It always shocks me when a big trader comes out and says they're shorting a stock. Mostly, because I'd prefer to keep it quiet (people generally hate short-sellers, whether that's illogical or not). A hedge fund manager and Greentech Media contributor is advocating shorting First Solar. I figure, he's looked carefully at the industry, he must know something. So I thought I'd check it out. John Hempton of Bronte Capital says First Solar became a great company by innovating efficiencies in the manufacturing of solar cells. But he thinks that these efficiencies are largely evaporating as the price of solar-cell silicon material drops and competition from the semiconductor industry closes in fast.

Well, Twittermania has taken full hold in Silicon Valley. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that Techmeme, a news aggregation site frequented by technology trade journalists, VCs, and PR people, now dedicates nearly half its front page to Twitter news, including putting direct links to the Twitter company blog above the fold. For example, here are the links today just from Techmeme:

• Twitter will have an official Android App (TechCrunch)
• Sorry Bit.ly, Twitter confirms it will launch its own link shortener (TechCrunch)
• Twitter makes itself more useful (NY Times Bits)
• The details: How Twitter's newfangled revenue model will work (VentureBeat)
• Twitter does 19 billion searches per month, beating Yahoo & Bing (Searchengineland)
• Tweet preservation (Twitter Blog)

Okay, I feel a bit nauseous. The direct links to the Twitter blog put me over the top.