Carrying Podcasts From the Well On My Shoulders, Like In the Old Days

In general my view on podcasts is the shorter the better. So I really like Bloomberg View, which runs just over a minute and distills the essence of a longer (usually well thought-out) op-ed. (I guess by this logic the ideal podcast would be 0 seconds - very Cagean.)

But it seems like the Berg is phasing this one out. It no longer appears on the website or on most podcast providers, and the RSS feed I had (from iTunes) on Podcast Addict (a truly excellent app) suddenly returned SSLHandshakeException: java.security.cert.CertPathValidatorException: Trust anchor for certification path not found. I emailed the developer and he promptly (shout-out Xavier! He really is awesome) explained that SSL cert verification in modern versions of Android is done by the device for all apps (except web browsers), so this error is not coming from inside the app. I confirmed that I hadn’t accidentally disabled my trust of any previously accepted certificate, and he later showed me that the SSL cert for the RSS feed was indeed expired.

I emailed Bloomberg about this, but I think they are sunsetting this podcast, and their support ticket confirmation email never showed up. In the meantime I wanted to just grab those episodes, so I did it old school.

import requests
import xml.etree.ElementTree as ET

feed = requests.get('https://feeds.bloomberg.fm/BLM8578726790', verify=False).text
# you need to disable verify because of the dodgy SSL. requests throws up a warning telling you that this is very foolish
feed = ET.fromstring(feed)

After fooling around with the xml I get this:

for child in feed.getchildren()[0].getchildren():
    if child.tag == 'item':
        x = child.getchildren()
        print(x[0].text)
        print(x[-2].text)

>
Bloomberg Opinion Radio: Weekend Edition for 7-12-19 (Podcast)
https://assets.bwbx.io/av/users/iqjWHBFdfxIU/vrsTK.0wJcuQ/v4.mp3
How to Tame Europe’s Game of Thrones: Editorial (Podcast)
https://assets.bwbx.io/av/users/iqjWHBFdfxIU/vRijgKsrekSc/v4.mp3
Ramesh Ponnuru on the Obamacare Lawsuit Paradox (Podcast)
https://assets.bwbx.io/av/users/iqjWHBFdfxIU/vRzEW1v7.DEc/v4.mp3
Demanding Straight Answers on Immigration: Editorial (Podcast)
https://assets.bwbx.io/av/users/iqjWHBFdfxIU/viPbxsujOdcQ/v4.mp3

etc..

And then I just grabbed the ones I wanted with wget:

mkdir podcasts && cd podcasts/
wget -O pelosi.mp3 https://assets.bwbx.io/av/users/iqjWHBFdfxIU/vAThJHLXwFKM/v4.mp3

etc...

Sent them to my phone with Bluetooth, and added the bluetooth folder as a virtual podcast. And there you go, podcasts the old fashioned way!