Fetches the tracks that your friends are currently listening to from Last.fm. Written for use with GeekTool.

gistfile1.rb

#!/usr/bin/ruby
require 'rubygems'
require 'open-uri'
require 'xml'

USERNAME = 'brettbuddin'
USE_REAL_NAMES = true # if available
ALLOWED_USERS = [] # enter the usernames of those you'd like to see displayed

def fetch(url)
  content = ''
  open(url) { |s| content = s.read }
  parser = XML::Parser.string(content)
  parser.parse
end

begin
  doc = fetch("http://ws.audioscrobbler.com/2.0/user/#{USERNAME}/friends.xml")

  friends = []

  doc.find('user').each do |user|
    friend = {}
    %w[name realname].each do |p|
      friend[p.intern] = user.find(p).first.content
    end
    friends << friend
  end

  friends.each do |friend|
    if ALLOWED_USERS.include?(friend[:name]) 
      doc = fetch("http://ws.audioscrobbler.com/2.0/user/#{friend[:name]}/recenttracks.xml")
      doc.find('track[@nowplaying="true"]').each do |track|
        info = {}
        %w[artist name album].each do |p|
          info[p.intern] = track.find(p).first.content
        end
        friend[:listening_to] = info
      end

      puts "#{friend[:realname] && USE_REAL_NAMES ? friend[:realname] : friend[:name]}: #{friend[:listening_to][:artist]} - #{friend[:listening_to][:name]}" if friend[:listening_to]
    end
  end
rescue; end