Oil Standard

Oil Standard is a plug-in for your web browser that converts all prices from dollars to the equivalent value in crude oil. As the market fluctuates, you can see how many barrels you have left in your online bank account, how many gallons your Amazon purchase could buy, etc. An art project by Michael Mandiberg, Oil Standard "illustrates a potential future when oil will replace gold as the standard by which we trade all other goods & currencies," writes Infosthetics.

Oil stats: How oil-centric is your elected official? At OilChange International, I found this out about my senators: Republican Norm Coleman has accepted $141,100 from the oil and gas industry since 1990, while Democrat Mark Dayton has accepted $250 over the same period. (Via AltText.)

Earlier: Andrei Molodkin's sculpture Iraqi Crude Oil in the Form of Democracy and others.