Biomatrix TV and The Learning Hat 5000

Sorry it's been a while chaps, I've been revising for my finals and am taking them this week. 'You've got exams all week and you're updating the site?' I hear you cry. 'How is this possible??'. My answer is simple, behold the Transhumanist solution to revision I created:

See, you can revise while still having your hands free to write! Amazingness on a stick. I'm wearing my 'Learning Hat 5000' tm now. Are you? (I'm patenting this technology by the way). In other news, while wearing the hat, I have been creating something very special indeed: The Biomatrix TV! Here's a more impressive way of saying it:

Here you can expect to find all sorts of videos uploaded by the Biomatrix on getting stronger, transhumanism, training, inpsiration, martial arts, the mind... you name it. So check it out. To come is a very interesting interview with Arnie I found (on politics!), a documentary about pushing human strength to its limits, and several amazing feats of strength and acrobatics. Currently there's two videos: an instructional training video from Stallone and the trailer for the new Iron Man cartoon (download the theme tune HERE). Where he has no moustache! And just after I grew mine to look more like Tony Stark...

This bombshell lead me to experiment with some looks... Transmoustachism! The first up: Magnum PI:

Then one based on another of my heroes...

I of course mean Chaplin... ahem. So anyway... guess it's back to the old baby-faced look. Anyway that's enough procrastination for today - check out The Biomatrix TV!

Working Out Biomatrix Style!

Help the Biomatrix!

When it comes to the Biomatrix I'm like a proud, over-protective parent. Nothing brings me more joy than getting feedback on articles or seeing people discuss the site on forums etc (I can see you when you do btw... I'm always watching...). Also like a parent I'm always quick to defend the site if I find someone slating it; it's young and vulnerable and easily influenced... Sure I know it's not always spelled correctly but hey who is?

But anyway, with this in mind it's brought me great joy lately to see the website gaining popularity and to find people posting links all around the shop (it's very amusing seeing the phrases people search in Google to get here). They grow up so fast... Only the other day somebody (currently one of my favourite people whoever they are) posted a link to my ambidexterity article on Redit which resulted in an explosion of popularity - we had about 25,000 hits within two days. A very nice surprise indeed and a fairly profitable one at that. More exciting than the money though was seeing people discuss the article on the site and then finding it spread to Wired Magazine and appear on someone elses site as 'Interesting Article of the Week'. I had to choke back a tear...

It's died down a bit now and I'm back to my usual $1 a day (although someone bought Project Superman today too). Yesterday we had just over 300 visitors which is fairly standard. Still though, the last couple of days taught me the potential this site has and helped get the word out there a little bit more. I'm currently coming to the end of my degree and starting to look for a job and a flat. Nothing would please me more than to work on this site full time. Or at least to be able to go semi-professional. And in return I could really focus my energies on the site too and bring more frequent (better spelled) articles to the site. In the future I'd like to give the design a complete overhaul and start bringing in some Web 2.0 features. I'd also like to switch from Lulu to another POD publisher and set up NQR as a legitimate publishing company... More free content and more professional output would be the result of getting more visitors, that and a happier me (very important).

So what I'm basically doing here is begging. It's a new and unprecedented marketing strategy but I'm optimistic it'll work. What we're asking you to do is you to do is to post links to the site on forums, in digg, in redit, in delicious, on Facebook, on your own websites, spread the word among your friends... just generally share the content with as many people as you can. It's cheaky to ask, but if you've enjoyed the content on the site then please do help us out. We'll owe you one! (To make this easier there are now 'Share This' buttons on most articles, press those and select the networking service to get the article to more people with zero effort!)

And in return if you have any questions just drop us a line and we'll answer them right away. We'll print your articles (if they're good) and generate publicity for you and your causes. Just e-mail: editor@the-biomatrix.net

This is your site too and we want you to feel a part of it. Hopefully we can make this thing a hit! In the mean time here's a list of the articles on the site that have proven most popular for whatever reason. Enjoy! And remember, I love you.

Teach Yourself to Become Ambidextrous

Do Digital Drugs Work?

Get Ripped Like Bruce Lee

Sylvester Stallone Training: The Body and Mind of Sylvester Stallone

Who Are the Real Life Superheroes?

Fight Like Batman: The Keysi Fighting method

Vertical Limit: Jump Higher

Characters in the Gym: Which One Are You?

Review: Springbak Speedsoles


Check 'em out! And if you like them, share them... please!!!

Iron Palm - Hurts

Iron Palm is the technique shaolin monks use to break boards etc. It involves conditioning a part of your body (not necessarily the palm) in order to make it nigh-on invulnerable. This can be applied to any part of the body from the hands, to the fists, to the shins, to the head and yes... even to the dick (in a book I recently read there was a monk referred to as 'Monk Dong' who could take kicks to the groin and hang breeze blocks from his Mr Happy...).

Basically by repeatedly bashing up the desired part of your body it begins to grow back tougher until it's pretty rock solid. Over years you end up with clubs on the end of yours arms. I'll hand you over to this delightful Chinese man who'll explain further:

What is the Iron Palm in Kung Fu? -- powered by ExpertVillage.com

Wasn't he lovely? Lovely, but also DEADLY!
Anyway, me being me I decided what my life was lacking was IRON HANDS! Although I chose my knuckles over my palms as a) I have a bad wrist and hitting things with my palm hurts and b) because I need to keep my palms soft for sensual massage. So I began my iron fist training. I'm going to write a full article on it soon but here's how it's going so far:



So not that well... but fear not! For the next stage, after pummelling your hands each day (I'm using a tough leather punching bag with no gloves) is to apply 'Dit Da Jow'. A strange herbal remedy from the East that will sooth and heal them each day. The ingredients for this should you wish to follow in my stead are:

1 bottle of strong vodka, gin or Chinese rice wine
Artemesia (Liu ji nu) - 5g
Borneol (Bingpian) - 1g
Carthamus (Honghua) - 5g
Catechu (Ercha) - 8g
Cinnabar (Zhusha) - 5g
Cirsium (DaJi) - 1g
Dragon's Blood (Xuejie) - 30g
Mastic (Ruxiang) - 5g
Musk (Shexiang) - 1g
Myrrh (Moyao) - 5g
Pinellia (ShengBanXia) - 5g

Sadly I have less Dragon's Blood hanging around the place than I'd hoped... and so after further research I learned I can use Tiger Balm - which I can also make myself woo! Instructions:


'Take a small jar of Vaseline, a small jar of Vicks, cayenne red pepper (it's somewhere in the kitchen on your spice rack) and either dried red chilli peppers (most gourmet stores have them) or red chilli peppers that have already been bottled.
Put the Vaseline in a pot and melt it on the stove at low heat.
Add two or three tablespoons of Vicks--depending on how smelly and mentholly you want it--until that also is melted.
Grind up the red pepper until it's a powder, mix it with the cayenne pepper and add to the melted Vaseline.
While in its liquid state, repour it back into a jar and let cool.'

(Thanks to Kenponet.com for this)

I'm staying at my Mum's this week - she won't be happy when she gets home to find me melting vaseline (she already suspects I'm insane)... ah well.

So basically if you want to BECOME IRON just pick a body part and beat it against a punching bag, tree, bag of sand etc for a few hours each day and apply the Dit Da Jow or Tiger Balm after each session. Who knows how long this is supposed to take... I'll get back to you with the full article shortly. Good luck!