Tiny Manu #92

Tiny Manu #91

This is not a photo blog #6

It's the cat's meow #123

Tiny Manu #90

Grime City PD News

I've not been writing many comic strips recently. Or, indeed, any. So I've had nothing to post, but I'm pleased to say that Grime City PD has been accepted by the London Short Film Festival.

Hooray.

This may be an old joke, but...

... I've not seen it before.

Ersby's Triangle

Pascal's Triangle is a famous and fascinating piece of mathematical architecture. In its sequences are many interesting patterns that also appear in the mathematics of probability, fractals, and geometry.

One day, I decided to take a closer look at it. In particular, I wanted to find a formula to describe the numbers along each diagonal.

So far, so good. But I came a bit unstuck when I reached the fourth diagonal. At first, I thought I found something to do with the differences between the numbers...

 Eventually, after several false starts I guessed that since the first two numbers in the sequence were 1 and 4 perhaps the answer was something to do with square numbers. Before long, I came up with something else...

The fifth diagonal was also difficult, but when I went back to working only with square numbers, the answer came quite quickly.

I noticed that 1 squared was being multiplied by the following numbers: 1, 1, 2, 2, 3, 3...

This time the multiples of 1 squared were 1, 2, 4, 6, 9... But I was also interested in how the multiples seemed to "move along" the sum because now 2 squared was being multiplied by 1, 1, 2, 2, 3... I wondered if something was going on so, for clarity's sake, I wrote these multiples on a copy of Pascal's triangle, beside the number that each sum belonged to.

This is not a photo blog #5

I went into Badock's Wood this morning, and found that the river had made some Andy Goldsworthy type shapes with fallen leaves.

It's the cat's meow #122

It's the cat's meow #121

Tiny Manu's second book

I've made a compilation of all (or most) of the Tiny Manu strips since the first book. Here it is:

EDIT. Oops, I made a mistake. One of the strips in the book was duplicated on two different pages. Here it is again, amended (and, for whatever reason, slightly smaller):

http://www.mediafire.com/?vwfws0oy9fwqlsv

Tiny Manu #89

The Institute for Knowing Things #8

The Institute for Knowing Things is usually published in the UK magazine The Skeptic, but a couple of days ago I come up with an idea that wouldn't really suit the magazine so here it is.

Tiny Manu pdf

I've been spending a lot of time recently trying to learn InDesign, to update my skill set (or something), so I've not had much time for writing.

On the plus side, though, I've used it to turn the Tiny Manu book into a pdf, now available for download.

http://www.mediafire.com/?pod05gsj91gxwqp

Share and enjoy!

This is not a photo blog #4

Tiny Manu #88

Dog Translucent #20

A lone tree

On the plain stood a lone tree. Tall and slender, its brittle branches stretched into the sky. A man walking by looked at it. In the middle of the day, the shadow was shorter than the tree itself, but when he came back at dusk, the shadow stretched off into the distance. He stood and waited for the sun to sink a little further, and he imagined the shadow finally reaching far enough that it touched the part of the Earth where it was already night.

He thought of night like a liquid, slowly washing across the surface of the planet, and he wondered if, now that he had a shadow that reached into it, if the night doesn't rush in like water into a newly cut channel, drawing it closer to him. He sat down in the shade, resting his back against the the trunk, and thought to himself that this was the earliest part of night. It didn't feel much different. Just a little cooler.

He held out his hand into the pale orange sunlight, and considered that now a small part of his body was still in the previous day while the rest of him had somehow skipped forward to tomorrow.

He drew his hand back and sat upright, cross-legged on the floor. In the dark he felt seperated from the daylight on either side, as if he were looking at the past: the way things were a few hours ago. It seemed distant. Untouchable. Unchangeable. These things he saw now had already occured some time ago.

He sat and waited for night to catch up and cover the rest of the plain, before he stood and walked back to his village.

Tiny Manu #87

Dog Translucent #19

So, after a gap of only sixteen years, I've written another Dog Translucent! Why the reason for this sudden revival? Well, I was thinking about all the recent updates of Sherlock and I wondered if I could jump on the bandwagon in some way, so I started working on a strip called "The Sherlock of Small Things" in which Sherlock solves uninteresting crimes using household hints and tips. While doing a bit of research, I realised I was basically writing another Dog Translucent strip, so Sherlock was dropped and DT proudly reintroduced.

It's the cat's meow #120

Grime City PD World Premier

So last night was the first screening of the sequel to Rocket Science, Grime City PD. I went along to bask in reflected glory, and was very impressed by the finish product. I'm not sure how many people from the animation industry were there - I wouldn't recognise them if they were. Then again, I wouldn't even recognise Nick Park unless he was wearing a bow tie and carrying an Oscar.

It's the cat's meow #119

Finland

Since I'm posting things off the internet today, here's Finland's entry into this year's "World's Scariest Cloud" competition.

http://www.hs.fi/thickbox/video/1135259206031?KeepThis=true

Weird goat-bird hybrid in Scotland

Occasionally I like to look at places on Google Street View at random, and the other day I found myself on a remote country road in north Scotland. In the distance I saw some sheep, so clicked for a closer look, only to find something strange about one of them. One was a goat, but it seemed to have wings. I looked at it for a bit, and even counted the number of legs to make sure it wasn't two animals, one in front of the other. I wonder how much you can expect to pay to eat goat wings...

Sigmund Freud and the analysis of dreams

Tiny Manu #86

It's the cat's meow #118

Tiny Manu #85

A ridiculous goal celebration

This video, on La Repubblica's site, shows an Icelandic team with a particularly detailed and well-thought out goal celebration. The title of the page is "The Most Absurd Way To Celebrate A Goal" and it's difficult to disagree, especially since it was only a penalty!

It's the cat's meow #117

A tiny bit of Tiny Manu

It's the cat's meow #116

Tiny Manu #84

It's the cat's meow #115

This is not a photo blog #3

This is still not a photo blog

Still not writing much, but potato drain is still potatoey.

It's the cat's meow #114

This is not a photo blog

I hardly wrote anything this week. I did, however, find a drain with potatoes in it.

Tiny Manu #83

Thanks to Sam for this joke, and this leads me neatly into saying that the sequel to Rocket Science is completed. The screening of Grime City takes place on the 13th August at the Cube Cinema in Bristol, and I'll be bringing you all the showbiz gossip from the evening.

It's the cat's meow #113

Tiny Manu #82