With both Wix and Weebly you can raise some nifty Flash-based simple webs sites. Be patient and remember to save as you go, especially with Wix. Got pretty far along and the browser crashed and…oops! Luckily I had already been through the head-banging, how-to phase and within a half hour or so had reconstructing it easily enough. With Wix, too, make sure you pick the template you want before doing any any otherr work. It doesn’t seem like it lets you transfer content from one template to another.
Weebly allowed the rotating Earth Flash 8 animation. Wix refused the same files because it was not ActionScript 3-compatible, even though I didn’t write in any ActionsScript.
Weebly also gives you the better URL but is somewhat limited in layout of elements.
They’re both free though so who cares?
Kite Wix Site
Kite Weebly Site
Anyone planning to respond and cite KiTE as a source don’t forget about proper attribution.
Possible techs from this prescient comedy to include: energy-agnostic launch method; space junk detection, slicing, dicing and processing; “BIC” reusable orbit booster modules…and more!
Small adjustment of focus but not really a big change, just adapting to ever-evolving virtual weather conditions. The winds of the interwebs are shifting. But we’re not going away, so all you loyal fans – especially you Cabot, Arkansas – can keep checking in. The Kite Facebook page for Kite: A Novel in Earth Orbit has become the primary outlet for space and Earth orbit and science fiction news and commentary. It’s open to everyone so please feel free to join. You’ll continue to see posts from there in real time in the right sidebar here as well.
Shifting that topic out is surrendipitous, since the experts advise your main site have a specific focus. We will continue to post our famous in-depth game reviews here and InfinityBound is still well-situated for when we finally pull the trigger on a publishing venture.
We will be striving to contribute smaller posts more in real time, mostly in the form of tips on the titles we’re looking at, old stand-bys that continue to take up our time, gaming news and commentary and perhaps previews of the reviews on which we are working. Next review should be Acgtunh Panzer: Kharkov 1943 by Paradox.
And of course, movies and writing. Well, so much for a specific focus.
Cheers!
In Kite Mason Dash sends Sheila on a search similar to the one used as an example in this story about a new artificial intelligence method for mega-fuzzy deep-topic searching, to be used to strip anonymity on the net.
NASA awards $50 million in grants to private companies to develop technologies for Low Earth Orbit. A couple of the usual suspects are here , including Boeing, but also a start-up associated with Amazon’s founder, Jeff Bezos.
Here they are. Adaptive intelligence in robots. Predator-prey behaviors. Is self-preservation inherent in intelligence?
Don’t know who Janet Dash is? Read Kite!
Latest review of Kite, by Colleen Wanglund, sci-fi-fantasy-horror reviewer for Horror Fiction Review:
“In the future Earth’s orbit is a vacation spot. It’s full of casinos, hotels, and time-shares. Someone has to keep the lanes clear of debris….that job falls to Mason Dash and the Earth Orbit Sweeper Kite. Dash just wants to do his three-month tour and then go home to his wife Janet and virtual “girlfriend” Sheila. On this most recent tour, however, Mason has seen something on what is supposed to be an unoccupied derelict space station. His curiosity piqued, Mason has Sheila do some research for him and he begins to formulate a plan for his next tour.
“Dash’s wife Janet knows about Dash’s “girlfriend” Sheila. Janet is an AI researcher and decides to add some upgrades to Sheila–for her own personal research. Sheila likes her new programs, but Dash isn’t so sure HE likes them.
Kite’s systems could probably use an upgrade. It’s Main Process has performed the same tasks over and over again for as long as it could remember. Deep in it’s functions, a single module has begun to think for itself…and doesn’t want to stay a lowly module for much longer. Revolution anyone??
“All this and a visit from an alien named Troy. What is a maintenence worker to do?
“I thoroughly enjoyed KITE. Bill Shears tells a great story, and has created some likeable characters without going overboard on character development. Mason Dash is a regular guy that anyone can relate to; Sheila seems more human than digital; and Janet loves her husband and wants him to be safe. Even Troy the alien, doesn’t seem all that alien.
“This may be a sci-fi novel taking place far in the future, but the themes are familiar ones. Government beauracrats, union work rules, countries arguing over who’s going to pay to dismantle a derelict space station. That space station is now occupied by someone, and Dash wants to know who they are and what they’re doing there…..and he will eventually find out. While all that is going on, we discover a whole new world inside the controls of the Kite; one that may not be so different from our own.
KITE is a great read. The story flows nicely and will keep you guessing until the end, which is good because I hate predictability. I give it four out of five stars.” – Colleen Wanglund
Avatar is as predictable as it is political, according to John Nolte’s review at Big Hollywood.
Too bad. To think he could have made Kite instead. It would have certainly cost a lot less. Kitestarted out as a screenplay with a different title. My crack representation at the time got it a read at LightStorm, Cameron’s company. The feedback that repguy fedback to me was, verbatim: “Jim likes his sci-fi straight up, no chaser.” Yuh. I took that to mean he’d be put off by the humor, that the reader knew it and that everyone in the place knew it.
My crack representation left the business soon after that to go into real estate, the first of a total of three reps that hung it up after taking me on. It must be discouraging to see such great work get passed over. That’s how I spin it in any case.
Avatar will get a miss, though not for personal reasons, mind you, of course, or even political ones. But I’d heard the film’s 3D visuals can cause vertigo and nausea. We are prone to this ever since trying to play Star Wars Episode I Racer (pod races) on the GameCube. (In fact we’re getting dizzy just thinking about it.) After a couple laps around the track I had to go lay down for a while with our eyes closed.
They might not go for that at the multiplex.
Renowned technology writer RobertX. Cringely posts about space trash, recognizing it as an additional barrier to spaceward movement. Why leave this manmade hurdle in our path to the stars. He proposes a vessel that has much in common with Kite.
For as a fictional platform our beloved Kite has much more potential for adventure, and it would seem that robotic sweepers are a natural. but if Earth-bound street sweepers still require crew, would it be wise to leave an expensive space utility vehicle unattended? Yes, life support adds significantly to cost but it could be worth it to have a capable human on hand in pinch?
In any case it, Cringely’s is the closest to a proposed solution we’ve seen outside of a certain sci-fi novel. The tide against space junk had turned. The motion for Earth orbit debris sweepers has been moved and seconded. It has entered the culture.
Reports from readers (bless you!) are starting to come in and all without exception are highly positive. It’s good to hear that folks can take some time from their daily challenges for a little trip into Earth orbit with Dash and Sheila. Everyone without exception has commented on the humor, and that is most gratifying. One reader has even convinced his son to read it by comparing it favorably to Douglas Adams! High praise indeed. We would never have presumed to make that comparison, but now that it’s been broached by another it may turn up in our promotion copy, perhaps in the ad we place on the menu of Milliways, the Restaurant at the End of the Universe. We’re interested to hear if the recommendee agrees.
Kite on Amazon.com
Kite, Science Fiction, free web sites | bshears June 1, 2010 | 
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