Yoni Levitan

This is my platform for sharing things I find interesting, and the thoughts they provoke in me. var _gaq = _gaq || []; _gaq.push(['_setAccount', 'UA-24043048-3']); _gaq.push(['_trackPageview']); (function() { var ga = document.createElement('script'); ga.type = 'text/javascript'; ga.async = true; ga.src = ('https:' == document.location.protocol ? 'https://ssl' : 'http://www') + '.google-analytics.com/ga.js'; var s = document.getElementsByTagName('script')[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(ga, s); })(); var _gaq = _gaq || []; _gaq.push(['_setAccount', 'UA-24043048-1']); _gaq.push(['_trackPageview']); (function() { var ga = document.createElement('script'); ga.type = 'text/javascript'; ga.async = true; ga.src = ('https:' == document.location.protocol ? 'https://ssl' : 'http://www') + '.google-analytics.com/ga.js'; var s = document.getElementsByTagName('script')[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(ga, s); })();

[ylevitan]

If you're looking for a collection of great free or low cost fitness resources then look no further!

[ylevitan]

Seth's Blog: A dollar more (vs. a dollar less)

Consider a race to the top. How can Lyft possibly compete with Uber? Scale is often the secret to a commodity business, and if Lyft races to be ever cheaper than Uber, the only possible outcome doesn’t look good. It's...

[ylevitan]

The Giftschrank - 99% Invisible

On May 8, 1945, the Allied powers declared victory in Europe, putting an end to the Nazi regime. There was much to be done, and figuring out what to do with Mein Kampf (“My Struggle”), Adolf Hitler’s fictionalized autobiography, was prominently on the list. In the years leading up to and through the war, one in five

A story about the special libraries in German created to store/manage banned works.

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The SoHo Effect - 99% Invisible

In San Francisco, the area South of Market Street is called SoMa. The part of town North of the Panhandle is known as NoPa. Around the intersection of North Oakland, Berkeley and Emeryville, real estate brokers are pitching properties as part of NOBE. An area of downtown Oakland is being branded as KoNo, short for Koreatown Northgate.

[ylevitan]

Episode 657: The Tale Of The Onion King

Vince Kosuga farmed onions. Then he tried trading them on the market, too. He made millions. Today on the show: How trading got so out of hand that the Chicago River flowed with America's onions.

The story of how it became illegal to trade onion futures on the stock exchange.

[ylevitan]

Episode 655: Pay Patients, Save Money

We shop around when we get a plane ticket or buy a couch. But we spend thousands of dollars on health care without shopping around. What happens if we pay patients when they choose the cheaper option?

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When did companies start talking about, "unexpectedly high call volume?" Are they really so inept at planning that the call volume is unexpected? For months at a time? Even non-legacy companies like OpenTable are using it to describe their email...

A poignant note from Seth Godin about being candid (or not so candid) with customers.

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Episode 653: The Anti-Store

Today on the show: How Price Club and its imitators changed the way we shop. And how a new company is taking what Price Club started to new extremes.

The story of one of my favourite stores (Costco)!

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Episode 647: Hard Work Is Irrelevant

Patty McCord helped create a workplace at Netflix that runs more like a professional sports team than a family. If you're not up to scratch, you're off the team. Is this the future of work?

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The Friday Podcast: How Four Drinking Buddies Saved Brazil

Their solution for Brazil's chronic inflation: Create a currency that doesn't exist.

[ylevitan]

Episode 682: When CEO Pay Exploded

Politicians have argued for decades that CEOs should earn less money. But there was a moment in the 1990s when CEO pay suddenly shot up. What happened?

[ylevitan]

Episode 687: Buy This Passport

Most of us don't think of citizenship as a product. It's something more: It's part of who you are. On today's show, we look at what happens when citizenship goes up for sale.

[ylevitan]

Episode 418: How The Government Set Up A Fake Bank To Launder Drug Money

One day in the early 1990s, a man walked into the U.S. embassy in Ecuador. He said he had information somebody would want to hear — information on how to go after some of the most powerful drug traffickers in the world.

[ylevitan]

Inside the Secret World of Russia’s Cold War Mapmakers

The Soviet military mapped the entire world, but few have seen the actual, physical maps—until now.

[ylevitan]

Joe Rogan has done a fascinating series of interviews on the ethics of food/hunting this past month, and this seems to be the last episode of this unofficial series, for the time being. Tovar Cerulli is a vegan turned hunter, so he has a very interesting story to tell. It's a stark contrast to the recent episode where Joe interviewed the directors of the Cowspiracy documentary. The idea that has most changed my views on hunting is that when a skilled and ethical hunter goes to work, they only take their shot when they know it will lead to an almost instant death. What flows from this is the idea that the animal lived a full life in the wild, and only had an instant of pain at the end. Contrast this with an animal raised and slaughtered in a factory farm: living in cramped conditions, eating grain instead of grass, probably walking in its own excrement, in some cases rarely (if ever) getting to see the sun, etc. Pretty much the entire life of a factory farm animal is miserable, which leads to the conclusion that meat that comes from a skilled hunter is more ethical, and barring that, meat that is from an ethically sourced farm is also better. Joe gives an example of someone who has an invisible fence around his cattle, and he frequently changes the boundaries of the fence so the cows always have ample grass to graze on. Provided the fence has a mild shock that is merely uncomfortable and not painful for the cows, that sounds like a great compromise to me (I.e. Cows don't wander off, keeping costs reasonable, but they are outdoors, have a lot of space, get to graze on grass, etc.).

[ylevitan]

Just posting this for myself - bridging is a skill that I want to work on in 2016, and I want to make sure this post doesn’t get lost in the ether.

[ylevitan]

Tonight, as I was paying for my Americano at my neighbourhood cafe, I somehow ended up in a conversation with the barista about his backpacking trip from South Africa to Tanzania, and the work he did at health clinic upon arrival in Tanzania. As I always do when I meet someone who is interested in issues like international development, global health, or anything else related to leaving the world better than you found it, I told him he should check out GiveWell. They are the first non-crappy charity evaluator that I know of. Organizations like the Better Business Bureau and Charity Navigator do a poor job of measuring impact - instead they evaluate accounting metrics such as overhead ratio that can be easily manipulated and that have little correlation to the actual impact the charity in question has made in the real world. GiveWell has evaluated hundreds (maybe even 1000+) NGO’s, and only recommends a handful of them. They also have a “Mistakes” section where the openly discuss every mistake they’ve made and their plan to fix the mistake. It’s a level of transparency that sets a new standard.  This note is getting too long - stop what you are doing right this second and go to www.givewell.org ! I promise you’ll thank me later [or your money back ;) ]