[Edu-sig] Class prep (Python A-Level, Winterhaven PPS)

[John Miller]

This is mainly for Kirby, in case it proves worthwhile:

http://groups.google.com/group/turbogears/msg/280bd0a38dda5019

I follow the TurboGears group, and this message was recently posted:

'''
Hey all,

I've just committed a new version of The Zip Code Database Project on
SourceForge.

http://zips.sourceforge.net/

What is it? From the home page:
"The Zip Code Database project exists to provide US Zip Codes in their
entirety; latitude and longitude coordinates included! The download
includes an SQL file to dump directly into your database. It currently
works with MySQL, but it should be rather easy to port to another
database."

There is also a Python snippet on how to calculate distances.

Just thought I'd give you all a heads up. A little over a year ago I
almost purchased this data when I luckily stumbled upon census data
that carries all this information.

It's public domain so have all the fun you want with it.

Jared

'''

John Miller

On Nov 9, 2005, at 6:00 AM, "Kirby Urner" <urnerk at qwest.net> wrote:

> Stopped by to hand off some open source to my certified faculty  
> supervisor
> at the PPS/PDX facility I'll be haunting, starting soon.  He'd  
> requested a
> GIS spin to the Python, which was fortuitous, given I'd done a gig  
> for good
> geofolk at the DoubleTree earlier this year (just back from Pycon  
> in DC).[1]
>
> What I handed him was:
>
> (a) an HTMLParser subclass that screen scrapes some public info about
> latitudes and longitudes of major US and Canadian cities [2]
>
> (b) the large data structure developed therefrom [3]
>
> (c) functions to compute rough distance in miles between any two  
> cities in
> the cities dictionary (many alternatives viable)
>
> (d) a function to recast the cities dictionary as some vaguely  
> specified XML
> (no schema), suitable for writing to a 'stream buffer' of some kind  
> (that's
> more coffee talk than snake charming, but we aim to be inclusive).
>
<snip>
> Kirby
>
> [1] http://mybizmo.blogspot.com/2005/03/python-for-gis-experts.html
>
> [2] blog entry re using HTMLParser for a different/related purpose:
>     http://worldgame.blogspot.com/2005/11/acting-locally.html
>
> [3] http://mail.python.org/pipermail/edu-sig/2005-October/005500.html
>
> [4] http://worldgame.blogspot.com/2005/10/saturday-academy.html