Set your background photo from @apod on Twitter. Requires: - mechanize - appscript

background.py

#!/usr/bin/env python

import mechanize
from appscript import app, mactypes, its
from datetime import date

d = date.today()
br = mechanize.Browser()

url = 'http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap%s.html' % d.strftime("%y%m%d")

br.open(url)
for link in br.links():
    if link.url.startswith('image/'):
        resp = br.follow_link(link)
        with open('todays-photo', 'w') as fo:
            fo.write(resp.read())
        break

se = app('System Events')
desktops = se.desktops.display_name.get()

for d in desktops:
    desk = se.desktops[its.display_name == d]
    desk.picture.set(mactypes.File('todays-photo'))