The python request library by the awesome Kenneth Reitz makes it super easy to get the contents of a url.
Here's a screenshot from iPython:
Recursive algorithms can be slow because they end up solving the same little problems over and over again. To speed them up, you can use a technique called "memoization." Memoization allows algorithms go much more quickly by remembering solutions to problems they have already solved. I’m the recursive algorithm. This blog is my memoization.