[Xastir] get-gnis script failure

[Tom Russo]

On Fri, Nov 09, 2007 at 12:49:48PM -0500, we recorded a bogon-computron collision of the <n1mie at mac.com> flavor, containing:
> I've used it before, although not recently. Not sure when it broke, but 
> doesn't seem to work now. It says that it connects to geonames.usgs.gov and 
> then it says HTTP request sent, but the reply is 404 not found. It has that 
> same sequence for both
> 
> 	http://geonames.usgs.gov/stategaz/CT_DECI.zip
> and for
> 	http://geonames.usgs.gov/stategaz/CT_DECI.TXT
> 
> So no go on either account. I had also tried all the other New England 
> states (CT, MA, RI, VT, NH, ME) with the same results on all. I tried it on 
> two separate installations with the same results. Running the latest 
> incarnation on at least one of the machines.

Well, even if it had worked I think you'd have been disappointed.

get-gnis should be removed.  The new GNIS files from usgs are useless in
xastir, as they have the wrong format and are missing critical data we used
to use to choose what to display when.  We could recognize the new format with
a code change, but the missing data is irreplacable (things like city population
size, used to select what zoom levels should show that city).

Take a look at ftp://aprs.tamu.edu in the pub/GNIS directory.  That directory
has a small number of old-format GNIS files that were uploaded by folks
who happened to still have some.  Unfortunately, it has none of the New 
England states.

If list members have old-format GNIS files that are not already in the pub/GNIS
directory, they should probably bzip2 them and upload them to aprs.tamu.edu
in the 'incoming' directory, then notify Gerry that they're there and can be
moved.  Please do this, because this is the only way that other xastir users
will have access to usable GNIS data.  The new stuff from USGS is useless for
our purposes.

Maybe at some point some other useful data source will replace GNIS.  Or someone
would have to recode the map_gnis stuff to recognize the new format and to 
choose zoom levels based on something other than population of a place.

-- 
Tom Russo    KM5VY   SAR502   DM64ux          http://www.swcp.com/~russo/
Tijeras, NM  QRPL#1592 K2#398  SOC#236 AHTB#1 http://kevan.org/brain.cgi?DDTNM
"And, isn't sanity really just a one-trick pony anyway? I mean all you get is
 one trick, rational thinking, but when you're good and crazy, oooh, oooh,
 oooh, the sky is the limit!"  --- The Tick