CBC MP3 stream URLs down

Another update on the CBC radio stream URLs: as various people have kindly let me know, the MP3 links are down, probably for good. The M3U8 links still work, and most modern apps and devices should be able to handle them. However, I’m afraid legacy users are out of luck. Update, July 30: the MP3 links are back!

I’ve also moved the repo to Codeberg; however, the changes should be automatically mirrored on Github.

For more details, see the main blog post.

How to Choose a Mastodon/Fediverse Server

Featured image by @nestort@mastodont.cat, via Wikimedia.

In a previous blog post, I recommended some Mastodon servers for people moving to the Fediverse. Since then, the great migration of November 2022 happened, and an awful lot of those servers turned out to be horrifically ill-equipped for the increase in users. I don’t mean in terms of technical infrastructure, but governance and moderation.

So instead, I’m going to talk about what to look for in a server, rather than recommending any particular ones. Continue reading How to Choose a Mastodon/Fediverse Server

Update: CBC Radio stream URLs

I’ve updated my post on CBC Radio stream URLs after someone found links to MP3 versions of the streams. I’ve put together a second playlist which will work for older applications like Winamp that don’t support HLS. Yes, there are multiple people out there still using Winamp. I guess it really does whip the llama’s ass.

CBC Radio Stream URLs

Update, July 30, 2023: Repo is now on Codeberg and mirrored to GitHub; new MP3 links added.


Recently CBC revamped its music streams again and the old MP3 stream URLs don’t work. Why would they do this? Well, they want people to listen using the website or official app, or via platforms they have agreements with, like Google Home and Alexa.

Personally, I think this is bullshit. I like listening to music while on the computer, but I’m not opening a whole-ass modern web browser, on top of whatever else I have open, for a simple audio stream. And if I’m using headphones with my phone or an actual physical radio, how am I supposed to hear sounds on my computer? So, after some helpful tips from more techy folks on Mastodon and Github, I threw together a few playlists of the live radio streams. Continue reading CBC Radio Stream URLs

The TRC Report, Online

So I thought I’d share what I’ve been working on on the side: an online version of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission report on Canada’s residential schools. The TRC report is a vital resource that weaves together survivors’ testimony and historical records into a thorough, authoritative account of how the government and the churches used residential schools as a means of destroying Indigenous families, languages, and cultures. It’s a part of history many Canadians know very little about. Continue reading The TRC Report, Online

The GTK+ Compose Key…for Windows

So last year I got a netbook with rather poor Linux support. I finally got elementary OS working on it (a blog post in itself), but for the past several months I was using Windows alone. And it was terrible, for many reasons.

  1. It looks like ass.
  2. Mobile and desktop elements are mashed together awkwardly and it just doesn’t work. A desktop user should never see a message telling them to “swipe down” to continue shutdown. Jesus.
  3. Literally every software download site is super dodgy.
  4. The default user is administrator by default??? No wonder people get viruses!
  5. No fucking compose key! Continue reading The GTK+ Compose Key…for Windows

Theme: Markdown for Notepad++

A few months ago I got a new computer that has hardware with little Linux support, and so while waiting for someone to make a sound driver, I’ve been using Windows 10. I tried a lot of text editors, even building Gedit from source, before settling on Notepad++.

Notepad++ has built-in syntax highlighting for a lot of languages, but not Markdown. You can make your own “user-defined language”, and several people have created ones for Markdown, but I wasn’t really satisfied with any of them. So I made my own, which you can check out on Github. Due to the limitations of user-defined languages, some Markdown features can’t be implemented (e. g., asterisks as bullets, three spaces to create code blocks, etc.), but it should be good enough for everyday use. Please try it out, and adapt it for your own use!