Variations on the theme of re-birth

Clive Gerada is a Malta-based artist who has just published an exhibition called “Unrealized” on FaceBook

I want to share one of Clive’s pictures from the show here, as it rings a bell for us.  Strikes a familiar note.

Incoming...

Clive Gerada shows in “Unrealized” a series of selectively masked portraits.  His credits hint that he knows all of the characters he has portrayed. His notes say “The bare thought of “Unemployment” has given me the idea of creating a series of 13 “Unfinished” portraits, which resemble the human being when s/he feels unrealized or incompleted, or unable to fulfill his wishes to fulfill himself as a human being.”

My take on this is that Gerada refuses to give in to a spirit of malaise. Rather, he examines the feelings of in-completion by a reckoning based on “I am what I do” or identification of one’s worth being inextricably tied to one’s occupation, job description, etc.

By taking a closer look at the ‘condition’, the artist affirms his own ‘employment’, is the working artist plying his trade in a very public way.

Photo by Natalia

The concept of a figure struggling to free itself from the confines of the medium (the ‘condition’) has been around for a long time. Michaelangelo expressed it vividly in his ‘Slave” sculptures where he shows us the figure struggling to free itself from the inert sculptor’s stone.

The images here struck me personally as a metaphor for starting a new era in one’s life, with blind spots and information gaps that can seem daunting at first.  You have to gather your wits about you and tackle the challenges as they come up.

As with any creative, passionate act, all the effort and energy that goes into the construction of a new web-site can be seen as pushing of the envelope, stretching in all directions to finally arrive at a certain place where you feel fully employed, fully engaged and on fire with enthusiasm!

Making some progress w skyaak.com

Happy to say that we’re making  progress with the all new www.skyaak .com.

There’s still a ways to go yet…and confidentially… we are having so much fun experimenting with all our new toys that we will probably just keep on mashing it up, dialing it in, tweaking and the like.

It could take a little bit to massage it into shape.

So stay posted, it will be rapidly morphing in the coming days.

Royal Flush of Domain Names

Got the exciting news this morning that the domain names for our new skyaak.com site are in the bag. Now we have a Royal Flush to work with. Should be a sweep.

Check the website-in-waiting.

Still shy and blushing in its hatchling status, the ALL NEW skyaak.com will be striking out bold as brass in the coming days, so hang on tight!

Looking at the skyaak logo

A recognizable logo is fundamental in the graphic continuity of brand development.

Skyaak logo is here

Look at an early animated logo  here.

Just visited a cool site that showcases some famous logos (evolving!)

Name that skyaak skyline for free DIY deuce

Brendan w his skyaak model 3 overlooking the distant metropolis of Melbourne skyline.

Name that skyaak sky-line.

Leave a comment w locale id to grab a DIY deuce comp.

Stumped? Enjoy our instant delivery crash-free product disbursement system anytime.

Working it out w GoDaddy @ WordPress

Check the Skyaak R&D sister site. This is strictly an experiment, in a total state of flux.

We are going to use the WordPress platform as a launch pad for the brand new skyaak.com.

WordPress has all the support, plug-ins, CSS, et al to juice up a world-class site.

For example, GoDaddy talks to WordPress. WordPress is a plug-in feature of our spanky new GoDaddy host and by proxy server. So hang on for the ride, folks. This will be fun.

About the Skyaak DIY deuce ‘finger flicker’ advantage

You can just throw your Skyaak DIY deuce exactly like a dart and get pretty good results, or you can introduce the ‘finger flicker’ advantage that increases your torque with less exertion. It’s true. When you place your index finger behind the finger flicker, and flick the unit with your finger just as you toss it you will notice a turbo-boost in the power of the flight. Your deuce will rocket ahead at fast scale-speed. Remember to hold the nose up a bit-about 10 to 15 degrees- above level when you are launching it.

The cool thing is that the more thrust you give it (w the catapult power of your index finger…a built-in atlatl!) the happier it is and the better it flies. You will see that the ring-wing configuration of your Skyaak deuce produces surprising stability. When it spins naturally on its axis, as it is bound to do, the stability is further enhanced.

Which leads one to ponder: does the ring-wing design create its own vortex as it flies that it tends to ride on like a cushion of air, or maybe a lifting energy?

You will witness this phenomenon by experimenting with the DIY deuce. Watch how it flies as you gain expertise.

Any theories or insights into the aerodynamic properties of the Skyaak design that you may have through your hands-on observations would be welcome. Let me know if you have any thoughts about this.

Grab the Skyaak DIY ‘deuce’ model that you can print on regular 8.5″ x 11″ paper, dope with clear tape, customize, cut-out, build and fly for the one-time cost of $2.00. Make a master copy of your download before you cut it out so you can go on to build a whole fleet if you want!

A Scary and Exciting day at Skyaak Ent.

Scary and Exciting!?!

Yesterday (November 13th, 2008) will go down in the books as a banner day here at Skyaak Enterprises. The day started off really great as we were picked up by CoolestGadgets.com. That was quite a rush!

About 150 visitors later, we saw orders for the Skyaak DIY deuce start to appear.

That sounds great, right? Not so fast! Our online vendor, Payloadz, which had worked magnificently up to this point, happened to fizzle out on us to crash and burn. So all of our customers were unable to download the pdf file they had purchased. Not so good, eh?

Well, the upside of this is that everyone who purchased the DIY deuce was presented with our contact info and they all checked in to let us know what was happening. Or NOT happening I should say!

Thankfully, I check my inbox a million times a day so I was on top of the situation. I fired the DIY deuce off to everybody with apologies and best wishes for happy Skyaak-ing! So that was good.

This went on right into the evening. Orders kept coming in and I fielded each and every one of them with a manual response. Phew!

Sooo…I’ve contacted Payloadz and now have a docket in the works. Here’s hoping that we can get to the bottom of this glitch today. I guess their servers were a little backed up. In the meantime, I’ve fulfilled all of the orders and have in the process created good will with all our new customers.

All in all it was a rewarding experience. I got to demonstrate that I am serious about “delivering the goods”, literally!

Open letter to Skyaak Dream Team

I have no shortage of enthusiasm re: skyaak. I know for sure it’s not 1st and foremost about the money, it’s about the passion and the bliss. I know 100% that the skyaak design works.  We’ve proven that time after time. The challenge now, as we all understand only too well, is simply to maximize the design and the materials so we get the best performance possible out of the configuration.

We’ve all seen how the skyaak design seems to correct itself in mid-flight and how it appears to ride on its own self-generated vortex. So we know without a shadow of doubt that we are on to something here that has not yet been fully explored or exploited. A tweak here, a tweak there and we will see more quantum leaps forward in aerodynamic performance.

The reason I can say this is that we’ve already seen it happen, for instance with the addition of the weighted hand-grip for the Model 3. The before and after was a real show. With the addition of the secondary ballast (we’ll call it) the thing snapped to attention, created a much crisper and more muscular trajectory. The same thing happened on a larger scale with the invention of both the spinning throw and more important, the ‘finger flicker’ or atlatl throw.  That was huge. What we have here is a craft that likes speed. The more the better. It is happy to fly in a nice regular arc no matter how fast the scale speed. Its stability is its big strength.

So I feel pretty comfortable predicting that we will see more of these breakthroughs as we carry on w R&D until the hand-thrown model peaks. And then of course it will be time to introduce some power assist so we get to see SUSTAINED flight. With some extra thrust the arc will get longer, and it will obviously stay airborne as long as it has the thrust. That will be a great day!

I guess you all realize that the whole point of current R&D is to create a proof positive that the configuration works, and then future improvements will depend entirely upon our ingenuity!  That’s why it’s so much fun, knowing that we will see the project leapfrog ahead as we continue to think laterally about advancing it.

In the meantime, from what I gather, you all feel this thing has ‘legs’ and is poised to hit the ground running, once it gets the right quality of exposure and is, of course, shepherded along by intelligent marketing/publicity strategies.

There.  That was fun, being a tad philosophical. It’s a natural inclination I guess. I’ve been comfortably co-habitating with skyaak in my cranium for quite some time now, so it’s bound to occasionally spill over as extrapolation, if that makes any sense!

You can grab a Skyaak Model 3, the Canadian ring-wing glider at NewdaVincis.com for just $29.99.

Skyaak DIY deuce from 2-D to 3-D to airborne

Skyaak DIY deuce from 2-D to 3-D to airborne

You can see the 2-D DIY deuce lying flat under the 3-D customized, doped, cut-out and built units on the left.  On the right the DIY deuce is airborne a split second after it’s ‘finger flicked’ by inventor Michael Gaudet.