The world is too much with us; late and soon,
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers:
Little we see in Nature that is ours;
We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!
The Sea that bares her bosom to the moon;
The winds that will be howling at all hours,
And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers;
For this, for everything, we are out of tune;
It moves us not.–Great God! I’d rather be
A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn;
So might I, standing on this pleasant lea,
Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn;
Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea;
Or hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn.

Get Your War On: Thanksgiving Day - 236.com - Video

The immediate prompt for this post is Sorin Matei’s The Bamboo Digital Humanities Initiative: A Modest Proposal. Matei’s post has been of sufficient interest to me that I using it to prompt some discussion in a community of humanists and technologists. Matei makes a lot of useful points, but the segment that caught my attention is:

Amen. That’s an approach I’ve been pursuing for a while now (in the Scholar’s Box, for example)– and one I think that Zotero, as a desktop client, with some capacity for extensibility, can embody rather deeply.Matei goes on: I stop here, rather abruptly, waiting for reactions. I am planning, however, to release a sketch of such a platform, including essential services and affordances. It will also try to leverage the idea of the mashup editor as basic architecture strategy, which could be use to support the infrastructure of the system.
Data Unbound » Sorin Matei on Project Bamboo and the role of mashups

The idea of a scholar’s desktop with someplace like the Internet Archive serving the whole deal is the medieval scriptorum writ very large. 

1. Cut impulsive spending In times when money is short, it is more important than ever to stop impulsive spending immediately.

OK, I will bring my lunch and afternoon snack with me every workday.

1. Look for a second income. Many job earners are in a situation when they don’t know whether they still have a job tomorrow. Think real estate, the banking sector, local small businesses. Many of these are especially endangered due to a slow economy. Most people have no excess money to spend anymore and this creates a massive chain reaction with many businesses going bust.If you work in a high risk industry, act now and look for alternative income streams. It may mean working two jobs or doing some freelancing on the side, and regardless, it will mean more time on the job than off. Even if this means you will be uncomfortable for some time, you rather be that than broke and without a home.

OK, keep my tax work. And begin to create a brand in education with the ultimate purpose of doing consulting. Teaching my “Writing 4 the Web” course on the web during Winter Term while simultaneously developing a Moodle version.

1. Cut up your credit card.

OK, Why don’t I just ditch the wallet except for absolutely necessary ID and one credit card. I will try that for a week.

1. Consolidate your loans.

OK, I have loans, but they can’t be consolidated. Instead I am going to start using Mint.

1. Think twice before you buy stuff.

OK, I really want a Kindle for Christmas. Do I really need it? Can I even use it at home? Used Kindles when the new one comes out.

1. Recycle. Recycling doesn’t limit itself to glass bottles and tins. You can also recycle clothing, household items, clutter, Cd’s, electrical gear and more. One man’s rubbish is another man’s treasure. Before you throw these unwanted goods into the bin, sell them in a garage sale or on ebay to make some additional money.

OK, in a few weeks I will have some time to begin to get rid of stuff. Share stuff. Ebay stuff. Do it.

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If real subprime losses climb by 6 times or 12 times – then system wide financial losses likely climb by 24 times, or 36 times, or more. Because everything is linked, and the math that links all the dominos is multiplication, not addition. If you want a mental picture of how banking dominos work, don’t think of one domino hitting another domino, hitting another domino in a long line. Rather, think of one domino hitting two dominos, hitting four dominos, and so forth. Understand this, and you will understand the desperation in the current moves by the Federal Reserve.

Not sure about this guy’s cred, but it does make for interesting times in the Chinese sense of being cursed with it. The advice he gives is rather vague for folks like me who are tied into a state retirement system, but he makes me want to pull it all out before it ‘dies’.