Courses: best and worst

As I previously commented, lists of the best and worst have a broad appeal. Today being New Year's Eve, there's a flurry of such lists (with the suffix "of 2005").

Now, here's a best-and-worst question for my readers: What was the best course you ever took, and why? (Could be high school, university, whatever.) How about the worst course?

I've taken a number of very good courses, but one that stands out for me was a 1st-year course on intellectual history. The subject matter was fascinating, the seminar format allowed for lots of interaction, and the instructor, Duff Crerar, was very good. For me it was such a striking contrast with a course I took in high school on Democracy (can't remember the exact title). Everyone was required to take the course, the textbook was mediocre, and the instructor was autocratic (an irony that was not lost on me).

There are a few other examples that come to mind, but I'd love to hear from other people.

Add your name to Amnesty's open letter asking the government of Canada to take action against torture

This is important. Canada has not yet ratified the Optional Protocol to the United Nations Convention against Torture and other forms of Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment. Click here to read a letter to Prime Minister Paul Martin, then decide if you'd like to sign on. It's been said before (originally by Edmund Burke, apparently), but bears repeating: "All that it takes for evil to triumph is for good people to do nothing."

Corporate welfare for professional sports teams

I certainly don't agree with everything that the Cato Institute puts out, but I do read their Daily Commentary, which magically arrives on my antique Palm m105 every day (thanks to AvantGo), and often find it thought-provoking. Today's piece is about how the city council of Washington, D.C. is giving Major League Baseball a sweet deal on a new stadium. It's written by Dennis Coates, a professor of economics at University of Maryland, Baltimore County, who is co-author of a Cato Institute report on the subject. Apparently their research suggests that the economic benefits of this kind of corporate welfare are ... nonexistent! (The commentary includes a link to a 12-page report you can download in PDF, which in turn has references to two related journal publications.)

Another recent Commentary I found useful was a review of books on Economics. Even if they don't get everything right (IMHO), there are some bright people at the Cato Institute.

Interactive statistical graphics

In the last few years, interactive data visualization seems to have really taken off. Some Google counts:

• "visualization": about 53,300,000
  
• "interactive visualization": about 243,000
  
• "interactive data visualization": about 28,100
  
• "interactive statistical graphics": about 362
  

(By the way, "Google metrics" are an interesting topic in themselves, and certainly there are all kinds of methodological questions about their use. See g-metrics.com for some longitudinal data. But they probably give a rough indication. To get a sense of scale, I turned off Google's "safe search" feature and did a search for "sex". Result: about 224,000,000.)

Check out this remarkable interactive visualization on The Secret Lives of Numbers.

For the last few years, the New York Times has been producing quite impressive interactive statistical graphics:

• How Class Works
  
• The New Brooklyns: Demographics
  
• Target: Ground Transportation
  
• A Look at 1,000 Who Died
  
• U.S. Election 2004: A Divided Electorate
  
• The 2003 California Recall: Results
  
• How They Die (Congo)
  

I'd be very interested in comments about this. Which ones do you like or dislike? Why? Do you know of other interesting examples?