spokewiki - hear more than headlines

Hard Problem of Consciousness

When looking at new artificial intelligent (AI), lots of people ask if AI is conscious, yet even asking that questions about animals is a difficult to say yes to.

37 min (13mb) - recorded May 28, 2023

Twelve Step Program

Developed in 1930 as an international mutual aid program supporting recovery from substance addictions, behavioral addictions and compulsions with the first group started by Alcoholics Anonymous.

14 min (5mb) - recorded May 19, 2023

YouTube

launched in 2005, YouTube is now the second most popular site behind Google search, serving more than 2.5 billion monthly users, who collectively watch more than one billion hours of videos each day

90 min (31mb) - recorded May 13, 2023

Tucker Carlson

Tucker is an American political commentator, writer, and television personality, who hosted many political talk show and was recently let go from the Tucker Carlson Tonight on Fox News.

74 min (26mb) - recorded May 7, 2023

SpaceX Starship

SpaceX Starship is a fully reusable super heavy-lift launch vehicle under development by SpaceX, intended to be capable of carrying both crew and cargo to Earth orbit, the Moon, Mars, and beyond.

20 min (13mb) - recorded Apr 27, 2023

Rupert Murdoch

Rupert Murdoch is an Australian-born American media mogul and billionaire who controls a global media empire that includes The Sun, The Times, The Daily Telegraph, Herald Sun, The Wall Street Journal, New York Post, Fox News and the book publisher HarperCollins.

47 min (17mb) - recorded Apr 21, 2023

Crossfit

Cross Discipline Fitness is a high-intensity interval training (HIIT) workout that combines weightlifting, gymnastics, and cardio that started their first gym in Santa Cruz, California in 2000, and by 2018 has 15,000 gyms in 160 countries.

19 min (7mb) - recorded Apr 17, 2023

Patriot Act

The Patriot Act was enacted in 2001 with the stated goal of tightening national security: expanded surveillance abilities of law enforcement, easier interagency communication and increased penalties for crimes and an expanded list which would qualify for terrorism charges.

75 min (26mb) - recorded Apr 17, 2023

Resort Fees

When traveling, ever wonder when and where resort fees came from? Turns out 1997 some US hotels started adding this line item.

18 min (7mb) - recorded Apr 16, 2023

2023 Pentagon Document Leak

In April 2023, classified documents from the United States began circulating online that is causing diplomatic incidents for a number of countries.

25 min (9mb) - recorded Apr 15, 2023

Silicon Valley Bank

On March 10, 2023, Silicon Valley Bank is the second largest bank collapse in US history but FDIC backed all depositors with full protection to get their money out.

16 min (6mb) - recorded Mar 31, 2023

Stormy Daniels

In 2018 Daniels became involved in a legal dispute with U.S. president Donald Trump. Trump's attorney Michael Cohen paid $130,000 to silence her about an affair she says she had with Trump in 2006.

12 min (4mb) - recorded Apr 5, 2023

Stormy Daniels Donald Trump scandal

Back in October 2016, Michael Cohen made a $130k payment to Stormy Daniels to not disclose an affair between her and Donald Trump, then multiple lawsuits occurred until 2023 when a Manhattan Grand Jury indicted Trump.

29 min (10mb) - recorded Mar 31, 2023

Times Beach Dioxin Contamination

Back in 1980s, a small town by St. Louis, was evacuated after a chemical factory paid a local waste oil company that was unaware of proper handling and used the waste oil to spray on land as dust control.

20 min (7mb) - recorded Mar 25, 2023

MH370 Disappearance

Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 was an international passenger flight that disappeared on March 8, 2014 while flying from Kuala Lumpur Airport in Malaysia to Beijing and recent Netflix docuseries.

90 min (33mb) - recorded Mar 22, 2023

Valentine's Day

Every Feb 14, people around the world celebrate Valentine's Day, some have been celebrating since the 8th century but others started in 1990s while still others have banned it.

34 min (12mb) - recorded Feb 13, 2023

2023 Chinese Balloon Incident

On Jan 28 to Feb 4, 2023 an unknown balloon floated over the United States and was ultimately shot down after passing over North Carolina.

25 min (9mb) - recorded Feb 12, 2023

2023 Ohio Derailment

On Feb 3, 2023 a train carrying hazardous chemicals like vinyl chloride derailed in east border of Ohio causing evacuations.

5 min (2mb) - recorded Feb 12, 2023

ChatGPT

Launched in Nov 2022, this chatbot has shown impressive answers and confidently incorrect replies to a variety of questions leading to some sites banning its use.

13 min (5mb) - recorded Jan 14, 2023

Jair Bolsonaro

In Oct 2022, Jair lost his reelection campaign for president of Brazil, but his supports stormed the capital in Jan 2023.

37 min (13mb) - recorded Jan 9, 2023

Kevin McCarthy

In Jan 2023, after 15 rounds of voting, Kevin McCarthy of California finally received a majority vote for speaker of the House.

37 min (13mb) - recorded Jan 8, 2023

Boxing Day (Holiday)

On Dec 26, many European and other countries celebrate by giving gifts to the poor.

16 min (6mb) - recorded Jan 7, 2023

Southwest Airlines

In Dec 2022, Southwest Airlines made headlines with thousands of cancelled flights during the December holiday rush.

23 min (8mb) - recorded Jan 1, 2023

Andrew Tate

In Dec 2022, Andrew Tate was arrested in Romania, find out about his background as a kickboxer turned social media personality.

9 min (3mb) - recorded Dec 30, 2022

George Santos

In Dec 2022, George Santos was elected to New York's 3rd district in the House of Representatives and then admitted his background was false.

22 min (8mb) - recorded Dec 28, 2022

United States Constitution

Written in 1787, hear the original unabridged document creating the 3 branches of government before the 27 amendments.

25 min (9mb) - recorded Dec 27, 2022

TikTok

Created in 2016 by ByteDance, TikTok is a popular short video social networking app that has been getting in recent news by countries banning its use.

57 min (20mb) - recorded Dec 14, 2022

Samuel Bankman-Fried

In Nov 2022, this 30 year old billionaire ran a crypto exchange for 3 years called FTX, which suddenly collapses due to a solvency issue.

14 min (5mb) - recorded Dec 12, 2022

Victor Bout

In Dec 2022, a Russian Arms Dealer that was arrested in 2008 is in the prisoner exchange to release Brittney Griner.

16 min (5mb) - recorded Dec 8, 2022

Railway Labor Act

In Nov 2022, the railroad unions are rejecting labor deals but find out why Congress can force them not to strike.

10 min (4mb) - recorded Nov 23, 2022

Ticketmaster

In Nov 2022, after issues with the release of a new Taylor Swift concert, Ticketmaster is being investigated by the Department of Justice.

18 min (6mb) - recorded Nov 19, 2022

Brittany Griner

In Feb 2022, Brittany Griner, a Olympic gold medalist and WNBA basketball player, was arrested and charged in Russia for possession of less than 1 gram of cannabis oil.

27 min (10mb) - recorded Nov 17, 2022

Artemis 1

On Nov 16, 2022, NASA launched the Artemis 1 mission to deploy ten cubesat around the moon.

21 min (7mb) - recorded Nov 16, 2022

Kari Lake

The 2022 Arizona Governor race placed Kari Lake in national news with slow midterm results.

13 min (5mb) - recorded Nov 15, 2022

Binance (crypto exchange)

Binance came into the news to buy out FTX crypto exchange, hear how they got started.

12 min (5mb) - recorded Nov 12, 2022

John Fetterman

In Nov 2022, John Fetterman ran against Dr. Oz for senator seat in Pennsylvania

34 min (12mb) - recorded Nov 9, 2022

Rishi Sunak

On Oct 25, 2022, Rishi was elected the new Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

34 min (12mb) - recorded Nov 7, 2022

Powerball Lottery

Every couple months Powerball makes the news for an even larger jackpot, hear how this lottery got started in 1992

29 min (10mb) - recorded Nov 6, 2022

Halloween

Every year at the end of October, people around the world celebrate this after harvest festival but how did it come about?

49 min (17mb) - recorded Nov 5, 2022

Crowd Crush

Crowd crushes are catastrophic incidents that can occur when a gathering of people becomes dangerously overcrowded.

14 min (5mb) - recorded Nov 4, 2022

Candace Owens

Appearing in lots of recent news, find out how Candace Owen got her start with 'no interest in politics whatsoever prior to 2015', and her path to where is she is now.

29 min (10mb) - recorded Oct 17, 2022

Reedy Creek Improvement District

Find out why in 1967, Disney got its own governmental district near Orlando, Florida called Reedy Creek Improvement District

16 min (5mb) - recorded Oct 17, 2022

2022 Russia Invasion of Ukraine

On February 2022, Russia invaded Ukraine in a major escalation of the Russo-Ukrainian War, which began in 2014.

86 min (30mb) - recorded Oct 17, 2022

about

spokewiki tracks current events and pulls the wikipedia article, does minor editing to improve readability then uses Amazon Polly to voice the article. We try our best to be fair, accurate and open to feedback.

feedback.spokewiki.com

Did you know spokewiki is open source? You can start your own site by cloning the code and adding your own audio files.

github - spokewiki

--:--
--:--
1x