It’s made a huge difference for me. Not only does it appeal to my Excel-loving nerd streak, but it helps me keep my wallet plump. But even more important than saving money, I create a whole new level of awareness. I used to blow all sorts of wad on thrift store clothing–it’s cheap, right? Or then there’s the $75 I lost all those times when I kept forgetting to buy groceries and had to buy my lunch at work. Pennies add up to dollars. The anal-retentive tracking gives me clear answers to the “Where did it all go?” question.

It’s a matter of perspective. I can answer, with authority, how much I work to pay for my car-related expenses. I can know exactly how much I have spent on social outings. I can tell how much I’ve been buying impulsively . Basically, I can determine if I’ve been spending according to what I value–and that sort of conscious living is so important to me.

Another side benefit is the geeky historical perspective. I’ve kept some metadata on some purchases like gasoline–gallons purchased, cost per gallon, total cost, day of the week, etc. It’s kind of cool to look back and see the ebb and flow in gas prices I paid: . So maybe it’s not really all that practical, but it’s cool for curiosity’s sake.

But from all the data I can also get more useful information, such as learning that I can buy the cheapest gas during the first half of the week. There’s a bit of bias in the graph because I ended up buying a lot of Wednesday and Thursday gas during the recent spike, but the general trends are accurate.

There’s also some personality that comes out in the numbers. Not that I needed it, but I’ve got the data to prove that I like books more than music: . As the bars on top indicate, I spend a pretty steady amount for books. There are some spikes here and there, but still a more regular baseline. Note that the book figures do not include all the stuff I bring back from the library, which would help even out that data even more. On the bottom side, you can see that music shopping is really more of an irregular binge thing.

Novelties aside, there is a lot to learn from this sort of exercise. I’m really glad I started doing this, and at this point I can’t really imagine not continuing. Once I developed a system to keep the records, it’s like clockwork. And when I can put it all down in ink… there’s a sort of calm satisfaction to have at least one part of my life in order.

And here’s a selection of similar photography projects.

That’s just amazing. As the later photos and commentary indicate, it’s not heaven–but it’s certainly completely different from prisons in the US. It brings to mind Robert Murphy‘s brief speculation on prisons in Chaos Theory. [via LvMI]

A clock depicting the last 4.6 billion years of history in one hour and a project in visualizing enormous numbers with pennies, from one to one quintillion. [via svn]

This is awesome. It’s been so long since I sought the Triforce, but it’s hard to believe it’s been almost 20 years since its release on the NES.

The man in charge at headquarters, Michael J. Rogers, insists that the Angeles is the ultimate proving ground for the theory that nature can be saved from humanity’s onslaught. Rogers, who has been forest supervisor since 1990, is an environmental evangelist for whom the glass is always half full ‚Äî even when it’s nearly empty. This forest is not merely a slow-motion apocalypse, he argues (often to members of his own staff), but a laboratory where those who hold the public trust can test themselves against the host of troubles that will eventually confront every park and wilderness area in the country. In the Angeles, however, the future is now.

Maybe this is why, as I linked a while back, L.A. is the best place for writing about nature.