The Speaker News Journal

Al Jazeera: News Site Steals Code?

September 18, 2016September 18, 2016 by The Speaker Editors

Share this

A scrolling storytelling platform, Scrollytelling, is now filing DMCA against news organization Al Jazeera for allegedly stealing their code.

The fellows at Scrollytelling state that they ” exhaustively tried to resolve the situation amicably, but our friendly requests over multiple channels were ignored. The DMCA request was our last resort.”

On their website, they presented their own code and the one Al Jazeera purportedly stole (in our image, the A-J one is the one that overlays the original Scrollytelling one in Dutch newspaper Volkskrant.

Click image to expand:

StatsCan Chief Quits, Charges Government with Compromising the Agency

March 1, 2017September 18, 2016 by The Speaker Editors

Share this

“All of you are aware of my view that this loss of independence and control is not only an apprehension, but an effective reality today,” wrote the Chief Statistician of Canada Wayne Smith in a resignation letter obtained by The Canadian Press.

Smith is the second chief of the organization to quit on principle in the last 6 years. Munir Sheikh, Smith’s predecessor, resigned in protest of the Conservative government’s changing of the census into a voluntary survey in 2010.

“… Statistics Canada is increasingly hobbled in the delivery of its programs through disruptive, ineffective, slow and unaffordable supply of physical informatics services by Shared Services Canada,” Smith stated.

“I have made the best effort I can to have this situation remediated, but to no effect. I cannot lend my support to government initiatives that will purport to protect the independence of Statistics Canada when, in fact, that independence has never been more compromised.”

The government’s Shared Services Canada has a veto over Stats Can, according to Smith, and this undermines the independence of the statistics organization.

“I do not wish to preside over the decline of … a world-leading statistical office,” stated Smith.

“So I am resigning, in order to call public attention to this situation.”

Almost Half of Japanese Single Adults Under 35 Are Virgins Now

March 1, 2017September 17, 2016 by The Speaker Editors

Share this

Japan is dealing with a shrinking population — Japan’s fertility rate is 1.4, one of the lowest in the world.

One of problems behind the shrinking numbers was recently highlighted by a study that has found that a large number of Japanese adults are not in relationships, are not looking for relationships, and many have never been in a sexual relationship.

70 percent of unmarried men and 60 percent of unmarried women between the ages of 18 and 34 aren’t currently in relationships, and 42 percent of men and 44 percent of women are virgins.

The virgin rate is up from the last study six years ago from 36 and 39 percent.

These people overwhelming intend to be married and have families “sometime,” according to they study. 90 percent came out as saying they wanted to get hitched eventually.

So why don’t they get married, or even get into serious relationships?

The researchers point to a gap between ideas about life and realities of life. This idea-reality gap is characterized late completion of expected (and required for almost all jobs) education, prohibitive costs of dwelling, food, transportation and other life costs, the high incidence of female labor, the less family-oriented lifestyle prevalent in today’s Japan and abroad.

Kissinger and Shultz Won’t Endorse Trump

March 1, 2017September 3, 2016 by The Speaker Editors

Share this

Former Secretaries of State Henry Kissinger and George Shultz have now said they won’t endorse Trump, the nominee for their party.

“We are not making any endorsement in the current presidential election,” stated the two Republican foreign policy experts in a written statement, as reported by Time. “We are dedicated to fostering a bipartisan foreign policy, and we will devote ourselves to this effort now and after the election.”

Kissinger met with Trump recently but came out of the meeting without confidence in the nominee.

“On foreign policy, you identify many key problems,” Kissinger said at the time. “I do not generally agree with the solutions. One-shot outcomes are probably not possible.”

Trump at the time, however, said that Kissinger agreed with his foreign policy ideas.

Eddie Vedder Debuts New Song “Out of Sand” to Be Used on Upcoming Twin Peaks 2017 Series

August 31, 2016 by The Speaker Editors

Share this

At the Ohana festival in Dana Point, California this week, singer Eddie Vedder debuted a new song, called “Out of Sand.”

“This is a new one I haven’t played yet,” said vedder sitting on a stool with an acoustic guitar on his lap.

The lyrics for the song were published Wednesday by PearlJamOnLine’s twitter account.

Vedder has not only contributed the song “Out of Sand” to David Lynch’s 2017 return to the small screen, but he will appear in the series as well, as will several other musicians, including Trent Reznor, Eddie Vedder, Sky Ferreira, Ruth Radelet, and Sharon Van Etten.

SOLAT

322 Reindeer Killed by Lightning

August 28, 2016August 28, 2016 by The Speaker Editors

Share this

“It is very unusual. I’ve heard of cattle having been killed by lightning, but not in such huge numbers,” said Knut Nylend, a warden at the Norwegian Nature Inspectorate (SNO) who came across hundreds of dead animals in a field between Møsvatn and Kalhovd Telemark, Hardangervidda.

The area covered with dead reindeer was around 50 – 80 meters in diameter, according to Nulend.

A hard thunderstorm had covered the area that afternoon, according to the warden the warden said, and the reindeer had been killed by lightening during the storm.

SNO and other authorities have gone to the site to take biological samples from the carcasses.

Hardangervidda has a population of reindeer of around 10,000, according to the Norwegian Wild Reindeer Centre.

VG (Norwegian language)

100% of $1m Victoria Apartments Sold Off-Market in Q2

August 26, 2016 by The Speaker Editors

Share this

In the second quarter of 2016, all of the apartment buildings with a value of $1 million CAD or more sold “off market,” according to Colliers International, as reported by SCMP.

“Off market” sales are when buyers approach property owners with cash offers, even though the owners aren’t selling at the moment.

Prices have shot up in Victoria. Apartments have gone from $152,000 to $186,000 (for the average apartment building) in the last year, and reports are that the most recent sales are much higher still.

It is thought that prices in areas around Vancouver are being driven up due to overflow of the same reasons Vancouver homes have been driven into “crisis” levels: mass immigration, particularly from China, as well as safe, relatively easy investment and money laundering opportunities.

4 Top Banks To Create New Digital Currency

November 3, 2016August 24, 2016 by The Speaker Editors

Share this

UBS, Deutsche Bank, Santander, and BNY Mellon are working on a new blockchain-based digital currency.

Currently, the new currency is being referred to by the banks simply as “utility settlement coin.”

The four banks involved belong to the R3 consortium of 50 institutions looking into improving distributed ledger tech.

“You need a form of digital cash on the distributed ledger in order to get maximum benefit from these technologies,” said Hyder Jaffrey at UBS. “What that allows us to do is to take away the time these processes take, such as waiting for payment to arrive. That frees up capital trapped during the process.

The move is significant because it is the first time such a group of first-rate banks have set about creating a specific currency, although Citigroup and Goldman Sachs are also working on digital currencies.

For banks, the main benefit of digital currency is easing transactions between institutions by removing the third party settlement. Banks spend around $65 to 80 million every year on settlement and other associated processes, and it has been estimated that using a blockchain-based digital currency could reduce that by around $20 million.

Americans Apologize for Lochte

August 22, 2016 by The Speaker Editors

Share this

Scrawled on the “Leave a special message to Rio” wall many Americans chose to write “Sorry about Lochte” and other apologies as they departed, in addition to warm thanks to Brazil.

Ryan Lochte’s lies have become front page news across America and other nations. The New York Daily News referred to him as the “Lochte Ness Monster” and the Post as “The Ugly American,” hearkening to negative stereotypes of loud, brash American behavior in other countries.

Since the news, Americans have been voicing both embarrassment and anger at the Olympic swimmer sent to represent them.

Lochte himself has been apologizing non-stop since his lies became known, making several emotional sorries part of every interview. The athlete has also lost all his endorsement deals as a result of the mistake.

Should Heavy Duty Trucks Have Speed Limiters? There’s a New Law Being Passed to Do This

August 21, 2016 by The Speaker Editors

Share this

65 miles per hour is the max heavy trucks will be allowed to go under a new law expected to be published in a matter of weeks, if the DOT has accepted the ATA’s recommendations, but details of the bill have not yet been made public.

The American Trucking Associations asked that a 65 mile limit apply to all trucks weighing over 26,000 pounds.

The requirement has been in the works since 2014, when it was proposed by the ATA and Roadsafe America, and will be implemented by the U.S. Department of Transportation.

Not much is known about exactly what the new law will contain, such as time frames and speed limits.

What do you think? (Survey should appear right below this. If it doesn’t, please just refresh the page.)

customer survey

Saudi Oil Is Going Public – Biggest IPO in History

August 17, 2016 by The Speaker Editors

Share this

The Saudi Arabian Oil Co., or Aramco, with an estimated value of over $2 trillion, is going public.

The exact value of the nationally-owned company has never been officially provided by Saudi Arabia, but because of the upcoming partial privatization — a move to prepare the country for a post-oil era — the book value might soon be public.

Oil revenue, which accounts for 90 percent of Saudi Arabia’s export earnings, and half its GDP, has decreased in recent years, and this decrease has resulted in an almost $200 billion budget shortfall.

Prince Mohammad bin Salman of Saudi Arabia plans to sell “less than 5 percent” of Aramco, and begin a phase of investment-generated earning.

That 5 percent equates to around $100 billion — the largest public offering in history, much larger than Alibaba, which has held the record since 2014 for its $25 billion IPO.