Paul Kedrosky's Infectious Greed

Animal House Meets Euro Crisis
Twitter Says We’re Sadder Than When Lehman Failed
Twitter Digest: 2011-12-08
Authors@Google: Penn Jillette

Posted: 08 Dec 2011 09:14 PM PST

With Eurozone leaders tonight in Brussels rushing to disagree about things that don’t matter — debt sanctions? all EU members? a revised treaty? really? — it is increasingly obvious that they live by one of my favorite lines from Animal House:

No, I think we have to go all out. I think that this situation absolutely requires a really futile and stupid gesture be done on somebody’s part!

Twitter Says We’re Sadder Than When Lehman Failed

Posted: 08 Dec 2011 08:07 PM PST

New paper uses Twitter keywords over last three years to try and characterize our happiness, or lack thereof, over last three years. It’s amusing, has an interesting methodology and is mostly well-done, so worth a look. Here is the key graph, showing that we’re apparently sadder (less happy?) than when Lehman failed. (Click for a larger version.)

Twit hap 2

Twitter Digest: 2011-12-08

Posted: 08 Dec 2011 12:00 PM PST

Canon EOS Rebel XS DSLR Rescued After a Year Beneath the Sea – http://t.co/rmom8kBr /cc @nickbilton #
The Long Shadow of German Hyperinflation http://t.co/DzeOdSSW #
Re-try: Wolf pack's attack on bison goes viral, gets anthropomorphically misinterpreted http://t.co/mHmoQ2fQ #
Disguised as B. Traven … RT @BreakingNews: Officials say Moammar Gadhafi's son al-Saadi Gadhafi tried to sneak into Mexico –@AP #
Interesting tax data. Really: Income Gains Reflected in U.S. Taxes May Boost Spending http://t.co/xR06RVKz #
Cockroaches experience accelerations of up to 23 g http://t.co/UyiROqF5 #
OH: You can sleep in your car, but you can't drive your house. #
Righto MT @matthewphogan: @pkedrosky that is why historically people more willing to default on mortgages and cred cards before auto debt… #
Sad news RT @nytimes: Harry Morgan, 'M*A*S*H' and 'Dragnet' Actor, Dies at 96 http://t.co/VWPAiZZk #
Wish there was an undo for app delete on iPhone. Constantly do accidental drive-by deletes. #
Just had Levar Burton say "That would violate the Prime Directive". I've always wanted to be told that. #
Whoa, been to zero of these: Top 10 Mobile Phone Websites – http://t.co/2aMKoTwy #
In other news, Elvis still dead. RT @BloombergNews: BREAKING: S&P places large bank groups across eurozone on watch negative #
Cross-Country Snowboarding. Sure. Right. What? http://t.co/omeVIT2P #
Just spent 30 efficient minutes with estimable @herbgreenberg. I take back the last seven mean things I said about him. Not the eighth tho. #
Before exiting rainy NYC tomorrow, doing a 615am EST (!) Bloomberg TV segment, and an hour of radio. Holy media. #
Had academic today disparage texting vs face-to-face conversation, & say "efficiency" & "low signal loss" pale against emotion. Bullshit. #
Eric Schmidt plumbs unplumbed depths of delusion: Schmidt says most TVs have Google TV by mid-2012 http://t.co/K6UaIza6 /via @dannysullivan #
Whew! — Oil, natural gas supply abundant due to technology – http://t.co/V3v5bAxV /cc @gregormacdonald #
Love this Black Diamond ski campaign. Turned a version of it into my wallpaper. http://t.co/b2TCX2Xh #
Most interesting thing about calculating pi to 10 trillion digits is how often hard-drives failed – http://t.co/I0Pvzi6V #
Banks! huh-yeah / What are they good for? / (Almost) absolutely nothing / Uh-huh – http://t.co/ZwyyW1pZ #
Whisky's for drinking; snowmaking water is for fighting over – http://t.co/XUjHgkHX #
And you thought Greece was bad … Lending to the Borrower from Hell: Debt and Default in the Age of Philip II – http://t.co/yk5VLPHw #