I heard a story once, maybe it was an old Twilight Zone about construction workers who exist just before us, and make sure our world--our reality--gets built in time for us to enjoy it.

Lovely little short film.

Video: The World Builder

Nice little video about the possible "World of Tomorrow".

Work: Oh, Hello

And in fact, inspirational women in technology are everywhere. From games designers Elonka Dunin and Jane Jensen to Turing award-winners Barbara Liskov and Frances Allen to influential CTOs Mary Lou Jepsen and Padmasree Warrior, women have been making high-level careers in science and technology for a long time now.

I got blurbed. :)

Guardian: On Ada Lovelace Day, let's hear it for women in technology

The résumé of an animator at developer Traveller’s Tales accidentally let slip at least two new Lego titles in development at the studio.

I got a kick out of this not just to learn that a new Lego game product is in production, but how the news got out. :)

Report: New Lego Harry Potter, Indiana Jones Titles In Development

Use this calculator to compare the cost of living between U.S. cities. Select the city you're in and the city you're moving to. Enter your present income and click "Refresh listing." The income required to maintain your current standard of living will appear in the box below, along with the percentage difference between the two cities.

Useful.

Cost of Living comparison calculator

Dragon Con founder Ed Kramer is suing the current director of Atlanta’s annual sci-fi/fantasy convention for allegedly shortchanging him on stock proceeds.

In the suit, filed in Fulton Superior Court, Kramer accuses Dragon Con president Robert Patrick Henry of misspending company funds on Las Vegas boondoggles and hiring unqualified family members.

Dragon*Con founder sues successor over finances

the perception that Gmail is trouncing AOL mail simply isn’t true. Yahoo’s mail service is the king of the hill, towering over everyone else.

AOL’s e-mail seems to be a big and engaging service that is holding its own with users. Gmail, by contrast, is growing in the number of users, but is far behind the other big Web mail providers in how often users check their mail and how much time they spend on the site. That would imply that it is Gmail, far more than AOL, that is being used as the supplemental throwaway e-mail address.

For those interested in the details, here are the numbers...

Yahoo dominates e-mail with 88.4 million users in the United States in August, according to comScore. That is far more than Microsoft’s Windows Live Hotmail at 45.2 million and AOL at 44.8 million, not to mention Gmail at 26.0 million.

When you look at how much time people spend reading their e-mail, Yahoo mail users spend the most time (286 minutes a month), Gmail users the least (82 minutes), with AOL and Microsoft in the middle (229 and 204 minutes, respectively). When it comes to how many times users (defined as those who visited the site at least once in August) checked their e-mail, Google again was at the bottom, with 13.6 visits a month. Yahoo had the most loyal users, visiting 18.8 times that month, followed closely by AOL and then Microsoft.

It’s also illuminating to look how many total minutes were spent reading e-mail on each of the services. An astounding 25 billion minutes were spent on Yahoo mail in August. People spent 10 billion minutes on AOL mail, 9 billion on Microsoft’s mail, and 2 billion on Gmail.

Interesting statistics.

AOL mail v. Gmail. The numbers.

GO! Network was established to serve the needs of individuals [in St. Louis, Missouri] whose employment has been affected by the current economic environment. GO! Network’s goal is to encourage, inspire, motivate and connect people to employment and entrepreneurial opportunities. The initiative will consist of a series of weekly seminars, professional workshops and job fairs.

Count me as one "whose employment has been affected by the current economic environment". We had some layoffs at my company this week, and though I was not one of the people laid off (yet), I'm still updating my own resume and prepping for a potential job search. :/

Elonka

GO! Network STL

Useful site, putting together freelance programmers and designers, with those who are looking for the same.

Odesk.com: Outsource to Freelancers, IT Companies, Programmers, and Web Designers

Companies in two Chinese provinces, Shandong and Hubei, have been told they must seek official consent if they want to lay off more than 40 people.

The order highlights the Chinese authorities' concern over mounting job losses.

...

In Shandong alone, nearly 700,000 people have lost their jobs this year.

In southern Guangdong, tens of thousands of firms have closed, sparking off reverse migration to the countryside by redundant workers.

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The Chinese authorities are keen to avoid social instability, seen as a source of labour and political unrest.

The human resources controls imposed in Shandong and Hubei are an attempt to put bureaucratic obstacles in the way of mass layoffs.

But it is unclear how effective they will be.

"The factories are not getting enough orders, so some workers have nothing to do," Chinese media quote a Shandong factory manager as saying.

"I have been thinking of getting rid of some of them to cut costs. But if the government doesn't agree to my layoff plans, what can I do? I can't afford to pay them all."

The alternative may be drastic wage cuts.

In one factory in Guangdong, salaries have been reduced by up to 75%.

Jeez.

BBC: China moves to stem mass layoffs