simple list of This American Life episode titles?
July 28, 2010 1:09 PM Subscribe
Where can I find a simple list of This American Life episode titles?
I created a simple javascript created web page that links to mp3s of every single This American Life episode, but they're simply linked by episode number. Does anyone know of a list that is JUST the episode titles? I know that there is a Wikipedia page dedicated to this, but it includes descriptions and other information.
I need a simple list to create an array to include the title in the links. It simply isn't important enough to me to compile the list myself of 400+ titles.
I created a simple javascript created web page that links to mp3s of every single This American Life episode, but they're simply linked by episode number. Does anyone know of a list that is JUST the episode titles? I know that there is a Wikipedia page dedicated to this, but it includes descriptions and other information.
I need a simple list to create an array to include the title in the links. It simply isn't important enough to me to compile the list myself of 400+ titles.
Read this before making and publishing such a list. (Never mind if it's for private use.)
posted by domnit at 1:15 PM on July 28, 2010
posted by domnit at 1:15 PM on July 28, 2010
Response by poster: All of the archives on TAL's main site have ep #, title, and airdate. Would that work?
That is similar to the Wikipedia page, I'm looking for a simple list of just the titles.
Read this before making and publishing such a list. (Never mind if it's for private use.)
Thats very good info, I was considering sharing it. Do you know if I could host it on my ISP domain and not share it with anyone? I contacted their webmaster and am waiting for a reply--that will give me a definitive answer.
posted by czytm at 1:27 PM on July 28, 2010
That is similar to the Wikipedia page, I'm looking for a simple list of just the titles.
Read this before making and publishing such a list. (Never mind if it's for private use.)
Thats very good info, I was considering sharing it. Do you know if I could host it on my ISP domain and not share it with anyone? I contacted their webmaster and am waiting for a reply--that will give me a definitive answer.
posted by czytm at 1:27 PM on July 28, 2010
If you can use Javscript to link to the MP3s, why not use it (or another language of your choice) to parse through the HTML on Wikipedia and pull out the titles alone.
posted by nitsuj at 1:39 PM on July 28, 2010
posted by nitsuj at 1:39 PM on July 28, 2010
Are you looking for a list that is already on the web that you can link to? Can't help with that.
But if you just need the names of the episodes, you can copy the text of each Wikipedia page into MS Word (or some editor that can deal with HTML), and just search for the bullets, and deleted everything else.
It seems like an easy task, which makes me think I'm missing something in your question?
posted by SuperSquirrel at 1:44 PM on July 28, 2010
But if you just need the names of the episodes, you can copy the text of each Wikipedia page into MS Word (or some editor that can deal with HTML), and just search for the bullets, and deleted everything else.
It seems like an easy task, which makes me think I'm missing something in your question?
posted by SuperSquirrel at 1:44 PM on July 28, 2010
Best answer: With episode numbers on each line:
http://pastie.org/1064595.txt
Without:
http://pastie.org/1064602.txt
posted by jacobbarssbailey at 2:20 PM on July 28, 2010
http://pastie.org/1064595.txt
Without:
http://pastie.org/1064602.txt
posted by jacobbarssbailey at 2:20 PM on July 28, 2010
Best answer: Or if you want the Wikipedia data:
(for F in 199{5,6,7,8,9} 200{0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9} 2010; do curl -s http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_${F}_This_American_Life_episodes; done) | perl -0777 -ne 'print " $1 => '\''$2'\'',\n" while m,Episode\s+(\d+)</a>.*?<i>([^<]+)</i>,sig'
output
posted by Rhomboid at 2:33 PM on July 28, 2010
(for F in 199{5,6,7,8,9} 200{0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9} 2010; do curl -s http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_${F}_This_American_Life_episodes; done) | perl -0777 -ne 'print " $1 => '\''$2'\'',\n" while m,Episode\s+(\d+)</a>.*?<i>([^<]+)</i>,sig'
output
posted by Rhomboid at 2:33 PM on July 28, 2010
(er, yeah, couple of quoting issues there with titles containing apostrophe, but modify the code to suit.)
posted by Rhomboid at 2:34 PM on July 28, 2010
posted by Rhomboid at 2:34 PM on July 28, 2010
TAL has been polite but firm with many people in the past who have tried to share, distribute, link to, discuss, or point to The Magic URL of TAL MP3s online. They have said no in the past and my guess is that they will disapprove of your setup as well, regardless of what I'm sure are very good intentions on your part.
posted by ErikaB at 2:49 PM on July 28, 2010
posted by ErikaB at 2:49 PM on July 28, 2010
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by Think_Long at 1:12 PM on July 28, 2010