Data Conscience

Introduction

Source: https://twitter.com/csdoctorsister/status/1536343596336418821

 

My journey to data conscientiousness started when I was a kid as I rolled coins with my mom and helped my dad organize his job's employee resource group's annual membership rosters. My mom would bring out the big Welch's jar, about half full of loose change. Sitting on the living room floor, she'd dump all the coins on the carpet and we'd start separating them by denominations. Mom would bring out all the coin wrapper rolls she'd gotten from the bank. We'd stack the pennies, nickels, dimes, and quarters—and talk about whatever moms and daughters talk about. She taught me how many of each denomination goes into each coin wrapper roll: 50 pennies gives us 50 cents, 40 nickels gives us $2, 40 quarters gives us $10, and 50 dimes gives us $5. When we'd filled as many of the rolls as we could, we'd count up our earnings. Sometimes it would be $30, and other times it would be closer to $100.

At first, I simply liked the counting, the talking, and stuffing the coins in those small paper wrappings. As I grew up, I started to associate these coins as a resource to get what I wanted. That 50 cents could be put to excellent use to get some SweeTARTS. Two dollars in nickels would keep my candy stash stocked for a week. Five dollars would pay for my favorite order at Swenson's and I'd have change left over. ...