwf brooklyn

Published by: jeffreybarke in The Programming Mechanism