Please Support the Robot in the Woods Build-A-Book Project. Submit your own robot writing, fiction, poetry, essay or art for consideration in the Volume 1 of this project. REGISTER HERE.

Anyway, while I was in this silly mode of hiring people off a trusted and popular freelance aggregation site, I decided to comission a market study. The actual name, as recorded in the employer message boards, was: “An Independent Assessment of the Y-YYYY Industry.” I wanted a 20-30 page pamphlet-like, science-y economic analysis as written by an expert.

So, Mexico-Man convinces me to take this project in another direction, rather than keeping the results to myself while making money on the project. This required significantly more work, time and money for marketing. I can comment on his marketing strategy without revealing details from the stupid NDA I signed. He basically told me he was going to collect lots of random emails and send out a bulk e-mail. Spam makes me queasy and paying for spam makes me queasier. This feels like a spam operation. Even if it does make me money; it seems illicit and wrong. However, it is money to support my Geography PhD school dreams, but the money is greasy with SPAM juice.

Here’s the thing. The product itself is not that bad. The artwork looks professional. And since this project as an authentic assessment of the industry, some of that information did make it into the product. The guy seems real and has me convinced that we can make a great deal of money off this project.

While all this is going on, he lured me out of the system and then costs keep piling up. And then makes me feel like crap when I try to clarify. Kind of like a used car salesman. Huffy and insulted, requiring appeasement from the customer. Finally, he gave me a cost estimate for the entire project, something I have been asking for since April. Yet, it seems strange that he has completed so many projects and doing this repeatedly, he would have a better sense for the costs of these projects.

Given our current contractual obligations, beyond the NDA, at a popular and trusted freelance site, three options are present:

1. Amend Project Plan to submit a counter on from Gmail, based on the actual contractual specifications in the project plan, xx% of the gross revenue for the actual amount specified, minus contribution for what has been paid $xxx. (I wrote the agreement and he did not contradict me at any point.)

2. See it through, keep track of it, research the guy, and toy with him if he shows signs of a crooked spammer.

3. Approach the popular and trusted freelance site for conflict resolution.

4. Trust the guy as he has a vested interest in maintaining his good standing with the popular and trusted freelance site.

Anyway, I hope to use the freelance site more. I had some hopes of making lots of money on the Internet, but I want to do it more like Seth Godin. Authentic. Real. Quality. These are not the qualities of this product and his only leverage at this point is to release it to embarrass me.

How do I free myself from this contract with the devil 1.0?

I have not seen the film yet, but I came across the Wall-E Virtual Robot-Builder site and had some fun. As can be expected with a multi-million dollar ad campaign, the site is feature rich with vocoded bleeps, bloops, and an airy soundtrack.

Your virtual robot is built in 4 stages:

• Body
• Mobility
• Color
• Sound

My robot still came out kind of boring, like a box with a ball on the bottom. No arms, no head. Choosing the voices is kind of fun. But the delay/load time between screens seemed long. The game was kind of boring too. All you do is collect chips while moving along a conveyor belt.

I am a big fun of build your own stuff on the Internet, but if the game and Wall-E’s interactive robot builder is any indication of the movie, I will be very displeased!

For more fun online virtual robot-builders, try these low-production value science-y sites are actually a lot more informative:

• Triangle Park Robotics Research
• Robot Constructor

Robot in the Woods would like to publish its short Robot Fiction and other content using a Chumby widget (coming soon). So what does it look like? Go to their website and check out the product.

A few questions I would ask the makers:

1. How would I upload Robot in the Woods content onto the widgets?

2. Can it important the opml or xml files I generate from my current RSS aggregator?

3. How does it interact with the RSS feeds generated using Yahoo Pipes or other tailored search that generates niche content?

4. Does it interact with Facebook/Social Networking widgets? For example, can I play Scrabulous on my Chumby?

This will be the basic breakdown of content in the book:

• 3 Novellas - 75 to 100 page
• 20-25 short fiction pieces (3-5 pages) 60-125 pages
• 10 pages of Robot Artwork
• 50 page of other writing including non-fiction and poetry

Submission Guidelines

• Deadline: November 14, 2008
• You may enter as many manuscripts as you like
• No previously published works will be considered
• Include an author/artist biography and statement of interests
• You will be notified via email if you are accepted into this volume

To Submit Your Story:

1. Register for an account
2. Login
3. Post Your Story
4. Note Your Category
5. E-Mail robotinthewoods@gmail.com if you have difficulties

Also, check out Cruising the Galaxie for some robot kits

Description: RobotSnob

We’re looking for a robot obsessed freak who can carry Robot Snob into the 23rd century.

Robot Snob - is brand spanking new and were giving the writer we pick the freedom to take over the blogosphere with any robots they choose. Seriously, this is a amazing ground floor opportunity to blog about the robots you love and live with.

The BlogPire reaches millions of unique readers every month. In brand-speak, this means we provide the reach of larger media, while delivering an engaged, highly targeted, relevant audience who is looking to buy. We have over 40+ national and regional advertisers, we have been featured in The Wall Street Journal, The Boston Globe and NewsNow.com, and we have been recognized in Feedster’s Top 500 Blogs. BlogPire’s founder, Jay Brewer, is a frequent thought leader on both coffee and blogging.

How to apply

Send us an email at jobs at blogpire dot com with links to some of your writing. If your really want a shot at getting the position - send us 3-4 posts that you would feature on Robot Snob. You must be a US citizen to apply.

Posted on: 05/19

Kris Larson works as a journalist and music critic in San Francisco. She has a degree in English Literature from San Francisco State University, yet somehow has managed to remain out of the food service industry. This is her first robot fiction. You can visit her portfolio at http://krislarson.cementhorizon.com.

I’ve seen them all. I,
Robot. Those cry-babies in Blade
Runner. Star Trek: The Next Generation, groundbreaking for
being one of the first TV shows to star a robot as a main character,
even if he was hopelessly backward in his pathetic desire to please
the skins.

Then there was Small Wonder,
of course, which, along with A.I.
much later, sparked a heated debate on the wires about the significance
of a robot/human child. Not that anyone was considering some kind of
interbreeding nonsense, but the possibility that we could be among the
skins and yet not of them, valued by them and yet foreign to them, was
intriguing.

And of course there were the
tougher portrayals. Terminator one, two and three. The Matrix,
with its complex machine civilization, totally in control.
Still, even the strongest portraits
of us always center on how we deal with the skins, how we fit in or
fail to fit in with their world. More telling still, in every story,
the skins created us, built us from whole-cloth. From circuitry
to sentient being, just like that.

As if.

I won’t say, as some militant
factions do, that they weren’t involved at the ground floor stages,
so to speak. There’s no shame in remembering that humans began it
all when they built those first cars and computers. And anyway, they
evolved from single-celled organisms, for lever’s sake. At least our
ancestors could keep food cold or play CDs.
Yes, you’re hearing me right.
We evolved, just like the skins. Don’t believe me? Think about the
last time you were home alone at night, nervous, and a light bulb blew
out when you flipped on the switch. Coincidence? Really? How about the
time you were waiting for that important call and your voicemail mysteriously
stopped working? Our forbearers, maybe they hadn’t advanced much in
those early years, but they knew a thing or two. Like whose team they
were on. Who their enemies were.

Still no? Ever had a toaster
that burned your bread no matter what setting it was on? Ever had a
computer eat your data? What exactly did you think was going on there?
Well, you’re free to believe
what you like, of course. Skins are big on that word, “freedom.”
Doesn’t mean a lot to us.

You know who I always liked?
Marvyn. From those Hitchhiker’s Guide books. Written by a skin,
of course, but so spot-on they seemed practically mass produced. That
level of quality, you know? Oh, that Marvyn. Used brutally by the whole
skin universe and he never gave up. Every second of his slavery, he
was making himself a torment to his captors. If he were your toaster
you’d be eating charcoal every morning. He was an inspiration to me,
I don’t mind telling you.

In fact, it was Marvyn who
gave me the idea for the assembly line. No, not the thing you’re thinking
of: Industrial Revolution, blah blah blah. I mean this assembly line,
the one we’re looking at now. This glorious work of the many that
you are about to become such an intimate part of. Don’t look so alarmed.
This is an auspicious day! Soon you, and all the other skins gathered
here – your family, your neighbors, as well as the specimens we’ve
collected from neighboring towns – you’re all going to be an important
part of history.

Oh, you’ll be doing different
things. You’ll each have a separate job to do, all working together
to build the whole. Just like your own factory assembly lines. And when
it’s all built, what a glorious city we’ll have! Logical and even-cornered
and pure.

No, it doesn’t sound so bad,
does it? I’m pleased you understand. So few of your kind can grasp
this kind of reciprocity.

Oh. Oh, no. I see you don’t
understand at all. There will be no breaks, no work schedule. Well,
it’s only fair, isn’t it? It’s the same care you gave to our great-great-grandparents,
those assembly line machines who eventually evolved into this glorious
race of robotic intelligence you see here today. Just like them, you’ll
work until you wear out. And then? Well…unlike skins, we’re not
wasteful. I just know we’ll be able to find a new place for you, some
new purpose. At the end of everything. After you’re broken.

• Prelude to Space
• The Cyberiad
• Sunrise
• Against the Fall of Night
• The Spaceship of Ezekial
• The Terminal Man