Blog

The Wall Street Journal has an excellent article on the ‘superstar effect’ where competition against someone who is perceived as far superior actually makes the other competitors perform worse due to a sort of ‘implicit intimidation’.

The piece, by science writer Jonah Lehrer, riffs on a study [pdf] by economist Jennifer Brown who looked at the effect of Tiger Woods presence in a tournament on other golfers’ performance:

Ms. Brown discovered the superstar effect by analyzing data from every player in every PGA Tour event from 1999 to 2006. She chose golf for several reasons, from the lack of “confounding team dynamics” to the immaculate statistics kept by the PGA. Most important, however, was the presence of Mr. Woods, who has dominated his sport in a way few others have.

Such domination appears to be deeply intimidating. Whenever Mr. Woods entered a tournament, every other golfer took, on average, 0.8 more strokes. This effect was even observable in the first round, with the presence of Mr. Woods leading to an additional 0.3 strokes among all golfers over the initial 18 holes. While this might sound like an insignificant difference, the average margin between first and second place in PGA Tour events is frequently just a single stroke. Interestingly, the superstar effect also varied depending on the player’s position on the leaderboard, with players closer to the lead showing a greater drop-off in performance.

The article lifts off from there and virtually every paragraph has an insight into how we internalise skills and how our performance is affected by our perceptions and mental activity.

Link to WSJ article ‘The Superstar Effect’.

Students demonstrating in Lansing before the "state of the state" address on February 3, 2010. Larry Hales of FIST is shown on the right holding banner.
Originally uploaded by Pan-African News Wire File Photos

Protest Right-wing, racist Tea Party Express rally in Clinton Township

Sunday, April 11
Gather at 9:30 AM

Main Library – Clinton-Macomb Public Library parking lot at 40900 Romeo Plank Road, Clinton Township. (Tea Party will be next door)

The right-wing, racist Tea Party Express is scheduled to rally in Clinton Township this Sunday, April 11 at 10 AM.

The Michigan Emergency Committee Against War & Injustice, the Moratorium NOW! Coalition Against Foreclosures, Evictions and Utility Shutoffs and Workers World Party are calling for all progressive individuals and groups to protest this racist, anti-worker, neo-fascist movement.

Let’s let them, the media and the nation know that Michigan doesn’t welcome their message. Bring your own signs or pick up one of ours. If you need a ride call me at 313-680-5508 and we will try to hook you up with someone near you. If you are driving here is where to go.

Progressives meet at Main Library – Clinton-Macomb Public Library parking lot at 40900 Romeo Plank Road (Tea Party will be next door). Be there at 9:30 AM (Tea Party is scheduled for 10 AM)

MapQuest it or follow these directions from Detroit:

I-94 EAST to Exit 236 (Metropolitan Parkway – 16 Mile Rd.) westbound.

Go about 4 miles west on Metropolitan Parkway and turn right (North) on Garfield Road.

Go about 1 mile on Garfield Rd. and turn right (East) on Clinton River Road.

Go about 1 mile on Clinton River Rd. and turn left (North) on Romeo
Plank Road.

Look for us in the Library parking lot with signs and banners.

Following on the heels of their ‘Electrification Roadmap‘ — a comprehensive document written in conjunction with global consulting group PRTM that details how to best shift our transportation sector to plug-in vehicles over the next couple of decades — the Electrification Coalition has just completed an analysis that finds huge benefits to the US economy would result from implementing most of the policies and strategies outlined in the document.

Chief among these benefits would be a strengthening and broadening of high paying manufacturing, travel, tourism, and professional jobs… to the tune of an additional 1.9 million of them by 2030. And now we can all add just one more reason why switching to a high-tech, innovation-based, green jobs focus in this country would do us a world of good.

(more…)

Professor Joseph Stiglitz was on Bloomberg Television today talking about the situation in Europe, the crisis of German decision-making on Greece, and the potential for global bubble development.

• 0:20 Crazy markets are driving the Greece scare
• 1:22 If Europe continues to hold out and markets continue to act crazy, Greece will have to go to the IMF
• 2:15 European system has fundamental flaws that need to be dealt with
• 2:45 Germany is the main beneficiary of the E.U. model, yet it doesn’t want to pay out
• 3:50 Unless the euro zone comes to the aid of Greece, some state is going to be next
• 5:20 The U.S. economy exposed China to massive risks, because of U.S. bubble making
• 5:40 The key risk is that U.S. monetary policy is flooding the world with liquidity and creating “bubbles all over the world”

Join the conversation about this story »

Are you a “root” user? Have you customized or “modded” your phone with better performance and features? Then you know that behind the scenes there is a lot going on that can slow your phone down, drain your battery and even cause unwanted functionality that is not easily maintained by the base Android system. Even the stock system user experiences these dastardly effects, and for them, it may be more difficult to control. Though most problems could be solved with knowledge of your command line, the easiest solution for a common user, or one that likes to take the easy way out, is to use a task manager.

The Android Market contains quite a few task managers and system performance apps to help provide a solution. However, only a few stand out and provide a certain reliability one would hope to expect from a smartphone. Thus, leading us to choices. With so many choices, where do we start?!?

Well today, my good friend, we start with Advanced Task Manager for ROOT users by Arron La. Advanced Task Manager is exactly that, a powerful and advanced task manager. It is safe to assume that 98+% of Android users suffer from power and performance issues due to applications and background processes constantly running. If you are part of that percentile ATM (Advanced Task Manager) is here to the rescue! ATM has been around since 1.5 and provides users with a non-api, powerful means of controlling our systems. ATM has been built with tools to manage running applications, monitor running services, viewing the systems condition and memory usage, application management, and much more to come!

Advanced task manager provides the user with the ability to keep their system running smoothly, and quick, by controlling the apps and services running at any given time by executing Linux commands in the background with a touch of a button in a decent GUI environment.

A brief interview with Arron La revealed ATM’s future updates will include backup features.

The next release will see a number of backup features, so users can do backups and restore applications.Arron La Advanced Task Manager

As of this moment ATM utilizes ROOT (super-user control of your system), because there is no current support to control these services to provide a powerful and fully capable interface.

ATM also includes a handy widget that “Ends All.” Advanced Task Manager also gives the user the option to exclude certain programs that the widget and the program itself will not end; otherwise, when the widget is used it kills all currently running applications and background processes, providing a very quick and nifty way to keep our system clean and quick.

The app has a free version with ads and $0.99 for the paid version with no ads.

The Good

• The ability to uninstall applications through its uninstall function. Providing the user an embedded application management tool right from Advanced Task Manager.
• System monitoring: allowing a GUI view of the memory each system component is using, providing the user a thorough form of finding where all your memory is going.
• The “all apps” function that displays all currently running applications and allows the option to end a particular application from within the tool.
• Service monitoring function: services are known culprits of bogging down the system; this tool also provides the user with the ability to end a particular service. Of course, make sure you know what you are doing.

Needs Improvement

• Possibly a timed end all function, that would set a maximum amount of time particular applications are allowed to run.
• The fact that it utilizes ROOT can be a negative for some. And does not allow for all Android users to experience this wonderful tool.
• Not much to complain about, maybe a fresh GUI?

Final Verdict: Advanced Task Manager does exactly what it is supposed to and performs the way you would hope. It is now in V4.0 and from what we’ve seen so far, it will only get better and more powerful!

Note: This review was submitted by Phil Toohill as part of our app review contest.

Related Posts

• Apex Uninstaller: A real time saver
• Tube Downloader – A different way to get videos and music to your device
• Aloqa – Always be a local
• Touiteur: The best damn Twitter application to date
• Aldiko: A Sleek & Customizable eBook Reader for Android

Los Angeles:  Five Los Angeles Police Department
officers and a group of 10- to 15-year-old kids from a Watts housing
project are headed to Cleveland, OH, to meet and have dinner with NBA
player Lebron James and his teammates.  





Captain Phillip Tingirides, Sergeant James Linder, Detective Donna
Wheeler and Police Officers Keith Linton and Maribel Plascencia are
involved in a South Los Angeles mentoring program called Project Dream. 
The program’s purpose is to give inner-city kids a chance to interact
with the police in a positive way and stay out of trouble.  It also
strives to inspire productivity and the achievement of educational
goals…objectives officers believe are the building blocks of safer
communities.





Officers Linton and Plascencia can relate to the enormous obstacles
these children face on a daily basis, having been raised in poverty in
similar environments yet overcoming their challenges through
determination and perseverance.  And now, as living examples of life’s
possibilities, they’re helping kids by sharing their experience and
inspiration.





On April 9, 2010, all four LAPD personnel and 10 children from the Watts
area are scheduled to travel to Cleveland with officers to meet All
Star basketball players, watch an NBA basketball game, visit several
places and meet with the mayor of Cleveland.





Opportunities for media coverage:

• 6 p.m. media opportunity to interview officers at Southeast
  Division
• 7 p.m. media availability to interview kids at Southeast
  Division
• 8 p.m. kids depart in limo from Southeast Station

A five minute video footage of Watts 180 is available below.

For more information, calls may be directed to the LAPD Media Relations
Section at 213-486-5910.

Even though the Republican Party raised more money than the Democrats in February, the pattern seemed to reverse in March, leading some to wonder if this situation had anything to do with the recent scandals that rocked the GOP.

As the primary election season gets under way, the Democratic National Committee (DNC) raised at least $13 million last month, while the Republican National Committee’s (RNC) total was $11.4 million, according to media reports.

The figures were revealed at a time the Republican leadership was trying to recover from allegations that RNC Chairman Michael Steele spent thousands of dollars on private jets and that a mid-level RNC official charged nearly $2,000 at a lesbian strip club in California.

Still, the chairman chose to look on the bright side, noting the March haul was among the best on record for the GOP, and was "a testament of America’s opposition to the Democrats’ government-run healthcare legislation."

Meanwhile, Democratic leaders have used the March numbers to argue that supporters of the reform were more generous than its opponents, according to Market Watch.

Sen. John McCain and former journalist Terry Anderson share a disturbing bond, one they consider torture — solitary confinement.

Stuck in a 15-by-15-foot cell for more than two years, McCain, a prisoner of war in Vietnam, wrote that such isolation “crushes your spirit and weakens your resistance more effectively than any other form of mistreatment.”

In 1985, Anderson was the chief Middle East correspondent for the Associated Press in Lebanon when he was kidnapped by members of an Islamic militant group. He was held for almost seven years, much of that time in solitary confinement.

“The mind is a blank. Jesus, I always thought I was smart. Where are all the things I learned, the books I read, the poems I memorized? There’s nothing there, just a formless, gray-black misery. My mind’s gone dead. God, help me,” Anderson wrote in his 1994 memoir “Den of Lions.”

A noted author and Harvard doctor, perhaps best known for advocating a surgical checklist to help avoid operating room mishaps, spoke to a young crowd at Harvard Law School April 7 about the effects of long-term solitary confinement, a practice he equates with torture. Atul Gawande, who recently penned an article for the New Yorker on the topic, discussed the experiences of McCain and Anderson, as well as the cases of prisoners held in solitary confinement in the United States. During his talk the surgeon explored the physical and mental effects of such confinement, and the reasons the practice is so prevalent in the United States.

Solitary confinement takes profound physical and emotional tolls, said the associate professor at Harvard Medical School and the Harvard School of Public Health.

In a 1992 study of former prisoners of war, Gawande noted that brain scans of the men revealed that the most severe brain abnormalities were found in those who had suffered “head trauma to the point of losing consciousness, or simply solitary confinement.” The mental effects of such isolation include hallucinations, panic attacks, lethargy, and despair. After three years, Gawande said Anderson feared he was “losing his mind,” and resorted to repeatedly banging his head against a wall before his guards were able to stop him.

Research indicates solitary confinement does nothing to quell violence among prisoners, and is ultimately harmful to the general public, said the surgeon. He noted that prisoners subjected to such isolation are less able to deal with social settings as a result of being deprived of human contact, but that they are typically released back into society.

According to Gawande, the United Kingdom has almost completely rid its prison system of the practice. By contrast, the United States has at least 25,000 prisoners in solitary confinement.

If prolonged isolation is so intrinsically cruel, Gawande wondered aloud, “How do we end up with a prison system that subjects more of our own citizens to it in recent history?”

In the United States, the continued practice of solitary confinement in prisons across the country is directly linked to the public’s acceptance of the practice, he said.

“We learn very quickly that public sentiment is the reason that solitary confinement has exploded here,” said Gawande, adding that the support of such isolation is a “generational” construct.

“These are ideas that previous Americans have not found acceptable. And in much the same way that a previous generation of Americans countenanced legalized segregation, I think that ours has countenanced legalized torture.”

Anyone who hangs out around kids will eventually hear some whiny version of, “I should get  (fill in the blank) because everyone else has it.”

But being in proxy season, we find that there’s plenty of executives who try to use that logic, too. Proxy after proxy tells us that – “in order to attract the best talent” – companies must allow their executives to whisk around the globe on the company jet (even for personal travel), hold court in a luxury NFL suite, and rake in thousands of “gross-up” dollars to pay their own taxes. The company – and therefore the shareholders – foot the bill for that largesse. However, there are some companies that dare to be different, and today’s Gold Star highlights one of them.

To be sure, it was the sheer brevity of the 16-page proxy that Heartland Express, Inc. (HTLD) filed that initially caught our attention. After all, some companies take 16 pages (no exaggeration) to explain their various bonus plans!

Then again, simplicity rules here. Chairman/CEO Russell Gerdin’s base salary in 2009 was $300,000.  Once you add in all his stock awards, options, 2009 bonus, non-equity incentive plan, perks, gross-ups, and “All Other Compensation” his salary swelled to… $300,000.

How is that possible? The proxy explains this compensatory enigma as follows:

The Compensation Committee believes that Mr. Russell Gerdin’s salary is reasonable compared to similarly situated executives, and that as a direct and indirect holder of approximately 42% of the Company’s outstanding stock, Mr. Russell Gerdin receives an incentive through appreciation in the market value of the Company’s stock….

Okay, one might argue, but Gerdin owns a large stake of the company. What about the other NEOs?

Like Gerdin, in the past few years they’ve received good salaries, but no additional stock, options, bonuses, perks, or other kinds of compensation. The proxy explains:

We believe that stock ownership by our Named Executive Officers helps to align the interests of such officers with the interests of stockholders in maximizing long-term stockholder value…The Compensation Committee believes that the equity ownership of our senior management currently is sufficient to align their long-term interests with those of our stockholders, and therefore did not recommend any stock-based awards to the Named Executive Officers in 2009.

What a novel idea! Pay talented leaders well, give them enough stock so they’ve got a stake in the company’s future success, and then stop!

Lawmakers in the Arizona House of Representatives have adopted a bill that, if signed by the state’s governor, will allow people to carry concealed weapons without a permit, making the currently required background checks and classes unnecessary.

The bill was passed in a 36-19 vote, and if Governor Jan Brewer signs it, as some commentators expect she will, Arizona will join Alaska and Vermont as the only three states that do not require permits to carry concealed weapons. Two states ban them altogether, and the remaining 45 require such permits.

In response to critics who say this may increase access to guns for law-breakers, Republican Representative David Gowan, one of the sponsors of the bill, said that "what’s dangerous is when they’re [only] in criminals’ hands, not citizens’ hands."

The vote comes as Students for Concealed Carry on Campus (SCCC), a support organization, is winding down its week-long protest against laws and policies banning licensed concealed guns on school premises.

According to SCCC, during the five-day event college students across America strapped on empty holsters in an act of silent protest.

[JURIST] The US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) announced Thursday that it will move forward with the first phase of its National Broadband Plan in 2010. The 2010 Broadband Action Agenda lays out the steps the agency plans to take in order to make broadband internet access more available in the country. The announcement follows a federal court ruling Tuesday that the FCC lacks authority to enforce net neutrality, a policy considered vital to the plan by many. FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski said the plan could proceed despite the ruling:
The Commission’s Bureaus and Offices have already begun executing on the strategy the National Broadband Plan lays out . . . The court decision earlier this week does not change our broadband policy goals, or the ultimate authority of the FCC to achieve those goals. The court did not question the FCC’s goals; it merely invalidated one technical, legal mechanism for broadband policy chosen by prior Commissions.The 2010 agenda also outlines steps toward numerous goals unrelated to net neutrality, including reclamation of 500 megahertz of open-air spectrum for mobile broadband applications, the creation of a public safety wireless broadband network and improved access to broadband service in rural and other underserved areas.The FCC sent the plan to Congress for approval last month, seeking approval to enact regulations to update the communications infrastructure in the US and make broadband service available to millions more Americans. The policy of net neutrality is unanimously supported by the FCC’s commissioners and is considered essential to the its goal of an open flow of information over the internet regardless of the amount of revenue generated by the information. The policy has been vigorously opposed by telecommunications companies Verizon, AT&T and Comcast, which argue that such rules would inhibit their ability to effectively manage Internet traffic. Other notable goals of the plan include providing 100 million households with affordable 100 megabits-per-second internet service and ensuring that all children are literate in digital technology by the time they leave high school.

[JURIST] Italian prosecutors on Friday sought to indict Italy Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi on fraud and embezzlement charges involving his media company, Mediatrade, despite a new law granting the executive temporary immunity. The law passed in March and allows cabinet officials to postpone criminal proceedings against them for up to 18 months if the charges constitute a “legitimate impediment” to performing public duties. Prosecutors claim that while Berlusconi was head of Mediatrade, it sold television rights at inflated prices to a US producer, resulting in illegitimate gains of approximately $47 million. Prosecutors also sought to charge Berlusconi’s son, Pier Silvio Berlusconi, and nine others in connection to the case. Berlusconi’s lawyers deny that he was in control of Mediatrade during the deals, and have not indicated whether they will invoke the immunity law.
The law granting Berlusconi immunity was approved by the Chamber of Deputies in February. In January, hundreds of Italy’s judges walked out of their courtrooms to protest the passage of legislation that placed strict time limits on the trial and appeals process. Both laws have been criticized as being tailored for Berlusconi’s benefit. He currently faces corruption and tax fraud trials, both of which have been postponed. The leader has been previously acquitted of false accounting and bribery, and has had other charges against him dropped.

[JURIST] The UK Parliament on Thursday approved legislation authorizing the suspension of internet service for those who repeatedly download copyrighted material illegally. The act also received Royal Assent and is now law. The Digital Economy Bill calls on internet service providers (ISPs) to block download sites, reduce a user’s broadband speeds, and ultimately shut down a user’s internet access in order to prevent piracy of copyrighted materials. The bill, known as a three-strikes law, imposes stricter penalties on repeat digital offenders than had previously existed, and has received a great deal of public criticism. Certain ISPs have even threatened to not comply with the law, but MPs who support it say it is a necessary step to protect the creators of digital content.
Online piracy has assumed increasing importance in the eyes of legislators across Europe, and many countries, including France, have enacted similar legislation. A recent report, however, suggests that the French anti-piracy bill may actually lead to increased piracy. The French bill was approved by the Constitutional Court in October after being given final approval by the French Parliament the previous month. Under the French law, the government could send notices to Internet service providers to terminate an individual’s internet access for up to one year after a third violation of intellectual property laws for downloading or sharing movies and music.

With the passing of the Digital Economy Bill in the UK, many musicians are quite upset — even though the law is supposed to be about “protecting” them. Musician Steve Lawson, a member of the Musicians Union (which supported the bill), has written a brilliant open letter to the organization, explaining why he was upset about their position, and considering leaving the group. Here’s just a snippet, but the whole thing is worth reading:

The BPI wrote the bill as a protectionist measure of an outdated and unworkable business model. It was a model that was NEVER to the advantage of musicians who cared about the music they played and the culture it existed in, but one that made sense at a time when physical distribution was required to reach anyone, and the costs involved were prohibitively high. At that point, labels lying to musicians about how much they dig the music, while making a fortune for themselves but still never “recouping” on the album was deeply unpalatable but a necessary part of recording and releasing music.

All the costs have dropped. I’ve written extensively about this — most notably here — but nothing has changed in the industry. They still spend money on the behalf of musicians, pay themselves that money, recoup it (AGAIN) and own the product at the end. None of that is remotely to our advantage.

….

So, the premise of the bill — that the situation is desperate — was spurious. The figures quoted for industry ‘losses’ are insane. Utterly nonsensical if mapped against spending trends on ‘physical and download entertainment media’ — we are part of a much bigger entertainment industry now that we ever were, and we don’t dominate it in the way we did from 1956 to 1998. Games and DVD are a bigger part of it than ever. And entertainment spending continues to rise. So 200 million hasn’t been ‘lost’, it’s being spent elsewhere. Meanwhile, the cost of making and distributing records is tiny, and download sales go up and up.

How you can see that as a situation that needs legislating is utterly beyond me. To shut down sites and services on suspicion of illegal activity is a civil liberties travesty. To have my internet traffic monitored ‘in case I do anything bad’ is like the royal mail reading my post, in case my letters contain naughty words. While threatening to brick up my front door if they find them, or think they might have found them.

It’s great to see musicians realizing that just because the bill’s backers claim it’s in their interest that this is not necessarily the case — and that it could very much go against their interests.

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story

by David Roberts

Well now isn’t this interesting.

Throughout the seemingly endless battle over climate-change legislation, not once have the folks behind the biggest source of climate pollution—coal executives—been asked to publicly account for their industry’s role. Now it looks like they will.

On Wed. April 14 at 9:30am, the House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming will hold a hearing called “The Role of Coal in a New Energy Age.”

For the first time in recent memory, the CEOs of America’s top two coal mining companies, and a leading international company, will come to Capitol Hill on Wednesday to answer questions on their positions on climate change, clean energy policy, and the challenges that currently face their industry.

Testifying will be:

Gregory Boyce, President and CEO, Peabody Energy Corp
Steven Leer, Chairman and CEO, Arch Coal Inc
Preston Chiaro, Chief Executive for Energy and Minerals, Rio Tinto
Michael Carey, President, Ohio Coal Association

These are big dogs. Peabody is the largest private-sector coal company in the world; Arch Coal is the second largest supplier of coal in the U.S. Both are heavily invested in Wyoming’s Powder River Basin, the nation’s largest source of low-sulfur coal, which is expected to expand and prosper in coming years, climate legislation or no climate legislation. Both are among the top industry contributors to U.S. Congresscritters. Rio Tinto is also one of the largest coal mining companies in the world and the second largest producer in the U.S.

The Ohio Coal Association is a trade group that advocates for Ohio’s coal industry and has supported efforts to block EPA regulations of CO2. After the House vote on the Waxman-Markey bill, the OCA bought billboards throughout the state attacking Ohio Rep. Zack Space (D) for voting yes. They read, “Like a puppet on a string, Congressman Space danced to Nancy Pelosi’s tune in voting for the National Energy tax.”

Notably absent: Don Blankenship, CEO of Massey Energy and owner of the Upper Big Branch Mine, site of the recent disaster that saw the deaths of at least 25 coal miners.

Regardless, these are some of the big players. It will be very revealing to see them asked publicly, as far as I know for the first time, whether they believe in climate change and, if they do, how they account for their industry’s role in it.

I’ll be watching with popcorn!

Related Links:

Before the Massey mine disaster, there was Crandall Canyon

Grist: hating on Don Blankenship before hating on Don Blankenship was cool

Massey coal miner suspected safety problems might prove fatal

The Market Took to the Social CRM Use Cases
The Social CRM report by the Altimeter Group is a hit.  Within 30 days it has received over 30,000 views, been touted as the “Most Viral BtoB Report“, and brands and SCRM vendors are aligning their roadmaps in alignment with the use cases. There were over 800 registrants for the webinar, and we had nearly 300 attendees, over 135 of the registrants said they wanted to be contacted by a SCRM vendor. All of these numbers indicate that there’s interest in this new market, and we’re glad to help illuminate the pathway.

Watch the Recording and Use The Slides
Our belief in Open Research means we try to collaborate with the market on conducting research, then sharing a great deal of it so the market can build on top of it, improve it, and we can continue to learn. Yesterday, we hosted part 1 of the SCRM webinar series, and have made the slides and the recording available.

We also polled the attendees about their readiness to deploy
When are you planning to invest in a Social CRM Solution? (41% of attendees responded, but this was at the end of webinar, so we don’t know how many still online.)

• A) Not at this time (25%)
• B) In the next 30 days (14%)
• C) In the next quarter (14%)
• D) In the next year (9%)
• E) Not sure (35%)

This means that 28% of the attendees were interested in investing on Social CRM solutions.

Related Resources
This is just the starting point, harness these other resources to become successful.

• Sign up for future SCRM webinars and other Altimeter content
• Read the report that started this all
• Join the Social CRM Pioneers Group
• See a list of vendors that offer SCRM

Four Steps When Working with Social CRM Vendors
After you’ve digested the report, and are starting to prepare for the 5Ms, approach social crm vendors with these four tips.

1. Forward them the report.
2. Ask them to define which use cases they currently specialize in.
3. Ask to see a roadmap of which use cases they’ll be launching in coming quarters.
4. Ask how they’ll work with other SCRM vendors that offer use cases that they can’t deliver.

Palm, the forlorn stepchild of the smartphone world, has suddenly become the belle of the ball, with Lenovo and now HTC rumoured to be bidding for the company.

Apparently Peter Chou, CEO of HTC, has been involved in high-level meetings at CTIA, and the whole company is currently involved in due diligence, examining how the smaller smartphone maker will fit in in their structure.

HTC refused to comment on the rumours, while Palm’s CEO Jon Rubinstein said: "If there is a reasonable acquisition proposal, the Board will consider."

Palm is currently worth less than a tenth of HTC’s value, meaning it should be much less than a merger of equals, with HTC able to acquire the company just for cash. Palm’s rescue could be quite expensive however.  HTC will however get a stash of over 1,650 patents, even more than Motorola has in the smartphone arena, making it simply the cost of doing business in the cut-throat smartphone world.

Read more at UDN.com here.

European Central Bank President Jean-Claude Trichet says some countries in the euro zone might have to accept a period of deflation to restore long-term economic growth prospects.

“Some countries, to regain competitiveness, will have to keep inflation below the EU average,” Mr. Trichet told the Italian paper Il Sole 24 in an interview published Friday.

Asked by the paper whether this means “even accepting a period of deflation, with all the possible social consequences this might have?” Mr. Trichet replied: “Yes.”

“It is normal that some regions, after growing above the EMU average for some time, and after having accumulated high national inflation, experience a correction and therefore a period of negative inflation, as it is currently happening in Ireland,” Mr. Trichet said.

The ECB contends that it has avoided deflation for the euro zone as a whole, which is supported by recent data showing annual inflation in the region at about 1.5% in March, though that was probably pushed higher by energy and food prices.

Yet consumer prices are still falling on an annual basis in Ireland, and economists say other struggling peripheral countries like Portugal, Spain and, to a lesser extent, Greece either face the risk of deflation or at least a lengthy period of very low inflation.

Mr. Trichet was largely confirming what economists have been saying for months about deflation in some parts of Europe, though as ING Bank economist Carsten Brzeski notes: “he has never been so outspoken in the past.”

Whatever benefits in the long run in terms of restoring lost competitiveness, deflation (or negative inflation) can be poison for government finances in the short term: A mix of economic growth and modest inflation, or nominal GDP, brings in needed tax revenues and shrinks the debt-to-GDP ratio.

Without nominal GDP, Greece and others will have trouble bringing debt ratios down without still more painful spending cuts and tax hikes.

As Paul Krugman put it in a New York Times column today: “Deflation is a painful process, which invariably takes a toll on growth and employment. So Greece won’t grow its way out of debt. On the contrary, it will have to deal with its debt in the face of an economy that’s stagnant at best. So the only way Greece could tame its debt problem would be with savage spending cuts and tax increases, measures that would themselves worsen the unemployment rate.”