The Connect2 Podcast

Some people have a very hard time recognizing faces.  This is a problem in many social interactions and environments.  Similarly, there are people who are Super recognizers and can recall faces of people that they only saw briefly even years previously.  In this episode, Mark and Jeff discuss a number of stunning facts surrounding this condition

Neuroplasticity is the ability of your brain to rewire itself either by learning new skills or as a result of recovering from injury.  You can learn skills even as you get older but there are some things you can do to help keep your brain sharp.  We review 8 things that can help your brain

China was having some challenges prior to the tariffs introduced by the US.  This has made them more vulnerable to the impact of these tariffs but not for normal reasons.  Mark and Jeff discuss some of the infrastructure issues that have presented China with challenges as they have grown and developed into a manufacturing superpower.

Porn has changed dramatically over the decades and the money involved has skyrocketed.  Porn has been the silent engine for change for the internet as it represents a huge amount of money despite being mostly not discussed in public.  Mark and Jeff discuss the impact that porn has had on shaping the internet.

A research group is predicting the rise of Superhuman AI and what the implications are for the world.  There are two paths, a dystopian one and a utopian one.  The timing is closer than everyone thinks and the consequences will reshape our world.  What's more disturbing is that this group has a track record for their predictions previously and most of them were correct.  Mark and Jeff discuss this in detail.

Carol Cadwalladr is an investigative journalist that published information about the Cambridge Analytics data breach and reporting related to Brexit.  She was hit with a SLAPP (Strategic lawsuits against public participation) lawsuit, about her Brexit reporting, specifically related to a TED talk she did.  Although she won most of the case, she did lose an aspect on appeal and ended up having to pay damages to a billionaire she discussed.  She is now in the news again because she has published a new TED talk about the current digital coup going on

Purchasing a new car is a large and tricky investment that people do relatively infrequently but it is a lot of money and there is a lot of sales pressure from the various dealerships.  Right now with all the new US tariffs, this makes things even trickier for the manufacturers and trying to find the cars can be a challenge depending upon where they are made.  Mark is in the process of buying a car and is going through that experience right now and shares some of his thoughts

The world is going through an epochal event and the trauma from the constant stream of bad news from ever changing world events is difficult to manage.  This is especially true with all the significant self inflicted damage that the US is currently doing to its own population.  It may be the fall of the American Empire.  This is a pretty difficult thing to watch because there are negative consequences for almost everyone.  In this episode, we discuss how to maintain your mental health and what you can do to protect yourself from these difficult times.

Mark took several Waymo rides (self driving cabs) in Los Angeles.  It was an awesome experience.  Mark and Jeff discuss the state of Autonomous self-driving taxis

Mark just returned from travelling to the USA and times are difficult between the two nations.  The current administration is also very tough on many visitors with some visitors being detained or deported from the USA for limited reasons and with little due process.  As it stands is it not hostile to Canadians yet... but that might change if things get difficult in the US and they are looking for a scapegoat.  Mark describes his experience while Mark and Jeff discuss current challenges being reported in the news for travellers from abroad.

Mark and Jeff discuss the importance of storytelling to conveying concepts, engaging people, and helping to remember life events.  Stories change how your brain works and is critical to connecting to the information being conveyed.

Mark and Jeff discuss the current outbreaks of measles, a disease that was considered eradicated decades ago in Canada.  This is particularly relevant to travellers and to individuals that were originally vaccinated in the 1960's

Mark and Jeff discuss something as far away as possible from politics.... Antarctica!

In this episode, Mark and Jeff discuss the unique bond between humans and dogs and compares them to humans and cats as well as humans and horses.  The differences might surprise you

Have you ever gone to a meeting, taken written notes only to find you can't read your own notes and can't remember what you committed to?  Well, there are AI notetaking apps to help you with your meetings.  Mark and Jeff discuss AI notetaking apps

In this episode, Mark and Jeff look at stats for Cannabis useage in Canada and how it has changed since Cannabis was legalized in Canada.  

Mark has been attending clown school and has learned a lot about clowning and himself. In this episode, we discuss how clowning works in Canada and what you can learn about yourself when taking clown school

Trump has been inaugurated and the daily chaos has begun!  Just like last time.  Hold on to your hats!  Mark and Jeff discuss the implications of the new Trump administration for Canada/US relations.  They are pretty sure Americans will not get cheaper eggs.  Welcome to the Tech Bro Oligarchy

Mark and Jeff, discuss US and Canadian politics just prior to the inauguration of Donald Trump.  This episode will come out just after he is inaugurated but the discussion is more far reaching about the differences between Canada and the US, between US protectionist tactics and the implications of his proposed threats.  The political uncertainty will have lots of implications for both countries with nobody winning.

Mark and Jeff discuss their predictions from a year ago for 2024 to see how things turned out.  They also discuss what their predictions for 2025 are.  They are broken down into high confidence, medium confidence and low confidence.  They also discuss what they learned in the past week, sample some coffee and discuss what media they are consuming right now.

Mark and Jeff get ready for a short break over the Christmas holidays and discuss things that they are grateful for in the past year.  As usual, they discuss what they learned in the past week as well as what media they are consuming.

Mark and Jeff continue their discussion about making meaningful connections in the modern world.  We also discuss the new Spotify Wrapped results for 2024, what we learned this week, taste some great coffee and discuss what media they are consuming

Mark and Jeff explore how to make meaningful connections with people in a time of digital communications.  We have never has such great methods of communication but have also never felt lonelier.  Why is that?  Mark and Jeff explore this over a multipart series to discuss and connect with one another.

Mark, as a pet photographer is familiar with some dog sports and competitions, but recently learned about more and decided to dig a little deeper and there were over 45 recognized dog sports and dog competitions.  In this episode we go through them and discuss each of them (briefly).  As usual we also discuss what media we are consuming and what we learned in the past week

Mark and Jeff discuss the facets that form the foundation of a friendship and how that works as you age as well as what the differences are between acquantances, casual friends, close friends and long term friends.  As usual, they also discuss what they learned this week and what media they are consuming

In this episode, Mark and Jeff discuss the decision making process for evaluating when the time has come to let your dog pass.  It all flows from quality of life issues.  Mark and Jeff discuss what has happened in the past in their experiences and what values should dictate your approach to helping understand when it is time to let go.  Often a dog's suffering is related to late decisions and the desire to keep the dog going for personal reasons rather than the dog's quality of life.

Our political landscape is incredibly fractured and the recent US election has left many people not understanding what is going on and for many on the losing side there is a lot of grief over the results from the election.  In this episode, we talk about the Overton window, what it is and what is means, as well as how to deal with loss (political or otherwise).  Loss is a big thing that people can get over but there are some simple steps to help you find a way to move forward.

Social media ads are often touted as a great way to reach clients but does it work?  Mark and Jeff exam the realities of marketing through social media, what it takes to succeed and what success looks like.  Many people only do half-hearted efforts on social media and are surprised when it doesn't work.  The need to be known, trusted and liked are key factors to leveraging reach through social media

Mark was travelling this week but managed to set up an interview with Sarah DeRemer a dog photographer based out of LA who is also known as dogtographer.la on Instagram.  She's an amazing photographer who took the time to sit down with Mark and talk about her photography and her first visit to the Canadian Rockies.

There are polls on just about everything, but how do they work?  Why are they correct a certain percentage, 19 times out of 20?  What does that mean? Mark and Jeff discuss the foundation of polls and the problems with how polling is conducted.  With elections all over the place, what do the polls mean in relation to the elections being conducted?  Can we rely upon them?

Mark and Jeff, after episodes exploring different types of AI ask the question, what makes an AI work?  When will a computer become sentient?  What defines sentience?  What are the drawbacks of AI?  Lots of interesting questions

There is a new AI product that will take your content and create a podcast from it.  Meet Google Notebook LM.  It works differently from ChatGPT because it uses the information you upload and becomes an instance expert at your stuff.  It even generates a podcast discussing your documents/slides/sound files.  Pretty cool stuff  

Have you ever thought about being in two places at one time?  In this episode Mark and Jeff discuss and experiment with voice replacements and an AI Agent.  This is a follow up to a podcast series by Evan Ratliff where he replaced himself in a bunch of situations with an AI version of himself with interesting results.  As usual we also discuss what we have learned in the past week and what media we are consuming.

In this episode, Mark and Jeff discuss a AI voice agents as potentially becoming more and more present in podcasts.  They also discuss the possibility of Griefbots to help people deal with the loss of their loved ones.  As usual, Mark and Jeff discuss what they learned this past week and what media they are currently consuming.

In this episode, Mark and Jeff discuss the changes to the podcasting business environment and why some types of podcasts are no longer around as well as the need for some podcasts to only book controversial guests!  New season, new intro (live version of our regular intro music)

In the last episode of Season 3, Mark and Jeff make predictions for the fall of 2024 and then compare them to those made by ChatGPT 4o.  The results were interesting.

Mark recounts the past week where he went to go see Grizzlies in the Khutzeymateen Grizzly bear sanctuary

Fun in one's life helps people live longer but what makes things fun?  Mark and Jeff discuss the components of fun and how you can differentiate between True Fun and Fake Fun

Mark and Jeff discuss the current state of US politics in the wake of the recent change in the Democrats' presumptive nominee and how the Republicans are managing it.  At least what we see from outside the US.  Canada is affected by US politics but has no ability to influence the elections. 

In this episode, Mark and Jeff discuss why people are so easy to fall to the lure of conspiracies rather than believe the obvious.  They discuss a wide variety of conspiracy theories and why people want to believe them.

If you learned as a kid that there are only 5 senses and that the 6th sense is precognition, you have missed the boat.  There are many more senses than 5 but not all are agreed upon.  Despite this there are many additional senses that are agreed upon.  In this episode, Mark and Jeff discuss the additional senses

Today we have a special guest with Kadie Isaac who is interviewed by Mark (Jeff is away).  Kadie is a long time member of the Society for Creative Anachronism and tells us all about this great organization, what she loves about it and her plans to travel to Pennsic

Alcohol is a significant part of our culture and society at large, but is it good for you?  If it is bad for you, how much is too much?  What are the risks?  Mark and Jeff discuss the swing from people thinking alcohol was good for your in the mid 1980's to people thinking no quantity is safe to a more measured understanding of that actual risks involved.

In this episode, Mark and Jeff discuss some fundamental aspects of psychedelic drugs (hallucinogens) and what sets them apart from other illegal drugs such as Opiods

In this episode, Mark and Jeff discuss what is happening to Koalas in Australia, they are dying off at a high rate from a variety of causes... In this episode, we discuss some of the details of what threatens Koalas. 

In this episode, we discuss the deteriorating state of global nuclear balance.  China and Russia are now each other's biggest trade partners and things are not getting better globally.  This is as bad as it was in the 1980's but it seemed even worse back then and people seem to be oblivious to the state of global precariousness as it relates to nuclear stability.  We also talk about how people pick their PINs and bad movies we recently saw

In this episode, Mark and Jeff talk about things that have made for great movie and TV franchises, where they have stumbled and what has made them work so well.  We focused on Star Trek, Star Wars, Doctor Who, James Bond and Aliens (but there are many more).  Lots of long lived franchises have definitely had down times and then reboots.

We're back!  Mark and Jeff discuss Sleep Token the Band as well as the controversy related to Ticketmaster's monopoly.  This was a result of a recent trip by Mark to NYC to see the band Sleep Token at Radio City Music Hall as part of their Teeth of God tour.  Spoiler alert! It was a great concert.  There was some drama leading up to the concert but everything turned out well in the end.

Well, in a not to everyone being replaced by AI, this week's topic (and title) were generated from ChatGPT's new 4 Omni.  The suggested topic was more specifically addressing people's mental health when dealing with social media.  ChatGPT even provided some talking points.  Mark and Jeff took it from that starting point.  We also discussed things we learned in the past week and what media we are consuming.

Jeff discusses his 40 year high school reunion and what he experienced trying to go back.  Things have changed a lot, so have the people.  Some are recognizable, others are not.  Very interesting discussion and experience.  We also discuss what we learned in the past week, sample some coffee and discuss what media we are consuming.

In this episode, Mark and Jeff discuss the importance of sports, both as a participant and as an observer to mental health.  They also discuss the difference on a team between talent and teamwork, lessons that can be applied to the workplace.  As usual, there are a few dad jokes, coffee sampling, talk about alien life and media being consumed.