The BioBlog

Compression Learning

2010-08-10T09:52:00.001-07:00

This is really just the nucleus of an idea I've had while I've been writing for a client, but then that's what this BioBlog is really for - for the ideas and experiments that don't quite yet warrant a full article.

Here I'm thinking of learning and memory. Already I use the sheet technique I devised to remember things which means using shorter and shorter hand as your remember things until you can fit everything you need for your exam or speech onto one page. Here the shorter notes trigger the larger memories you've managed to lay down. This is compressing the ideas to the point where there's less to remember.

I also came up with the theory of compressing our language so that we could 'think faster' and do maths faster as we wouldn't have to sound out the large amount of syllables. I was thinking lately you could even write in this massive short hand and use a programme to translate it back. This form of compression then could be related to memory too - we can remember 7 +/- 2 (meaning dumbasses can remember 5 bits of information and smart-arses can remember 9). 'Chunking' information means that you combine two bits to make one bit so there's less to remember. You can't remember '5,6,2,3,4,5,6,7,2' using short term memory, but you can remember '5,623' '4,567' and '2' (or five thousand and twenty three, four thousand and sixty seven and two). So you could do the same with qualitative data. You could turn 'hey guys I'm going out' into '! gys m going ut' or something similar.

How this would work I'm unsure, you would either just shorten the actual words, or somehow 'chunk' them too to create a whole new language system. This thing has to actually be learnable though and come fairly naturally. Things like 'm' instead of 'I'm' would also be contextual to work (you know it means I'm because of the words surrounding it), so it would have it's own rules. But again these seem to be innate. You could even use a coding system such as '!' to mean greating (choosing vocabulary wouldn't matter in terms of productivity and this language would be universal). This could also be used for computer programmes as a better way for them to communicate.

The question of course is how do you go about learning a language to a point where it's natural in your mind if no one else speeks it and you're inventing it? I wonder which language would be the best base language to start on? I'll get to work on this guys and get back to you when I have it figured. Until then asdajkhfa (translation: keep on thinking of different ways to learn stuff and improve yourself and also have a nice day. I'm eating a banana now).

Ninja Reactions

2010-08-09T18:24:00.000-07:00

I've been a bit slow updating the site lately, but in my defence I've been in Paris. By way of apology then and to keep you going for the time being, here is something I pulled out of the archives:

Improving your reactions to almost ninja-like degrees involves two things – training your fast muscle twitch fibres (and converting slow muscle twitch fibres into fast ones) and increasing the speed at which your neurons fire and communicate.

The latter point is like upgrading a computer’s processing speed, and accounts for the lag between your brain sending a signal and your muscle receiving in (and somewhere in between you need to see and interpret the stimuli too). If you can train both these things while finding some way to measure your progress then you will quickly be able to develop lightning reactions that will help you in every aspect of life – from dodging low flying planes, to catching vases that you drop (mostly when no-one is looking), to winning fights.

Firstly, to measure the current state of your reactions you’ll need a friend (you’ve got one of those right?) and ruler. Now get the friend to hold the ruler above your hand by the finger and thumb and then have your hand open around the bottom of the ruler. Get your friend to drop the ruler randomly without warning and see if you can catch it before it falls to the floor. Now measure the distance the ruler travelled which will give you an idea of how quickly you reacted. Do this as you train and you should notice the distance slowly getting smaller as your speed improves.

Another test is to try and grab a coin from a friend’s hand. Get them to stand with their palm open a coin lying in it. Have your hands hanging limply by your sides then try to dart your hand into the palm and steel the coin before they can close their hand at all. This obviously requires significant speed on your part but you should be considerably faster if they aren’t also training. Bruce Lee could do this trick and as an added showy-offy element he would swap the coin for a different one without the other person even realising.

Now to train your fast twitch muscle fibres you need to engage in lots of ‘plyometric’ exercises, which are the kinds that require sudden explosive movements. Reactions generally refer to reactions of the arms, so this is what you need to speed up. Plyometric exercises for the arms include clapping press ups, shadow boxing, or even clapping handstands if you’re truly immense…

This will give you the physical ability you need to be able to dart your hand in reaction to stimuli, but in order to increase the speed of your brain signals you need to improve the transmission of neurotransmitters across the ‘synapses’ (the gaps between neurons). You can do this by simply strengthening the connections through use, or by ‘oiling’ them through the use of various drugs that aid the process. One product that aims to do this is CX717, which is currently being tested for military use with the potential for commercial marketing. Another is interestingly nicotine, though it’s not recommended that you supplement your reactions with nicotine as nicotine is addictive. If you must use it however, steer away from the cancer sticks and instead stick to the healthier options – nicotine gum and nicotine water.

Practicing a specific ability such as catching or blocking will improve the neural network between the stimulus and the response, but this will only be generalised to other activities to an extent. In martial arts, practitioners are taught to constantly repeat the act of blocking an attack in a certain way so that the movement becomes ingrained into their mind and the response becomes automatic and unconscious. This is a state known as ‘no mind’. Train your reactions specifically then in the areas you want to improve through simple repetitions. For general reactions however, just bouncing a ball against a wall and attempting to catch it however will be a great way to increase your general reflexes and response time – particularly if the ball or surface are uneven as this will lead to erratic trajectories forcing you to react quickly and appropriately.

You should also aim to improve your response time to stimuli and your ability to pay attention to images in your peripheral vision. To achieve this you can have a friend attempt to attack you from just out of sight with the objective being to block the attack as soon as it comes into view. Another way to train both this and general reflexes is to use computer games – particularly the simpler 2D ones such as space invaders. Three dimensional flight simulators are also good, and generally the more things there are to dodge and to be aware of the better the brain training. There are actually many games you can find online that are designed specifically for the purpose of testing/improving your reflexes. Another thing that will work well as practice is driving. So play computer games and drive places – now that’s not bad homework!

The final piece of the puzzle is to improve how you react, which means improving your awareness of your own body and your surrounding area. Any physical activity or sport will help you to do this, but a good activity to practice is to find a dripping tap, then attempt to jab your hand between the drops of water without getting wet. Eventually you will be able to dance between the rain drops…

To improve your reactions in the short term you need to be alert and awake. Make sure you’ve had a good night’s sleep and had lots of carbohydrates (creatine may also be useful). Drugs that increase awareness and alertness will also work well, such as caffeine or Guarana. Remove all distractions from your mind so that you’re not thinking about anything other than the environment. Take a second to listen to all of your senses and be aware of the world around you. Feel the wind on your finger tips and listen to the rustling of the trees. Then wait… and REACT! Obviously this only works when you’re expecting you’ll need to react however, truly great reactions come into play when you’re caught off guard. With true ninja-reflexes you’ll be constantly ready…

Build Your Own Dipping Station

2010-07-02T06:45:00.000-07:00

All those people who say that bodyweight training can't build you as much muscle or isn't as challenging as weight lifting clearly have never tried to learn handbalancing. Doing handstands and holding yourself horizontal is the ultimate bodyweight workout, and it's also very fun and look very impressive if you get good at it. As such it follows that a dipping station/parallel bars is the most impressive piece of workout equipment you can own. I realised this, and to help me with my new regime and my goal of the one handed hand stand (my traps and lats burn like hellfire by the way) I decided I needed one.

The thing is, to buy a dipping station almost always means buying a massive thing with a pull up bar on it too which won't fit in most people's homes and is incredibly expensive. Parallel bars meanwhile go for roughly $3,000! Outraged I built my own above (ignore the stupid hair, I'm growing it into a style...). Shown in more detail here:

This bad boy cost me £25 to make as opposed to £100 or £3,000 and it's in my living room where I do handstand pressups every time I go to the kitchen. I can also use it for dips, extending the range of movement on press ups, leg raises and all sorts of other shizzle!

So what is it? It's the remains of a chair! Simply the cushioning has been removed, along with the back and the front bar - both sawn off with a hacksaw. Not any chair will work here - you need one that can take your weight. So it needs to be metal, and the arms and legs should be made from one piece of metal. At the same time you need to stop it splaying so it needs bracing. The bar across the back of this chair connecting the two legs provides this function, but we were concerned the front bar would prove integral and the thing would break without it. Fortunately it seems that the two poles going across the from the back legs to the front provide it with enough stability so look for something like this when choosing your chair.

If you can't find a chair like this then some cabinets also provide sections that could conceiveabley make good dipping stations. Don't be afraid to saw bits off and if necessary to add extra bracing by bolting bars of metal or wood across the bottom.

If you get really stuck then contact me on the forum and maybe I'll build you one. You'll probably have to sign a disclaimer or something though... these things are dangerous!

Built any of your own training equipment? Dicuss it on the forum! http://www.the-biomatrix.net/forum/index.php

The New Regime

2010-06-28T09:08:00.000-07:00

So I've been staying in pretty good shape now for a pretty long time (okay... I've been in damn good shape...). My intention was never to be a 'bodybuilder' though, but to be in overall better condition and my purpose was always more function than aesthetics (I gave up on aesthetics along time ago...) and I worked out so I'd be better at handstands and climbing and martial arts. I invented the 'Power Quotient' so I could measure how strong I was getting at the same time as measuring how fast I was getting and I trained in multiple disciplines. I also started lifting heavier and heavier weights in the gym.

Lately though, as I talked about in my recent article, people seem to be doing incredible things with their bodies that make some of my handstands and stuff look lame. Sure I maybe look a little more buff than those traceurs and break dancers... but as that's not what I'm going for I'm starting to think maybe they've got the higher PQ and that's what I should be doing. I myself have been practicing with handbalancing and similar moves more and more and have found it has a number of strenght and health benefits. It trains balance at the same time as strength and it has countless other uses besides.

Thus I am changing my training routine as an experiment and I thought I'd let you chaps in on it. From now on I will be doing resistance weights training only twice a week - on a Wednesday I will do pecs (because that's when Simon comes round and that's tradition) and on Monday I will do biceps (because Monday literally was just the first day that came into my head). The rest of the time it will be literally just handstands, press ups, pull ups, dips, handstand pressups, inverted press ups and literally any crazy bodyweight exercise I can come up with. The target? By three months I am going to be able to do a one handed hand stand (argh I wish three months wasn't the first amount of time that came into my head just then... that's tough...). I will also stop using protein shakes to try and build a lighter and more ripped physique (my girlfriend will like that too).

Sp with you as my witness... Let's see how this goes!

Deep Heat

2010-06-20T15:16:00.000-07:00

Deep heat is a product designed for muscle pains and aches. It causes the muscle to relax and gives you a feeling of 'deep heat' and a numb sensation. I know what you're thinking… A numb sensation that could maybe be used to power through workouts?? Thinking the same my gym buddy and I put it on and waited for our muscles to go numb and then the workout began. It could be a revolutionary way to train, a great way to power through the burn and to push your body past the limit… A bodybuilding supplement in sheep's clothing (sheep that dress like toothpaste tubes…). Here are the results of our experiment:

Don't bother, it doesn't do anything.

There you have it! Yet another triumph from the Biolab!

Gym Review: Muscle Beach

2010-05-27T20:45:00.000-07:00

Having been lucky enough to get to sample a workout at Muscle Beach last week, I thought it was only fair that I share the experience with my fellow readers. It almost seems like sacrilege to review what’s perhaps the most famous gym in the world, but here at the Biomatrix we believe in treating everyone, and every gym, equally. No one get’s special treatment, and so I put this beacon of fitness to the test like any other and asked the ultimate question: is it better than Stokewood Road?
Well actually, while Stokewood road is just my old quaint little gym down the road, in many ways Muscle Beach isn’t actually any better. Okay so it has slightly more pieces of equipment, but then Stokewood road is really lacking in that department (I defend it more out of loyalty than anything). The point is that compared to most decent gyms you’ll go to these days, Muscle Beach doesn’t really have much at all. To summarise they have one of every piece of equipment – so just like any other gym you can expect to queue for the bench press. Half of the stuff they did have while I was there was also wrapped in cellophane – i.e. they hadn’t bothered to unwrap it. And that includes the bench press – it’s wrapped in cellophane in the most boiling heat in the world. They also don’t have any CV machines at all.

But then I kind of like that. This is for bodybuilders after all – not overweight middle aged guys. This is for people who are serious about working out and who don’t care that they’re doing it with minimal equipment. Hell, we could get a workout out of a pile of scrap (in Stallone’s case literally). This is bodybuilding as it should be – down and dirty and covered in sweat.

So Muscle Beach is not a health club, it’s dungeon. Except it’s also for people who are very vain, because unlike most dungeons this one isn’t underground; in fact it’s in the middle of the road with no walls and no ceilings meaning that everyone who guys by gets to stare at you while you do your workout. And in Venice Beach lots of people will go past no matter what time of day it is (and most of them will be very very weird). I was on Holiday in LA and yet tourists were taking photos of me (and Goof) doing a workout as though we were one of the attractions. For lots of people that would be a big turn off, but for proud ‘top off men’ like ourselves this was a good moment. Likewise it will be a good moment for anyone else who is genuinely a bodybuilder, where the idea of the sport is after all pretty much to look good. Again then, this is a place for the hardcore, and if you currently feel a little intimidated by the free weights room in your gym then you just won’t cut the mustard here.
One downside of the open-top policy however was the sun, and after a few sets and reps Goof and I found ourselves close to passing out. Locals I’m sure will be used to this, but even then it’s taxing. But again it’s hardcore, and at the same time it’ll sweat the fat off of you. Our workout then was slightly slowed, marred by the sun, lack of available bench press and Goof’s bad wrist. Still though it was an event and it was certainly inspiring working out by the beach in front of onlookers. More inspiring still were the photos on the wall, the names of bodybuilding legends such as ‘Joe Weider’ and ‘Frank Zane’ immortalised around the outside, and images in my mind of Arnie training there (from Pumping Iron I believe). I feel that if I had regular access to this place then it would have a positive effect on my training and I’d be pushed to train harder. In other words then, this is a gym that subscribes to the ‘less is more’ attitude. It’s a real gym. If you go there expecting that, then you’ll have a great time.

Furthermore it was only $10 for a day pass, which leads me to guess that a year’s pass would be somewhere in the region of $150-$200 (about £90-£130), so it’s definitely affordable. You do away with the swimming pool and Pilates classes and suddenly a gym doesn’t need to break the bank. It was also fairly quiet, though I imagine at weekends that might change.
The best part of the experience possibly for me though was the free bodyweight gym just opposite. This place had ropes dangling from bars, rings for the Iron Cross, stations for dips and everything else you could want. I believe strongly in bodyweight stuff and it’s a lot more impressive to show off with than pumping iron. This facility was still on the beach meanwhile and actually had more stuff than Muscle Beach itself. This leads me to think that perhaps if I lived there I would go to that bit instead for a free and more impressive workout, but that wouldn’t be the case for most people who aren’t so hot on the bodyweight stuff.

The final part of my Muscle Beach experience was trying out the new café they have ‘Muscle Beach Café’ (a clever name). The place it great and gets my special recommendation after they gave Goof and myself the honour of being the first ever customers! Hopefully it’ll be famous some day and we can be smug. We bought Coke.

So that’s that – Muscle Beach = an amazing hardcore gym that despite its fame has not ‘sold out’. However there is an even cooler free gym right next door and I’m pretty sure that that ‘counts’ as Muscle Beach. For other things to do while in LA why not follow in my footsteps and stalk Stallone. I had a nice conversation with his Maid who told me to go away. Oh well…

24 Hours of Productivity

2010-04-23T17:44:00.000-07:00

Okay so I realised that the BioBlog hadn't seen much love lately (I've been moving house - sorry!) and thought it was time for something new - preferably one of the awesome Bodylab experiments where I try something ridiculous such as living on just supplements or working out for 12 hours straight. So I thought long and hard about how to punish my body in new ways until I realised that I actually already had only a few days prior when I attempted to work for 24 hours and maintain a constantly high output of work.

Here's what I do for a living other than running the website - I write articles. Hundreds of articles for websites - usually 7,500-10,000 words' worth in a day - and then get paid for those via PayPal on receipt. I have lots of clients and so in other words the more I write, the more I earn. If I need £10 I work for 30-40 mins and I get it. This then makes it pretty tempting to just always work so that's what I tried to do in order to become rich so I could blow it on geeky Iron Man figurines. At the same time I need the money in order to fund my holidays, because if you think about it being paid for productivity means I don't get paid on holiday or sick leave...

So for 24 hours I attempted to work solidly - typing constantly only taking work and food breaks. I've been trying to find different ways to increase my productivity lately, including having the very helpful Guarana stimulant along with my usual caffeine and writing my own 'exo cortex' programme to help make working more streamlined and in some ways fun (I added Megadrive sound effects to the typing...).

Did I make it? In a word no. What I did find out during this duration is that with a little training you can massively increase what you're capable of outputting. Today I've written about 15,000 words and I have brain energy to spare. At the same time you can really affect you ability to work like this in little ways. For example getting more sleep the night before massively improves your ability, and having just a single can of beer will drastically cause you to be able to write less. Other things that help surprisingly are light and carbs. Interestingly since working on such a high output level I've actually lost weight (in the good way don't worry). Here my training is actually paying off and by increasing focus and thinking speed and building a very transhuman-esque programme I've made myself into a 'word machine' (like War Machine but less cool) and made myself to do a job no one else could really do.

But when you try and do 24 hours it's a different ball game. My mind began to drift so badly that I actually couldn't even form coherent sentences in my own head. As in, instead of saying 'I want to go to bed' I'd think 'I want to... what? Go? I want... bed!'. It was weird and quite creapy and I felt like an animal. I continued writing but at this point I was having to write the first half of a sentence and then come back to it and I was a lot slower than normal.

It was at this point I had to give up because my quality of writing was beginning to be affected to the point where I could no longer really sell it. But I did manage 26,000 words in about 15 hours which is probably not all bad. More to the point though I realised that my brain adapated to this ordeal and could now write much more quickly as a result. Like a marathon you simply have to train for it. Maybe next time I try I will manage 40,000.

So what if corporations stopped pouring money into more and more staff, and they stopped looking into new software and programmes to do the job for them and instead started training themselves and the staff they already have to be able to do there job 40 times faster and more efficiently? They'd massively save on their over heads and they'd have a higher quality of work. Meanwhile software they do purchase should be like my exo cortex (or 'Cortez' as I call him) and designed to work with the individual worker to drastically increase their capabilities and automate the 'boring' formulaic parts of their job. Me? I'm more interested in becoming a one-man corporate machine.

Homeopathy - What it is and Why it Sucks

2010-03-21T11:12:00.000-07:00

I'm the kind of guy who gets a bee in my bonnet. I get really worked up by things and then I'm like a dog with a bone. Homeopathy is one of those things and as I'm constantly asked to write about it for my job it's been grating on me more and more. I have a lifestyle section of the Biomatrix now, and I'm not sure people know enough about how crap it actually is. So I get to rant and Biomatrix readers get to learn not to buy shit. Everyone wins except homeopaths. Who are EVIL.

Homeopathy is a form of alternative medicine. It's not a drug but a whole school of alternative (read as fake) medicine with homeopathic remedies (again remedies tend to actually mean fake) existing for every ailment under the sun. Already alarm bells should be ringing. But when you read that there's 'no evidence to support homeopathy' that's actually the biggest understatement of the year. What these warnings should actually read is that 'there is no possible way that homeopathy is real'. Though even the detractors tend to be too generous to say that so blatantly. The good and high-class sources of information tend to say they're uncertain about the qualities of homeopathy. This is in order to remain 'object'. However, fortunately there is nothing high-class about the Biomatrix (apart from its readers of course); so I can safely say that claiming that homeopathy is bullshit is about as subjective as saying the sky is blue (sorry to offend sky-denialists).

Homeopathy was invented by Samuel Hannemhan - a grade a douche bag. This guy discovered that the medicine used to cure malaria at the time would cause the symptoms of malaria if taken by a healthy patient. He then made the obvious and scientific deduction that this meant that of course all medicine should cause the same effects as the disease it aims to cure. So for example a curry should cure a runny nose because it causes a runny nose. Here's one slight problem with that hypothesis - it would mean that to cure cellulitis you should just rub more of the staphyloccocus virus on your skin (the virus that often causes cellulitis). Here's another problem with that hypothesis - it's bull shit and mental. (It's also worth noting that being a highly trained scientific genius, Samuel (he's not worhty of being referred to by his sirname) decided to not use any ill patients in his studies - possibly because that would be too easy (or because it would instantly disprove his theories)).

Obviously good old Sam (he's not worthy of being referred to by his full first name) realised this to an extent and did to his credit note that most of his proposed medicines would probably kill the patients. So he came up with a great solution - take them out of the medicine. So get this - in homeopathy they add the active agent (the ingredient that does the magic) then literally just take it out again. That's literally what happens. This they call diluting but in actual fact, most of their 'dilutions' are so diluted as to be able to guarantee that not one single particle exists in the final concoction.

They call their dilution 'potency' whereby the highest dilution is the most potent (so the more definite you can be that the thing doesn't work the more likely it is to work). In the highest 'potency' (200c), the claim is that the solution is 10 to the power of −400. What's interesting here is that there aren't even enough atoms in the universe for this to be possible. Dicks.

These cures then are actually just water. But it's okay because they have the 'vital force' of the initial ingredient. This is maybe due to 'water memory' or 'magic' depending on who you ask. Obviously neither is possible - water is simply a combination of hydrogen and oxygen particles so there's no space for memory. Literally it's not possible. Unless... no, no it's not possible.

In fact to prove this theory recently large groups of people decided to 'overdose' publicly on homeopathic remedies eating tonnes of the stuff. Predictably nothing happened. That was probably magic too. Or 'water friendliness'.

So you're just buying water or sugar (or sometimes alcohol) and happily eating it after parting with a lot of money. What's really sick though is that these homeopathic remedies are sold in Boots and other pharmacies along with the other stuff with no warning. Worse is that doctors actually suggest these things. I happily went out and bought some anti-swelling 'medication' recently for my beaten up face on doctor's orders like a good little lab-rat only to find that they were homeopathic. I felt BETRAYED and angry. That doctor is now in a coma...

Worse still though is when homeopaths tell you not to use conventional medicine. Because this 'drives the illness into your internal organs'. This would be fine if they only said that about colds, but no they actually also advise you against listening to conventional medicine for cancer, AIDS, diabetes and every other serious illness under the sun. They actually would have you basically kill yourself so that they can make £30 off of you before you do. Obviously though you believe them because everything is a conspiracy - science and doctors are inately evil while homeopaths are our friends because their drugs aren't free. But such missinformation actually costs lives.

Like all cults, and that's essentially what it is - a widespread cult, homeopathy clings onto completely obsolete facts and preaches over us that we're wrong for listening to reason. Countless studies have gone into the research demonstrating the effects of modern medicine (and the lack of effictiveness of homeopathy) but somehow this very very old nonsense counts as more honest and worthwhile. If anything scientists are too objective and too fair to rant like this. Science literally means 'objectivity' - it has no motive and it's not a 'group'. Old doesn't always mean good man, years of study and tireless research means good. Why would you choose to trust a random hippy over raw data? And if you can't trust that then carry out the tests yourself! Don't affiliate yourself to any group, just research things yourself.

My point is - homeopathy is shit - but also that it is still sneaking into our lives. Honestly you might be wasting money on crap right now. Turn your medicine around and read the back. Look to see if the active agent is near the top and what the percentage is. Look to see if it says '200C' or '100C' etc on it anywhere. If it does throw it out, you're wasting your time. Read the back of everything you take, no matter who recommended it (especially if I recommended it) and research yourself what those ingredients do.

Sorry, sometimes I can be a bit opinionated...

The PocketMod: Quick Productivity Aid

2010-02-15T16:53:00.000-08:00

Want to quickly boost your productivity with just a single bit of paper? Here's how you can have a great, fully functional PDA that weighs under a gram and costs under a pound... By folding a piece of paper very cleverly! Here's the link: http://www.pocketmod.com/v2/ but of course the concept opens up a whole host of ideas. Let us know what you come up with!

A bit of stuff - ooh and traps!

2010-02-08T12:43:00.000-08:00

The site is Bigger, Better and More BLUE and BLACK than ever before! It has all these boxes on it that look like a high tech computer that are like whizzing around… you have to see it. It’s brilliant. The only downside about the new site is that it looks very, very bad on Internet Explorer... I'm not around at the moment but I'll get on it as soon as I'm back. In the meantime - get Firefox you doosh!

As though that wasn’t enough though, there are also new articles on pretty much everything (well not *everything*) and whole new sections on bodybuilding, martial arts, transhumanism, parkour, lifestyle, health and fitness, psychological warfare and productivity. Everything you need to become even more awesome!

Oh yeah, and we’re looking for help from people too. Anything you can contribute articles wise, forum wise etc will be really appreciated! The site has about 500 visitors a day now so if you contribute you’ll be heard (that’s 7,000 dudes a week who’ll read your stuff).

Also please post links on other sites, facebook, twitter etc – it’ll really help out and help the site to grow (this is my job!).

Ooh and add me on Twitter! http://www.twitter.com/NotQuiteReality

Thank a lot guys, I really appreciate it. If you have any questions about your training etc get in touch, I do actually answer! E-mail me with your articles and questions on mousemack@googlemail.com We’re all in this together y’know? (remember that when deciding to post my links on Reddit…)

Keep punching guys!

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Quick Tip:

How to Get Massive Traps:

The traps are the muscles across the main bit of your back at the top, and the ones that poke out either side of your neck. They’re what makes Hugh Jackman look so ripped in Wolverine and what make the guy who isn’t Edward so buff in New Moon (both wolf related… interesting. Traps are the muscles of WOLVES!). They’ll also help improve your bench press and various other moves.

Unfortunately they are largely neglected by the gym-going mainstream. Fools!

The great (splendid!) news is that these muscles tend to respond very well to training, and they grow very quickly. So it only takes a little extra sweat to get them bursting with size and AWESOME POWER.

Chest press, pull overs and a host of other non specific exercises work the traps so you don’t need to do an extra day of training. Instead do an extra morning. That’s right, first thing in the morning on two days a week simply start your day with five sets of shrugs to failure with two dumbbells that are insanely heavy. Follow this up with three sets of upward rows OR shoulder presses. Do this every morning. Drink protein shake. Give it two months. Then pretend you have claws and run around going ‘graaaargh!’. Enjoy, it’s great fun.

A Distraction

2010-01-26T19:31:00.001-08:00

Right so The Biomatrix has been a bit quiet lately. Apologies for that but there's a good reason. The reason being that THE BIOMATRIX 4.1 IS ON THE WAY! Yes soon a site even more awesome will replace the Biomatrix as you know it and be far too awesome for words, and with more awesome extras than you can shake a stick at. But to keep you appeased until then we present a little discourse on 'The Sissy Squat: Squat of Champions'.

The Sissy Squat: Squat of Champions

The sissy squat is a serious misnomer, possibly being a purposeful ironic name in the same sense as you might call a really small guy 'Big Geoff'. The reason for this is that there's really nothing sissy about the sissy squat at all, which is in fact one of the most difficult exercises you're likely to attempt any time soon. Fortunately it also happens to be one of the most effective and one of the most practical to perform without equipment or much space.

The sissy squat is much like the ordinary squat and trains the legs, but the position of it makes the movement so difficult that you won't need any additional weight (though some crazy people still opt to add dumbbells to it). For the sissy squat you see, rather than having your feet placed flat on the ground as you would in an ordinary squat, you are instead on your tip toes with your knees point forwards and your back leaning backwards. The best way to describe it is that you'll look a bit like Neo dodging bullets in the matrix, or as though you're trying to touch your toes. From here you then bend at the knees keeping your back straight as though you were doing the limbo and should feel an intense burning in your quadriceps, hamstrings, glutes and calves. One of the things that makes this so difficult (other than how much muscle power required), is that it can be very hard to balance while performing this move. If you struggle then, support yourself by placing one hand on a surface. Eventually with practice it should become easier - at which point you can introduce dumbbells by holding them in your hands and having them dangle directly down by your sides.

The Experimental 12 Hour Workout

2010-01-04T16:47:00.000-08:00

I originally created this blog with the intention of making it a place where I would describe my various dabblings in supplements, new gym routines, workouts, transhuman techologies, underground training regimes and other bodily experiments. I very nearly called it 'The Bodylab' (cool huh?) but thankfully didn't as I've mostly ended up rambling about nonsense here.
But the time is nigh where I talk about something actual relevant - an experimental 12 hour workout that my current steel-minded gym companion and I attempted. If you're a regular visitor to the site you may have read about Peary Rader's 'One Day Arm Blast'. Here he recommended working on muscle group (the biceps in the case of the article) with a single set at the end of every hour for 12 hours. We decided (fool hardedly), that this was a workout for pussies, and so we amped it up a little - by giving that muscle group (in our case pecs) a full and intense (albeit brief) workout on every hour. For us that full workout was performed on the chest press and consisted of 1 set to failure, then assisted reps - then a 10 second pause - then another set to failure, then more assisted reps... before dropping the weight and repeating. We had the added rule that if you must do 3 assisted reps, but if you managed to do one of those unassisted you then had to continue with the first set before doing the assisted reps again later. In total we dropped the weight twice meaning we did this three times overall - going past failure a minimum of 6 times in a session which took about 15 minutes in total. A great fast way to get your pecs burning on its own.
Then, just as in Peary Weider's arm blast, we would have a source of protein - either usually chicken or protein shake and then massage our titties until the next round. The theory here is sound - by continuously triggering an anabolic state followed by rest and protein we've created a micocosm of a full day's workout for that muscle group. Hyperthetically then the hope was that this would have the same benefit of 12 sessions - 12 or 6 weeks worth of training for most people - and add around half an inch over night.
What we didn't account for was quite how much it would hurt, or how constipated we would become. Nor how we would dread the top of each hour. More than anything this was a psychological challenge and we worried that we were doing more harm than good to our bodies. As we'd work out for nearly half an hour in total between us, then have to mix the shake on top of that, there was rarely time to do anything other than wait terrified like a POW for the next session. Our optimistic hopes of getting a jamming session (we're also a progressive rock band - Samsung calls Wednesdays 'Gym Jams'). Yet, being idiots, we ploughed on towards the final hour (which thanks to some bad organising was at 1am).
When it finished we were exhausted and I personally felt like I'd run the marathon. Obviously it was the next day we were worried about though (and I in particular was worried about my dump the next day after Simon had told me there was sometimes blood in it following too much protein). Surprisingly though, there was not really any severe pain in our pecs the following day (good thing too seeing as I had plans to drive to Southampton and go clubbing all night) and if anything it was my legs that ached. A bit like the bit at the start of Rocky 5 where Rocky says he feels as though something important has broken inside of him then curls up shaking in the shower. Another night's sleep though and we felt fine - and despite not pooing for around 66 hours (a record for me) there was no blood in my stool.
Stupidly we didn't think to measure ourselves before or after the workout, but I definitely at least feel bigger than I was previously and photographs seem to attest to this fact. It may be psychological, but I'd wager there's been at least a quarter of an inch of growth - which is still very impressive.
So was it a success? Maybe. Sort of. But it's really not worth and you'd be an idiot if you thought otherwise. An idiot that I respect.

This is how hard you should be working:

Self MOT

2009-12-14T10:11:00.000-08:00

New Year’s resolutions are rubbish. No one sticks to them, and they generally do very little good. The problem is we should be making resolutions every day and we should be changing concrete useful things about ourselves to make ourselves perform and function more efficiently. The concept of the Resolution is outmoded and outdated. We proudly introduce the Self MOT.

With it coming up to New Year, people will likely be thinking harder about ways they can improve themselves. Normally this means they’ll be planning on quitting smoking, starting a training routine, being more confident, drinking less, going out more, getting a partner, or something else abstract or non-ambitious like that. Here at the Biomatrix.Net however, we’re of the opinion that self-improvement shouldn’t be an annual occasion but something we’re continuously working on. At the same time, we’ve always focussed less on these kinds of superficial changes and more on improving yourself in ways that will take you above your peers. We’re not so interested in improving our hygiene, or our people skills in order to get a girlfriend or a boyfriend. Here at the Biomatrix we’re more interested in improving the size of our biceps so that we can perform fantastic feats of gymnastic ability; learning to leap across chasms, bench giant amounts, think at twice the speed. Finding a girlfriend or a boyfriend, or getting over a social nervousness is a base-level ambition; that’s how you should start off not an ambitious way to improve yourself. If you think about it, it’s that kind of attitude that could have left you feeling unconfident in the first place. Of course work on those things too, but do it all year round, and at the same time work on yourself in more meaningful ways. The success in relationships and business will come as a result of how you now carry yourself and are massively more successful in general. Have some ambition, some self belief, and take yourself up and above the rest. As in don’t just work on your confidence, make yourself faster, smarter and stronger so that you’re naturally more confident. Learn skills, improve your body, improve your mind and set ambitious goals. Shoot for the stars and do it all the time. Furthermore, do this all year round rather than having a half-arsed attempt during the first months of January.

So a good New Year’s resolution for a lot of people is to stop making pansy-ish, lame New Year’s resolutions. Instead you should be setting yourself goals throughout the months and planning ways you can improve yourself and your situation throughout the course of the next few years. What can you change about yourself that will make you perform better, be more productive, be more physically imposing and impressive? How can you achieve these goals over a certain amount of time? I will call the Self MOT. Here you will make a detailed assessment of yourself, and of your achievements and write down notes about anything that’s lacking in either your life, or in your own capabilities. Decide what’s pressing and what isn’t, and look for things you can change about yourself that will change your circumstances and potential. As Jackie Chan says – don’t let your circumstances control you; control your circumstances. It may not be New Year, in fact it probably isn’t as this is going live around the first half of December, but you can start this right away – what’s the point of waiting half a month before you start making positive change?

Take a sheet of paper. Now rate yourself on the following factors and answer the following points:

Strength:

Measurements (biceps, chest etc):

Speed:

Intelligence:

Productivity:

Looks:

Agility:

Knowledge:

Areas of expertise:

Areas lacking:

Emotional Stability/Control:

Happiness:

Health:

Weaknesses:

Skills (list):

Finances:

Assets:

Relationships:

Spare Time:

Areas of concern:

Goals:

Ambitions:

Now fill these out and use the answers on each element to inform your answers in others. For example if you’re not happy then fill in goals and ambitions that will help improve your happiness, and fill out areas of concern that are causing you to be unhappy. Make and answer more items if appropriate.

With this done you should find you can now identify more accurately areas of weakness and problems and faults. So follow this up with a ‘four year plan’ that can help you fix each of these issues. This might involve elements such as increasing the size of your biceps or the strength of your bench press, along with increasing productivity and salary through getting a new job or improving your business. Ensure your larger plans are made up of smaller ones and set targets throughout the year. Spend large amounts of time focussing on problem areas and goals and know that there’s no problem you can’t solve given enough thought, no matter how abstract or how large – even if it takes a few days. You may find you also need to adapt the plan over time, and may choose to ‘internalise it’, so that you can adapt it to changing events without having to write it out. So long as you have a plan, active goals, and are aware of the problems in your life and in your performance; you will be able to keep moving forwards and keep improving to ensure you get the most out of life.

New Stuff at The Biomatrix and Friends

2009-11-24T12:37:00.000-08:00

The Biomatrix as you know, is more than a mere website, it is a living breathing organism. It is in the shape of an octapus too, and like any good organism, it has tendrils which it is now extending throughout the internet. Oh and also... it evolves...

As a result there is now an awesome search bar on the front page bellow the new videos that will enable to you search the biomatrix for related subjects. Want to improve your pecs? Type 'pecs' and press enter. It's brilliant!

But it won't only show you results from the Biomatrix, but the whole of the NQR Network. NQR Network, you repeat irritatingly, what is that? Well it's the new conglomerate of new related sites from the producers of the Biomatrix, and that includes first of all: www.psychological-warfare.com - our brand new website! For everything you need to know about outsmarting your opponents using psychology.

Finally, as though all that wasn't enough you can now follow NQR on Twitter at http://twitter.com/NotQuiteReality

So go and do those things!

Action Hero Song

2009-11-11T17:26:00.000-08:00

If you like the Action Hero advert from Channel Five on the front page of the Biomatrix then good news - you can download the mp3 for free from HERE!

The Expendables Trailer

2009-11-03T07:02:00.000-08:00

Here at the Biomatrix we've been following the Expendables development rather eagerly - it's looking to be one of the most action filled films ever made and represents many of the Biomatrix's priniciples - training to make yourself the best you can be. Stallone's physique for 63 is actually insane, and any film that finally unites Willis, Stallone and Schwarzenegger has to be worth the price of admission.

Can You Survive on JUST Supplements?

2009-11-02T14:26:00.001-08:00

Being a ridiculously big Rocky fan I have the 36 Maffia song from Rocky Balboa on many of my workout playlists. I like to sing along and pretend it's me giving the threats like 'you'll be drinking fried chicken through a crazy straw' etc which helps motivate me during a workout (I always imagined they deserved it though...). As it turned out however it was I who was to end up drinking fried chicken through a crazy straw after getting beaten up in Bournemouth (In my defence though I was drunk, outnumbered and apparently still took an abnormal number of hits to the face seemingly with a knuckle duster without falling over or going unconscious). I literally had fried chicken in one straw and the vegetables in another. The straw wasn't technically a crazy straw but it was crazy in that it was a Halloween straw with a skeleton on it. That's pretty crazy right?? I mean why would a skeleton be on a straw?

So anyway, that wasn't particularly nice and was tough work to suck through a straw. So I moved on to complan. That actually is quite nice - I had the banana one and that's nice anyway. In fact it was just like a protein shake... which got me thinking; why wasn't I having one of those instead? This was the perfect opportunity to get some hyper lean muscle - for Rocky 3 Stallone allegedly lived off just protein shakes and burned toast - why couldn't I? I would turn this unfavourable situation around and make my lack of mouth the catalyst for a great new bodylab experiment - I would live off of just supplements.

Of course though protein shakes only really contain one essential aspect of our diet - that being protein, and as I advise elsewhere on this site you need every aspect of your diet to stay healthy. So I decided that to do this properly I'd need some more supplements and training foods. Namely Berroca - for every vitamin and mineral I wasn't getting from vegetables (and everything my body needed to repair itself), Omega 3 for fats, and Lucozade for energy. I now had my carbs, my minerals and vitamins, essential fatty acids and my proteins. The only thing I was missing here was fibre but of course the prospect of a 'drinkable' fibre doesn't make any sense.

This meant I was getting high concentrated quanities of everything my body needed without anything extra, and all readily available for its biological purpose. As you might imagine then this lead to a rather more ripped physique pretty quickly and surprisingly on this meagre amount I wasn't too hungry either (though my apetite had been somewhat ruined). It doesn't sound healthy, but as a diet it's certainly preferable to the Atkins or some shit like that and I can't see anything immediately wrong with it. For bodybuilders looking to cut before a competition... why not?

At the same time I started to suspect that supplying my body with concentrated vitamin E and protein could help it to heal the scarring and broken bone, and that I could help this with other supplements. For that reason I added GABA to the mix to give myself extra growth hormone that my body could use to heal the wound and added vitamin E cream to my face at the advice of the doctors. Vitamin C I suspect helped fight infection (along with the antibiotics) too.

Oh and I took one other supplement for the swelling 'Arnica'... which is a 'Homeopathic Remedy' - read as bullshit. I can't believe a Nurse recommended it to me, but it's a substance claims to be so diluted by sugar that if there was just one particle in the observable universe it wouldn't be that diulted by all of the others. This only goes to prove a) that it has nothing in it b) that homeopaths are liars and c) you should always research anything before you start taking it - even if it was prescribed to you.

So I got a lot more ripped from this extreme diet, how did the supplements do at helping the healing? Well the Arnica unsurprisingly will have done nothing (my friend purposefully overdosed on them to demonstrate their lack of active ingredients and surprise surprise was fine), but the rest might have. In theory extra protein and growth hormone should have aided the healing and in fact both my cheek bone and my sewn up lip are showing more signs of recovery than the hospital staff predicted... It could be that my weird science worked, or just that I'm magic. Either is possible.

In the future I hope we'll have access to extracellular matrix for healing wounds, which has shown to be able to grow back the tips of fingers. Until then, other transhuman/bodybuilding methods might be able to help. As a way to get super lean fast then eating just supplements works well too; and until I can get KFC in a curly straw that will be my new liquid meals plan.

Report From The Trenches..

2009-10-20T05:44:00.000-07:00

This site is focussed on self improvement with a heavy emphasis on training, and that includes martial arts and combat training. I practice what I preach and so can personally 'road test' what I learn. So how did my training hold up when I was set upon by 4 drugged up thugs?

I'm going to honest... it held up badly. For a rough idea of how badly, yesterday I drank my roast dinner through a straw and today I don't talk; I squeek like Sweep from Sooty and Sweep. So not perfect but in my defence I was rather drunk and the weird thing it I didn't try to fight back, or run, but instead just stood there getting hit in the face. And making what I thought were funny jokes.

So in terms of endurance I did well, and I think they were impressed that it took about seven punches to make me fall over and that I didn't seem to react at all. Thing was that at no point did it hurt, and still doesn't, which meant that rather than run I just stood there saying 'have you hit me? It feels like maybe you did?' followed by 'Stop hitting me!'. I thought it was funny. It wasn't really in retrospect... Kept my honour though...

The thing that annoys me is that I didn't try and fight. If I'd tried I'd almost definitely have still lost (while four were attacking me a lot more were after my friends... who survived scot free damn them!) and maybe have got hurt worse, but I reckon I could have taken two down. Which would have been a much cooler story. This took aboutThe problem was that they gave no warning that they were going to attack like they normally do and caught me completely off guard. After following us the main guy said 'Why you lippin' us?' when I said 'we weren't', I got hit straight in the face. From there I just stood there, for a good two minutes, asking Craig to inspect my eye before getting hit again. And again and again. It wasn't until I went down that my alcohol-addled brain realised it was time to flee and I rolled, yes rolled, away...

Though the extent of the damage may have been partly my fault for innactin. This demonstrates how you can't really prepare for that sort of thing. I couldn't attack him pre-emptively as then I'd have been the first to attack in a situation where he may well have then left us alone, and even getting into a stance could provoke a reaction. If you read my book you'll see the 'step back hands up' technique which would have been very useful. I need to carry that with me everywhere... It also supports my theory that the psychological element is pretty much key in a fight and is the one thing they don't really teach in Martial Arts (being why they're essentially useless). I'll work on it.

At the same time though the real moral of this story is 'get less drunk'. Craig managed to dodge them, and I would have been able to do the same (they were rubbish punches) which would have been great. No matter how good my reactions were normally though they weren't going to work great with that much alcohol in me... So it's key to always be ready. Drinking alcohol is fun, but I should stop at the point where my reactions have become useless.

Anyway what matters now that I'm sober is how I'm going to deal with the situation. I'm seeing it as a learning curve and am going to use the recuperation time to hopefully come back better and work on some new projects. When Green Arrow got beaten to a pulp he went in for training so it wouldn't happen again, when a Saijan gets the crap beaten out of him he comes back stronger, and when Iron Man gets busted he makes a new suit of armour. So that's what I'll be doing, and as I can't eat I'll also be using the time to try surviving on just supplements, you can read how that goes right here. Stay tuned! I'll be back...

Adam Sinicki Disassembled

2009-09-26T09:23:00.000-07:00

When writing the equivalent of a novel a week started to get a little too much for my primitive brain to handle I started to put on my Transhuman cap and start thinking of ways to squeeze every last bit of potential out of my grey matter…

As I write this I am in chilling in Rome with a mug of tea and a bowl of ‘Cao Flakes’ (petali di grano di cocao!). This is far and away however from the pace of life I’ve been experiencing lately however (although a stressful search to find the keys that unlocked my suitcase was more familiar), where I have been working from home to earn a living as a full-time freelance writer.
For anyone who’s ever tried working from will know that it’s harder and more stressful than you might think. Yes you can get up whenever you want and listen to Elo while working if you so choose (or watch Jeremy Kyle), but that’s precisely the problem - you have to be self motivated and highly disciplined all the time. This is even more the case as you get paid for exactly the amount of work you do. If you work in an office for example and you check Facebook, you’re technically still being paid; being paid to check Facebook. If you check Facebook and you’re self employed however, that means you’ll get less work done that day and you’ll have less to sell.
This means that if you work for a regular type of profit you can’t afford to take breaks. At all. I write 3 500 word articles an hour, and I get paid $21 dollars for that. That’s around £11 and that’s what I need to earn to survive. Most people simply wouldn’t want to do that as it requires me to pump out those 3 articles regardless of how tired or distracted I am and with no breaks in between. Those 1,500 words an hour equate to 12,000 words a day and 60,000 words a week - which is roughly the size of a novel (the worst novel in the world but a novel nonetheless). A novel a week. Every week. Then on top of that try to run this website and work on my own projects that will hopefully one day set me free of this crazy vicious cycle. And then I workout, go out with friends, date my girlfriend, keep up with family and house hunt too. So apologies if I’m occasionally slow updating the Biomatrix every now and then…
Perhaps unsurprisingly a novel a week is pretty much reaching the maximum output that my brain is capable of, and interestingly I’ve lately been suffering headaches, stress and fatigue (cool huh?). It’s given me an opportunity to test the maximum capability of my brain. Granted this wasn’t helped by my concussing myself using a makeshift grappling hook which is actually still a cause for concern... Or by my contracting Swine Flu (and still managing to do a workout - huzzah!). It’s meant the last couple of weeks have kind of run parallel to Tony Stark’s again where he’s deleted his mind and slowly losing the plot. I’ve grown my moustache again too…
I’m interested in this for several reasons - firstly because going past the point of comfort is how you go about training - so potentially my brain could start to find this kind of high-intensity writing easy (I’m also learning more than you could ever want to know about plumbing, pest control, various medicines, locksmithing, and gardening). So it’ll be interesting to see whether my productivity starts to go up - if it does it could reach pretty impressive levels. So far I’ve noticed nothing but it‘s early days.
At the same time though it gives me the opportunity to test other ways of increasing that output potential, namely through nootropics and other techniques. Once I reach a certain point procrastination becomes unavoidable. It’s not me just putting off something I no longer want to do; it’s my brain actively being unable to concentrate on one subject matter due to lack of energy. This told me that the first thing I needed to increase was energy and concentration and the best way I knew to do that was with a drug I’ve written about on this site before called Guarana. It’s nothing particularly new and it’s in all of the various energy enhancing sports drinks etc, but taken plain there’s really not much that beats it in my opinion and it makes a great boost about mid-way through my day when I start to lag by just subtle increasing my ability to focus on a single task. Hopefully soon I can look into some of the many other brain enhancers such as modivil - though in the UK these are expensive and hard to come by so there‘s definitely space on the market for something else.
I do also find however that taking my creatine helps, and leaves me just a little less lethargic at the end of the day. I’m not the first to suggest that it has anisotropic properties and it seems that the brain can benefit from the extra energy too. NO2 also helps with blood flow to the brain and helps me feel a little ‘fresher’ if this makes any sense, but don’t take it if you suspect you have a suppressed fracture on your temple… Of course caffeine and bananas are also useful mainstays.
On this site I’ve also long been an advocate of investing in technology to help the cause too and ‘augmenting’ yourself with increased capabilities. So I took my own advice for a change and invested in the ‘Eee PC’, a computer so small that I can work on trains and buses and carry it around easily with me in my beautiful new leather man bag. The laptop screen is only 7” so it really is small enough to tuck away in a bag and to forget it’s even there but at the same time the keyboard is just large enough to type on quickly (roughly my thinking speed actually so there‘s never any reason to pause when typing). This has massively increased my productivity, but also in ways I didn’t expect - such as the fact that the screen is too small to browse the web and so procrastinate and the fact that I can now multitask more easily - even typing articles while using the other computer to chat on MSN.
This further inspired me to find other ways to multitask and make use of the rest of my time. Using hands-free I can easily chat on the phone while typing, but I decided to take this one step further and start dictating articles to my sister while driving. As I often drive to Oxford and Guildford that makes good use of a lot of otherwise wasted hours. I also realised I could go old school and jot notes on a pad to type up when I get back. By carrying a pad of a paper and a pen then I have access to productivity tools even when I can’t take the mini laptop. This means that when I come round to typing my brain gets a rest.
Finally the last productivity ’trick’ is to make sure you get enough sleep. Having tried to write hung over or on minimal sleep I’ve realised just how important that is. Eight hours really is the minimum if you want to get the best performance out of your nonce so check out the article on this site about maximising your sleep.
Obviously the chances are that you won’t need to go to these lengths to push your brain unless you’re some kind of CEO who attends night-school, but it should be interesting nonetheless to see just how much performance you can get out of your neurons and if you do decide to get a little extra tutelage then you’ll be prepared.

The Future is Bespoke, The Future is Free

2009-08-22T06:32:00.001-07:00

Okay, so the title of this article sounds like a bad mobile phone advert, but it seemed the only way to tie this random rant together cohesively. It may not seem at first glance like this is in keeping with the themes of the Biomatrix, but the Biomatrix is about keeping one eye on the future so that you can thrive in that future when it comes. This is exactly what the Biomatrix is about, and it is my personal view of where the future is headed.

I've been thinking of writing this post for a while now, but as usual it was annoyance and aggression that got me round to finally sitting down and writing it. You see I, like you, have recently been enjoying Spotify and all the free music that comes with it (only I've also been recording it using a program that lets you save sound from your computer as mp3 files... which kind of defeats the whole argument I'm about to launch into). Only then in Esquire magazine I read about some twat who calls himself 'The Internet Sherrif'. No one pays this guy, he's instead taken it upon himself to report what he believes to be cases of copyright infringement to authorities and record labels and gets the sites shut down (here's hoping he doesn't find a couple of the sections on my site - get downloading while you can!). Basically then he's no sherrif, but an 'internet busy body' or 'internet snitch'. Full of self importance. I'll find out his address then egg his house... This is the guy mostly responsible for the death of Pirate Bay and now he of course has his sights set on Spotify believing that the artists aren't getting the royalties they're due. 'The days of 'free internet' are coming to an end' is his battle cry.

The truth is however that he couldn't be more wrong. The days of free are in fact only just beginning and soon this will be the all-prevaling business model. Businesses have two choices - adapt or die.
The internet is so large you see that it's impossible to regulate the distribution of free material. Even if a company were to manage however, and stop people downloading their products for free, punters will just jump ship to those that do offer their products for free. We've had a taste of free now and we're going to resent paying for anything from this day onwards. Let's take Spotify as an example. We all have Spotify now, so when they take off the Westlife and the Eminem we're still going to have it. From this point on however we'll only be listening to the bands that are free (which we're constantly reminded about in the clever advertising) and that means that these are the bands that are going to start catching on and the concerts we're going to start going to. The big record labels will die out...
Just look at the Arctic Monkeys. Would they ever have gotten so famous if they charged people to listen to their MySpace page? And where are they now?

The true creative artists are going to carry on making free material which will make the large corporations extinct unless they buck up their ideas pretty quickly. And there's a lot of money to be made from free. I mean, just look at my website. Okay it's not making a lot of money as such, but it's making far more money than it would if I charged a membership fee and all that's from advertising. My mailing list has grown exponentially because I started giving away an e-book for free. Once you have a captive audience there's a lot of money to be made. Why do you think that Facebook hasn't started charging yet?

And this business model of 'free' is one that can be highly profitable for the organisations and individuals that embrace it. Neil Gaiman demonstrated this when he allowed readers to download free copies of his book 'American Gods'. As a result, sales of the book increased massively. I've seen this myself, and giving away free copies of Project Superman the e-book has proven one of the best ways to get people to buy the hard copy.

The thing is that you can only charge for things that are limited or in short demand. Information, music, art, ideas... they're bottomless resources and so to charge for them is really rather immoral. Now technology and websites allow us to share all these things for free or to make them ourselves exactly to specification and the middle man is being cut out more and more.

Look at a website like Shapeways.com, the tagline of this site is '3D printing for everyone'. Essentially, by submitting 3D designs from a programme like Autocad and specifying the materials, you can have your own metalic scuptures, jewelery, even basic mechanical devices and for barely more than the cost of printing. What this results in is a website full to the brim with inovative designs - literally billions of rings, ornaments, vases etc etc - and all far more creative and original than any design that would have to go through a whole bored of directors before it could get approval. Lulu.com - the site that publishes my book Project Superman, is yet another example of giving people the 'tools' of an industry rather than selling pre-made goods. Like Wikipedia has proven - give people the tools they need (and make them free) and they'll do a far more diverse, comprehensive and creative job than ever single organisation could ever do.

And not only do you have millions of unique designs to shop for, but you can also design your very own. Why give your girlfriend a ring you bought from Essentials, that a thousand other people own, when you can make her one from scratch that is entirely her own? This is what the first part of my title refers to - 'the future is bespoke'. Why would you ever buy something that someone else designed, and pay more for the priveledge, when you can have something entirely your own, perfectly designed for you, and at half the price? It's the equivalent of growing your own vegetables and making your own cheese (which as living 'green' becomes more and more popular is only going to increase as well). It's the equivalent of designed and making your own clothes. We no longer live in an age where creativity and industry is something only attainable by an elite few with the know-how; technology and society has evolved to the point where anyone can make practically anything they desire if they put in a little bit of time.

It's easy to see then that as these sites and technologies grow, the market for items that are of a fixed design sold at a high price is only going to dwindle. Of course this share of the market will always exist, but if companies don't start chaging their ways and becoming more flexible and less pricey there are going to be a lot of casualties. People are going to expect their products to be made to spec and largely free. Then they're going to spread them and alter them and unleash them into the open creative community. Everything is going open source which is only natural and reflects the way that we are at once more individual and more communal than current business models assume. It's the ultimate merger of communism and capitalism.

And this model of society and business has truly utopian potential as technology takes it to greater and greater extremes. Transhumanism and nanotechnology represent the future development of this kind of thinking; transhumanism showing how even our genetic code is going open source, how even our own bodies and minds will be bespoke; nanotechnology showing how everything will one day built entirely from scratch - particle by particle and with limitless supply. Both of these are genuine technologies - gene manipulation has already been demonstrated in mice and other animals, and nanotechnology promises to one day allow us to build any material out of the very particles in the atmosphere. In an age where we can alter our bodies, and an age where we can build anything at no expense with limitless supply, what place is there for traditional business and for traditional politics? Already the internet provides an almost limitless source of revenue if you know where to look, that's how I'm managing to work from home. Soon going to work and working for corporations 9-5 will be almost obsolete and it'll seem archaic that we ever did. But then when materials are infinitely available money will be obsolete too.

Of course this is only one possible futre, but I do think it's safe to say that the days of 'free' are not coming to an end. The days of Dinosaurs like the Internet Snitch are what is coming to an overdue end.

Project Superman: Ultimate Edition

2009-08-05T09:33:00.000-07:00

Ahoy there me hearties! Have just finished work on the latest edition of Project Superman, I've added a whole bunch of material from the site and original writing and it's looking pretty hefty now at over 89,000 words and exactly 164 pages! This new version really is the culmination of everything I've been working before and if you want to replicate any of what I've achieved on the site then this is how. It contains advanced and unheard of bodybuilding techniques for ultimate muscle gains in minimal time, strange martial arts techniques, cutting edge technology, groundbreaking psychological research and news from the front line of advanced athletic training - ending with a simple day to day plan that will tap into all of these things to allow you to transform yourself over night. So head here and buy your copy now!

Need more incentive? Check out this impressive list of contents:

6. INTRODUCTION

6. Intro

7. An Overview of the Philosophies of Omni-Training

9. Omni Training

11. The Power Quotient

13. Averages and Records (2009)

14. Real Super Powers

16. Time Division Training

17. Power Positions

19. STRENGTH

19. The Science of Bodybuilding

22. Zero to Hero - 5 Steps to a Bodybuilder's Physique

25. Become an Incredible Hulk

26. Higher Intensity

28. Life is Training

30. The Nature of Training - The Secret They Don't Want You to Know.

30. Improve Your Bench Press

31. 'How can I add an inch to my biceps?' - Join the Arms Race!

33. Get Abs Like Brad Pitt in Fight Club

34. Why and How You Should Squat

34. The Home Legs Workout

36. Training for Symmetry

36. Get Ripped Like Bruce Lee

39. Develop That V Shape

40. Add an Inch of Muscle in Twenty Four Hours

41. Unusual Bodybuilding Methods

43. Train ANYWHERE!

45. Gym Buddies

46. Be Quicker in the Gym

47. Higher Intensity

48. Understanding Nutrition in Bodybuilding

51. Super Foods, Drinks and Recipes for Bodybuilding

54. Which Supplements Do You Need?

55. The Best Supplements Stack for Bodybuilding

58. SPEED

58. Go Faster! Training tips to improve your running speed

59. The Biomechanics of Running

60. Running Training

60. Improve Your Reactions

63. ENDURANCE

63. Improve Your VO2 Max

63. Be An Energizer Bunny – Improve Your Energy Levels

64. Iron Kung Fu – Feel No Pain

66. AGILITY

66. Improve Balance

67. Improve Flexibility

67. Improve Your Jumping Height

69. Basic Parkour/Gymnastics Moves

How to Wall Mount

How to Hurdle

How to Walk on Your Hands

How to Backflip

How to Kipup

77. Parkour: It's Hard on the Bones

80. TECHNIQUE (MARTIAL ARTS)

80. A Brief Introduction to the Martial Arts

82. Mixed Martial Arts: Control the Range

83. Adapting to Your Opponent

84. Finishing Moves

85. Being Stealthy

85. Unlikely Weapons - How to Turn Everyday Objects into Deadly Weapons

86. Blocking

87. The Psychology of Combat

89. Chi? Ki? Qi?

89. Explosive Punching Power

90. Fighting Animals

91. Keysi Fighting Method

92. Bushido, Chivalry, Honour and the Way of the Warrior

94. MIND

94. Brain Plasticity

94. Improve Your Senses

96. Homo-Universalis

100. Change Your Thinking

100. Improve Your Brain Power

102. Double Your Processing Speed and Learn to Speed Read

104. Sports Psychology

107. Crisis Strength – The Mind/Body Link

109. Become a Memory Master

110. Become Ambidextrous

113. NLP

114. Meditation

116. The Best Nootropics (Smart Drugs)

118. The Ultimate Nootropics Stack

120. Binaural Beats and Digital Drugs

122. MISC: HEALTH & LIFESTYLE

122. Mr and Mrs Perfect

123. An Introduction to Vitamins

125. An Introduction to Minerals

126. Polyphasic Sleeping

127. Sleep Like a Baby (but not in a cot): How to Improve the Quality and Quantity of

Your Sleep

129. No Caffeine for a Week

131. New-trition: 5 Quick Diet Fixes

132. Become Immortal - How to Live Forever (or at least not die for a few more years)

137. Goal Setting and Discipline

138. Invest in You

140. Who Are the Real Life Superheroes?

142. How to Make Your Voice Deeper

143. Become Taller

145. TECHNOLOGY (TRANSHUMANISM)

145. What is Transhumanism?

146. More Than Human: Transhumanism, Real Mutants and the Future of Bodybuilding and Sports

148. Transhumanism in the public eye – A Focus Group Study

150. Potential Categories of Transhuman Technologies

152. Augment Yourself

155. EPILOGUE

155. Project Superman and Omni-Training, an Overview

155. The Omni Training Routine – For The Ultimate Power Quotient

156. A Week in the Life of an Omni Trainer

163. And That’s That

164. Credits

Invest in You

2009-07-17T18:34:00.000-07:00

Recently I’ve been working from home, both writing articles for websites and magazines, and also running my own website and small publishing start up from home. That’s a lot of work to be doing if I want to eat and to eventually have time to enjoy life too. While I spend a lot of time working though, I also realise how important it is for me to spend some ‘me’ time. Literally.

In any kind of business, as in life, there are two things you can invest with – time, and money. And in business, as in life, the most important thing to invest in is people. And the most important person – is you. You see whether you’re happy in your job and want to progress, or if you’re not and you’re working towards your own business, a new job or extra qualifications, then you really need to make sure that you’re the best you can be. You need to be better than the competition for that job, or you need to have a fuller understanding of the market and industry. In short you need to be the best, the strongest, the smartest and the best informed.
That’s why when I have a deadline looming, you’ll often find me reading the biography of Richard Branson, Barack Obama, or my personal hero Sylvester Stallone. It’s not idol relaxation – although it is relaxing – it’s inspiring and giving me ideas. That’s why I buy ‘Wired’ magazine, ‘Men’s Health’ and ‘Esquire’ out of my ‘business’ account, as well as a gym membership and various supplements. Role models and inspiration are actually particularly useful, whether you’re the head of a business or the lackey in administration. Either way learn from the greats and keep your finger on the pulse, it’ll keep you at the cutting edge and with the right frame of mind to spot entrepreneurial and business opportunities. It’ll help you make other wise investments and to keep an eye on the future.
If I’m not reading, I might well be in the gym, taking supplements or buying good clothes and equipment. Being fit keeps your mind active, but it also gives you the drive and the determination to succeed in any field. It gives you an air of confidence and makes you more imposing. People will see you and know that you mean business and that you’re capable of setting your mind to something and accomplishing it – which is really what all business is about. You will blow the competition out of the water, you’ll be the complete package.
Furthermore, spending money on nice clothes and accessories/supplies will propel you to success in business and in life. It’s true that you get out of life what you put into it – the more money you put into your appearance and the more you spend on your ability, the more your salary is likely to reflect that. If you take pride in your appearance and accessories – get a good hair cut and a nice pen – then you’ll inspire more confidence in those you’re dealing with. It reflects high standards and ability. I read something interesting just recently, that like spawns like – meaning that you get in life not what you deserve so much as what you’re accustomed to. So if you make yourself accustomed to high standards – high standards will be what you find coming out of life. For example, think about the people in your life – with some you’re careful to be on the top of your game while with others you can relax, indifferent to their opinion. It doesn’t mean you’re a bad guy, it’s natural. If they seem like someone who’s used to being treated with less respect or just not the same admiration because they’ve let themselves go then you will be less concerned with how they see you. Similarly, when thinking of what gift to get someone for Christmas or birthdays you generally spend more on people who are better off. In reality this should actually be the other way around – surely it would be nicer to get something nice for someone who really needs it? And yet we don’t. You see other people will treat you the way you treat you, if you treat yourself well others will follow suit. And you have to respect yourself before others will. So it’s worth investing in you even if it just means better Christmas presents…
If you’ve put time and money into developing every aspect of your game, then you can rely on yourself to perform when necessary. My own personal business model, or it’s more of a maxim really, is do everything yourself. So many individuals and businesses, waste unfathomable amounts of money by hiring unnecessary amounts of staff to perform even the most menial roles, or by outsourcing for a task that they could probably learn themselves. I was tempted to hire someone to programme a website for me the other week as I don’t understand CSS or PHP. But then I had a change of heart – that would probably cost me a couple of hundred quid, which incidentally is pretty much what I earn in a year. But then I had a change of heart and learned CSS and PHP myself – by reading a book then reverse engineering other sites. That took me two days and saved me several hundred pounds. And now whenever I want to invest in a new website I can do the programming myself in a fraction of that time and at no cost. If you’re weak in a certain area, or there’s something you want to do better. Take time out, train, put time in and learn to do it better. Don’t be satisfied with what you’ve got, almost every aspect of yourself can respond to training.
You should also make it my job to be aware of everything that’s happening and upcoming in your field, so that your work can be on the cutting edge and ahead of the competition at all times. Riding the waves of new trends and technologies. Right now I can tell you that made-to-order, consumer designed goods and transhumanism are where my head is at – the future is bespoke.
As well as being fully aware of your field though – be aware of everything in other fields. Combining disparate areas is one of the greatest ways to creativity and originality – and adopting other ideas can help you to succeed too. See what’s working in other industries and try and work out how they can help yours. That’s why I’ve set my home page to Sky News. If you’ve ever seen or read the Watchmen then you might have seen the scene where Ozymandias is sitting watching a giant network of monitors showing every television broadcast in the world at once. A giant wall of sensory information that he uses to identify patterns and trends in the human psyche. Brilliant. And he can catch bullets. See what’s working, or what’s upcoming, give it a unique slant – by simply investing some time into thinking about it – maybe setting side an hour of meditation – then do it. Do it first, do it different or do it best.
More than exercising, reading or buying nice clothes though, you’ll often find me just staring into space thinking. That is possibly the best use of my time I can think of. If you have a specific problem you can set yourself of thinking until you come up with a solution. If you don’t have a problem, what others will write off as ‘daydreaming’ can infact be imagination, creativity, visualisation… and it can lead to a breakthrough. That’s why I’m doing this writing job – so I can invest in my own ideas and be the only person reaping from those rewards. I watch Dragon’s Den and I’m always confused by those people – they have these ideas that they genuinely believe will make them millionaires, but then they give half of the profit to someone else, and half of the control. Why not have a business plan where they can start from scratch, where they can earn enough money a the beginning to invest in themselves?

Investing yourself is one stock that you can control, economic crisis or not. Why invest in a business that could go south at any moment because of bad management when you could invest in a business and a CEO that you can control every facet of. In any crisis you need to put money into the economy for it to recover – and you need to put money into yourself if you’re going to get it back.
If you think about anyone truly successful you’ll see that they are usually in good shape, great public speakers, fully aware of everything that’s currently going on in their field. I recently saw Richard Branson interviewed and was actually really surprised that he was as shy and nervous as he was. He’s a pioneer, a great businessman, an adventurer… he should just spend some time to complete his game and fulfil his potential by becoming a good spokesperson and improving his confidence. (Lol – because Richard Branson really needs to be taking advice from me… still it’s a valid point!). The other month I graduated – a bunch old chancellors and deans marched around the hall at a snail’s pace, doddering around, before speaking uncharismatically for half an hour. These guys are supposed to be ambassadors for the university, they’re supposed to inspire respect. If they want me to respect them they need to earn it. They need to get in the gym!
And of course there’s a chance you could fail if you invest in yourself, that you might end up losing money and time, ending up with nothing. If you do then that’s great – you’ve learned a lesson and increased the challenge. Pick yourself up and try again, taking the lessons you’ve learned and do it again better.
Investing in yourself will help you in your business life, your private life and your love life. Like anything else, you need to put the time and money into yourself get the time and money out. And that’s the best investment you can possibly make.

Introducing: The Statue Technique

2009-07-06T14:50:00.001-07:00

If you head to the main site and find the recent article on 'unusual bodybuilding methods' you'll find some stuff on static contraction, dynamic tension and isometric holds. Anyway, after some thinking and as I'm currently traveling I came to the realisation that you could combine these methods to create a most simple and powerful workout. Here, you press against yourself to get your resistance, contract the muscles you're using as hard as possible, then stop and repeat - it’s that simple. For example, rather than using the pec dec you would push your hands against each other as hard as you can in front of your chest (like the crab pose from bodybuilding). For your biceps you'd try and curl one arm while holding it in place with the other hand; for triceps do the opposite (push downwards). For your abs either sit down or lie down, raise your knees in front of yourself and push against them with your hands generating force by pivoting at your waist and tensing your abs. For quads stand on one foot and hold your other ankle behind you then try and straighten that leg. Instead of a squat just stand on something and push down hard.

Hold each movement for about ten seconds then repeat. Do eight sets of one rep then repeat. It burns right? And no need for any equipment or even any movement! You could literally be training and no one notice. It’s static contraction using your own body as the immovable force. It won’t replace a full workout (though you could probably develop a fairly good physique from these alone) but it will be great for traveling and great for the . I call it ‘The Statue Technique’ – because you don't have to move (like a statue) and you'll end up looking like something carved out of granite by Michaelangelo (except hopefully better hung). Expect a video on YouTube soon!

Training On the Move

2009-06-23T05:56:00.000-07:00

You may be wondering what the relevance of this picture of Optimus Prime is, and I'm glad you asked. In fact though, it has no relevance it just looks awesome and I've just seen the new film. It's brilliant.

Anyway, on to the point of this post. The last week or so I've been in Guildford in the build up to graduating. Unfrotunately though my tenancy has run out in halls, so I'm house surfing and living out of my sister's car (not the most manly vehicle). It's sort of cool and I feel a bit like captain Jack Sparrow or a gypsy, but the problem is that it makes it very hard to train. Luckily I've found some ways around this problem however, and I thought I'd share my experiences.

Exercise wise I'm lucky in that my gym membership hasn't run out yet. So I'm parking up at the side of the road, getting changed in the car then using the gym and showers before coming back. Showering nude with up to eleven other guys isn't great, but sometimes it's the only access to washing I've had. On the day of my graduation I'm looking forward to the prospect of heading to the gym, doing a heavy workout, then emerging from the changing rooms kitted out in my tailored tux. How Bond is that?

Fitting around other people's schedules sometimes however means that I can't always make it to the gym in which case I have other options. Sit ups and press ups for example are acceptible I believe at a friends house so long as you're quiet and you can also use chairs to support your hands and feet giving you an extended range of motion. For CV I've been going for runs which you can do anywhere so long as you have access to a shower afterwards.

Protein is a bit more of problem. I've lived out of my car before while I was visiting on placement and that time I brought a bunch of raw eggs. These cracked and covered my dissertation proposal in yolk, so that's not a good idea as it turns out. This time I've bought myself some sachets of 'Whey to Go', which is foul and crap but probably better than nothing. I've then been attempting to pour this into water bottles; however while standing by the car in strong wind this has occcasionally resulted in a dashboard covered in protein... I'm dead when I return the car.

The only other difficulty is updating the site and writing. This has resulted in late night/early morning sessions at other people's houses, going back onto campus, and occasionally sitting outside random houses and stealing their wireless. Playing with my new Optimus Prime toy while sitting on the side of the road got me some weird looks, but I could totally live like this if my life goes to shit...

Times they are a-changing

2009-06-06T08:58:00.000-07:00

A lot's been happening at the Biomatrix just recently so I think it's time I gave a brief overview of the changes you may not have noticed...

First of all we're giving away a FREE e-book titled 'Men's Lifestyle: The Biomatrix Guide' which you can see below. It's 16,000 pages and all you have to do to get hold of a copy is to visit the homep age and sign up to the newsletter at the top right by typing in your e-mail. As the Biomatrix deals so heavily with the training/psychological/technological side of self improvement we thought it would make sense to publish something on the lifestyle everyday aspect. Check out my awesome lifestyle on the cover as I eat a very big kebab while showing off my weird hat and vest top...

So that's that, but as books and publishing go we all know that Project Superman is really the don. The book's been selling rather well just lately too which is why it's been moved to Amazon.com. So you can now buy it from there, just by clicking HERE. No excuse now not to check it out!

I myself have been writing all sorts of articles to try and fund the site so you keep your eyes peeled for more of my articles finding their way around the net.

Since the site has been around for so long now I thought it might also make sense to recap a few of the more successful articles on the site. If you haven't checked out the following then I suggest you do! Don't make me come over there...

Jacked Like Jackman - Hugh Jackman's Wolverine workout
Sylvester Stallone Training - Stallone's Expendables training
Become Ambidextrous - Does what it says on the tin
The Ethics of Transhumanism - Whether gene doping should be allowed
Who Are the Real Life Superheroes? - About people who actually fight crime
The Home Legs Workout - Bodyweight training for your legs!
Characters in the Gym - Observational humor for those who spend as much time as I do in the gym
Vertical Limit - Jump higher!
Go Faster - And run faster!

There's loads more on the site too so please do look around, enjoy the new layout and if you like it spread the word! Keep punching!

Oh yeah and check out this new video tutorial:

How to Bench Press THE EARTH (Assisted)

2009-05-26T16:14:00.000-07:00

That's right you can bench press the world yourself today with the amazing secrets below. It's not some kind of fantastic protein shake, it's just sound(ish) science and too much spare time. Read on for the story of how two ordinary men discovered how to bench press THE EARTH.

My sister has recently started dating a dude (at least it's a dude I guess) and I wasn't quite sure how to deal with this. While talking to Nathan in the kitchen however we came up with the idea of issuing him 12 Olympian tasks to perform before I gave him my blessing. These include such things as downing a glass of sea water, getting Arnie's signature, bringing me an empty wasp's nest and destroying the moon. One in particular caught my eye however: Bench Pressing the Earth.

This lead us to thinking about how this could actually be accomplished. It's certainly something I'd like to be able to put on my CV and it's definitely something I'd like to be able to say in the pub. So we started thinking...

Our first thought was that it wouldn't actually be that heavy (stay with me) as it would be floating in space. That would mean inertia - no friction - so that the just the tiniest touch would send it travelling forever into the distance.

That's not accounting for gravity however, you see there's the slight issue of the sun... That means that it's kind of on a trajectory and you certainly can't push it through space. You could always destroy the sun...

The other reason that wouldn't work is that there would be nothing to push against and being captured by the Earth's gravity yourself you wouldn't be able to get a good footing. It would be a bit like standing on your own barbell while you did a bench press. So the sun is safe for now.

All is not lost however as according to Nathan when you jump, some believe the Earth actually moves the tiniest billionth of a fraction back towards you as well as vice versa - so you're kind of 'pulling' the Earth every time you jump right?

Since thinking about this idea however I've realised it's definitely bullshit. I mean, what if there's someone jumping on the other side of the world, which there probably definitely is? It can't go in every direction!

But starting to think of gravity as an ally rather than an enemy set me along a different line of though. What if you pushed the Earth in the direction it's already moving? What if you 'helped' it along its orbit around the sun? I realised that if you were to be exactly 'behind' the Earth as it went round then did a press up (or better yet a clapping press up) you might be technically bench pressing the Earth. Asssisted by the sun itself - the ultimate spotter!

At first being a bit simple (as this post clearly attests) I thought this would involve travelling... until I realised that the Earth rotates! Horay! So that means all you have to do is wait until the time that you're facing in the direction that the Earth's rotating. Now if it was a perfect circle that would be 6am (exactly 6am, accounting for your precise position on the globe). But sadly that's not the case... further maths is required. So I'm going away and doing the maths and asking people and shit. Stay tuned. Until then do press ups at 6am and 'kind of' bench press the Earth. For heaven's sake though don't drop it...

*Edit*

Ah you'd probably also have to be 'half way up' the world too on its longitudinal axis - so the equator... Or maybe just slightly higher or lower as the axis is skewed. My brain hurts.
I am going to find the exact time and spot and I am totally going to do this...

3.0 and Spreeder

2009-05-21T11:23:00.000-07:00

The observant of you may have noticed some changes at the Biomatrix.Net, namely: everything. Tired of the jibes of other webmasters who called the site 'not very good' and 'needs a better design', I decided to learn CSS and in 24 hours the Biomatrix 3.0 was born. Harder, better, faster and stronger than the old one. It looks so professional it makes my eyes bleed piss to look at it. I hope it does the same for you.

Sorry that was a little weird, I've just been watching Talladega nights...

There's more cool new stuff on the way too so stay tuned; The Biomatrix is indeed an ongoing project. And as if that wasn't enough both AdamSinicki.com and NotQuiteReality.com are undergoing changes too. The reason for this? I've finished my degree and want to make a go at making a living online. So if you like the site and you have a job for the makers of the Biomatrix.Net, drop me line at editor@the-biomatrix.net. Likewise, feel free to get in touch if you have any feedback or comments about the new site.

In the meantime allow me to introduce a cool online gadget that can enhance your cognitive performance: www.spreeder.com. A recent article on the Biomatrix detailed the basics of speed reading (How to Speed Read), but now with this programme you can actively train yourself to get faster. The site works by flashing text you paste into the box up on the screen at a set wps (words per second) for you to read. So next time you have a large bunch of text try pasting it in and gradually increasing the speed each time you do. Practice makes perfect and it gets the Biomatrix seal of approval! You can set it at litterally any speed (thousands is still legible even though a mere 300 is the default) and can paste any sized text into it. It's also particularly good for rap lyrics (try nod your head). You could even try it with some of my articles, it would save reading them normally...

Kevin Warwick - Real Life Cyborg

2009-05-08T11:01:00.000-07:00

Many people talk about Transhumanism (that's giving people superpowers for those who haven't been paying attention (sort of)) as though it's something speculative that may or may not happen. Here at the Biomatrix we treat it as a lifestyle choice, pointing all the ways in which you can already improve yourself through advanced training or technology (nootropic drugs, bodybuilding, martial arts, jumpsoles, a hat with a pencil stuck to it...). Kevin Warwick however takes this one step further, becoming the first real-life cyborg. Seriously.

So what, you're thinking, he's got like a GPS tracker? Well yes actually he does have something like that, but he's also got much more too - he can control robot arms across continents with his mind, navigate blinfolded and even communicate telepathicaly with his wife who is also part cyborg. And how can he do all this? Through an electrode array of 100 electrodes (25 of which can be accessed at any one time) implanted to interface with his nervous system. This was complicated enough to allow him to control the arm and combined with ultrasonic sensors attached to a baseball cap he achieved extra-sensory vision. His wife had a simpler array which allowed them to send basic signals to each other over an internet connection and as if all that wasn't enough an additional an RFID transmitter implanted earlier allows him to set music and lighting automatically when he enters rooms. I know I go on about this... but he's soooo Tony Stark!

Like so many superhero origin stories, Kevin performed his experiments on himself to avoid putting others at risk, but I suspect he also probably kind of liked the idea of opening doors with his noggin. The purpose for these experiments are mainly to help the blind, or the limbless, but the Transhumanist applications are obvious; an Iron Man suit utilising a neural interface, 360 degree vision, sonar, telepathy ('techlepathy' as some are calling it)... the possibilities are endless and are no longer a thing of science fiction. They are happening now - and the Biomatrix.net will stay at the cutting edge to bring you all the news from the frontline. Stay tuned!

Transhumanism Study Abstract

2009-05-06T10:38:00.000-07:00

ABSTRACT
Transhumanism is a school of thought that promotes the use of new technologies to enhance the human condition mentally and physically. While many papers have been written outlining precisely the arguments for and against transhuman ideals, nothing has been done to establish what the layman’s perception of them might be. This study then used focus group interviews of students to explore their views on such a potentially life-altering concept. Students were chosen as the sample due to their eligibility for transhuman procedures and for practical reason. The focus groups were transcribed and analysed using thematic analysis revealing five major themes relating to prior knowledge, emotional reactions, individual concerns, socioeconomic concerns and moral concerns. Generally participants were found to be against the movement, though some saw it as permissible to certain degrees and under certain circumstances. It is suggested that further work needs to be done to raise awareness of the issue, discover exactly under what circumstances it would be considered permissible and to clarify some of the more cloudy definitions within the subject.

The full study or at least the results section will be available through the site in one form or another shortly so stayed tuned.

(FYI: This picture is from the new Iron Man (Iron Man 2 as some are calling it...) and by the looks of it that's a NEW SUIT!!)

Willies are very funny

2009-05-03T08:21:00.001-07:00

It's been a while since I wrote anything training related or overly useful on this blog - the last post was about a weird hat and my facial hair (though I did link to the Biomatrix TV which is very useful and training related to be fair). Now exams are over however... you're going to have to wait a bit longer.

I'm just writing today because I did something funny and childish on behalf of the Biomatrix; I drew a picture of a dick and got it posted on a big and successful blog. The reason for this? This well-known steroid promoting guy called Anthony Roberts was using an image of mine that I was hosting on his site thus putting a strain on my server. Weird baring in mind he makes a living from what he does and I make 1cent an hour. I told him he could continue to use the image however so long as he linked back to the Biomatrix. He said he was doing it in a week. Predictably it turned out he was lying and so being a mature editor I responded with this:

Loads of people will see that! Awesomeness. In my defence he promotes steroids so he is technically a bad guy. He's like Megatron and I'm like Optimus Prime (I merely look into transhumanism and supplements but advocate natural training mostly see). He also completely doesn't need to be using my webspace which costs me around £70 a year (that's right - so get buying stuff!). Most importantly though, it is very, very funny.

When I worked at Writers' News I constantly had to ass-kiss with people who were being nobs, I partly started the Biomatrix so I could decide the editorial principles and kick ass when necesary. It's bad business but it's fun. Bottom line - don't mess with the Biomatrix.Net! Next week Nathan and I catch out the food theif by putting laxatives in our tea...

Biomatrix TV and The Learning Hat 5000

2009-04-27T08:36:00.000-07:00

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!

2009-04-13T08:47:00.000-07:00

Help the Biomatrix!

2009-04-10T07:58:00.000-07:00

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

2009-04-08T07:02:00.000-07:00

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!

The Biomatrix Lives!

2009-03-14T15:22:00.000-07:00

As an interconnected web of pulsating fitness information, it was only a matter of time before the Biomatrix developed consciousness. Now experts fear that time has come as the Biomatrix has been seen making a stir on Facebook. With both a profile to befriend and a group to join make sure you get on there and add them to take full advantage of the Biomatrix experience! He doesn't have many friends at the moment so please don't make him look like a larry...

Here's his profile: http://arunaurl.com/30m9

and here's the group: http://arunaurl.com/30mb

Oh and in other news, here's a new training video from Sly Stallone:

Project Superman Review

2009-03-03T20:00:00.000-08:00

Project Superman Review
(Review taken from an upcoming issue of Physique magazine)
View the book at: http://stores.lulu.com/nqr

Project Superman is a new book from NQR productions and The Biomatrix.Net that aims to give a brief overview of various training methods to help the reader become a ‘Superman’ (as the title might suggest). Despite this lofty promise however there are no sections on how to fly or become invulnerable… what follows instead is a series of articles on bodybuilding, athletics, parkour, martial arts, brain training and health that together aim to help you become the best you can be. More Batman that Superman then, but definitely a physical specimen of some sort: stronger, faster, smarter, more agile, healthier and tougher than you’ve ever been before.

This makes for a mixed bag of articles ranging from ‘How to Become a Memory Master’ to ‘How to Improve Your Bench’ and ‘Unlikely Weapons’. Each of these articles then provides a brief overview of the respective training method/technique and a basic description on how you can go about using the information in your training or your daily life. If you were to take the time to learn all the techniques described within you could find yourself almost capable of donning a mask and fighting crime, and exponentially increasing your theoretical ‘Power Quotient’ (explained in the book). Here are some top picks from the abilities explained:

Be Quicker in the Gym
Become Ambidextrous
NLP
Train Anywhere
Which Supplements Do You Need?
Can I Get Taller?
Improve Your Jumping Height
Train for Symmetry
Improve Your Senses
How to Backflip
Explosive Punching Power
Super-foods for Bodybuilding

Among many others…

While there are all these different sections however, the bulk of the book remains without a doubt the bodybuilding section which covers everything you need to know to get massive and/or ripped - including the unique new ‘Time Division’ training devised especially for this book. Meanwhile pieces such as ‘Characters in the Gym’ will make any bodybuilder smile.
On top of all this is an interesting section at the end that offers a detailed look into ‘Transhumanism’ - a movement that advocates the use of technology to improve the human condition. Of particular interest to bodybuilders are the gene-doping experiments that have been completed on mice that result in permanent extra muscle. Could this be the future of bodybuilding?
The book is informative and interesting while remaining light-hearted and fun, never coming across as preachy, condescending and always being realistic and honest when discussing supplements or alternative subjects such as ‘Chi’ or meditation. No matter what your goals are you’ll pick up something new that you can use in your training and chances are it’ll make you re-think the entire way you go about your conditioning as you realise there’s no aspect of yourself that can’t be improved.
At 122 pages, Project Superman is a veritable tomb of training methods (including some unusual and extreme techniques) for those who want to take their physical conditioning to the next level. It’s the only place you’ll find such a diverse and well-researched selection of ways to train. Prepare to become you, only more so.

Up, up and away!

Project Superman costs £10 (or £5 to download the PDF). To view and purchase the book online visit: http://stores.lulu.com/nqr

The Search is ON: The Ultimate MAN Competition

2009-02-28T05:23:00.000-08:00

In Rocky 3 Thunderlips (see left) made the fairly bold claim tha he was 'The Ultimate Male'. That was briefly before Sly put him in his place...

Still, whether he was or not, chances are that Hulk Hogan is no longer quite the Ultimate Male and that's why we at The Biomatrix have decided to begin the hunt for a new king... The Ultimate MAN.

Based on the Man Points laws set down by Adam Sinicki and Nathan Wallace (2007) one man must stand out above all others. Think it could be you? If you think you have what it takes then you could find yourself officially crowned 'Ultimate Man 2009' by April 10 on The-Biomatrix.Net, this blog and the Man Points group on Facebook. You will be the man that all other men defer to, a living legend... like the Fonz, or Chuck Norris, or Elvis (technically a dead legend...). And on top of that you'll win a free signed copy of the book Project Superman, currently going for £16.68 (check it out here: http://stores.lulu.com/nqr) and a laminated certificate proving your status as Ultimate Man. Oh and of course, 1,000,000,000 Man Points (you get 10 just for entering).

All you have to do is head on over to the Biomatrix forum (http://www.the-biomatrix.net/forum.htm) and reply to the thread named 'Ultaimte MAN Competition'. Here you must write 100-500 words on why you think you should be crowned the Ultimate Man 2009. Make sure to include your e-mail and if you've won we'll get in touch for more details. Look around the site (www.the-biomatrix.net) a bit first and the Facebook group to get some inspiration. Remember, these are some things that will earn you Man Points:

• Completing a Rocky Marathon: +50
• Punching someone: + 2 points
• Punching someone much bigger than you: + 5 points
• Head-butting someone: + 7 points
• Playing a riff on an electric guitar: + 3
• Downing a drink: + 3 points
• Running a mile: + 8 points
• Downing petrol: + 7 points
• Climbing something high: + 5
• Shouting really loud and beating your chest: + 2
• Wrestling a lion: + 20
• Setting fire to some money: + 5
• Smoking a cigar: + 2
• Swallowing a live snake: + 30
• Sex: + 8 points
• Swearing: + 1
• Swearing at your boss: + 4
• Swearing at the queen: + 10
• Being aloof: + 2
• 3-some(two girls): + 30 points
• Visiting the-biomatrix.net: + 5
• Lifting something really heavy: + 5
• Doing a massive shit: + 3
• Pushing yourself to the limit! + 9
• Exploding something: + 20
• Winning any kind of competition: +5
• Being on fire and not even caring: + 30
• Driving: + 2
• Riding a motor bike: + 3
• Being involved in a high-speed car chase: + 20
• Punching through a steel-enforced brick wall: + 50
• Being topless: + 1
• Eating raw eggs: + 1
• Eating raw meat: + 2
• Watching action films: + 2
• Not revising for an exam: +2
• Completing a centurion or a 24 can challenge: +15
• Starting a fight with Chuck Norris: +4,000
• Climbing a mountain: +100
• Drinking Stella: +10
• Playing rugby: + 5
• Drinking till you throw up then continuing: + 5 (only if you drink more than 15 pints before you laugh at the carpet.)
• Getting banned for life from a club: +5
• Trying to get back in 5 mins later: + 2
• Wearing Brut: + 2
• Driving with your eyes close: + 8
• Walking out of an explosion unharmed: + 25
• Melting stuff: + 3
• Starting a fight with Jack Bauer: +50
• Completing the Tough Guy Challenge: +100
• Hunting + 10
• Winning a fight with Chuck Norris: + 1,000,000,000 (Because its impossible)
• Being able to pop open a bra by looking at it + 50
• Sleeping with a gun under your pillow: +10
• Sleeping with a pillow under your gun: +100
• Biting a priest: +5
• Getting a Blow job whilst driving: +30
• Clearing a room with a fart... 20 points - 25 if you successfully blame it on someone else, but 30 for admitting it.

Entry is completely free so no excuses! You have until April 10th... may the best MAN win!

Stallone = Awesome

2009-02-27T11:32:00.000-08:00

The Biomatrix is a site that praises those who take their training to new heights - those who don't just want to be healthy but instead want to be something more. Those who want to push their body to the limit and expand beyond their boundaries (to use our current slogan). Sylvester Stallone is examplary in that domain though his work in sculpting his body is often under-appreciated.

At his peak during filming for Rambo 3 he reached a ridiculously low 2.8% bodyfat. As far as I'm aware that's lower than Bruce Lee - as far as I'm aware that's lower than any bodybuilder. It's certainly worthy of more adulation that he receives in those circles.

Well now he's once again trailblazing into uncharted training teritory. This is truly pionearing new heights of physical excellence and I hope he finally gets the credit he deserves. Look at the photograph below. Drink it in; that's Sly preparing for his new film: The Expendables.

Yes that's right, a new film. In this photo he's 62 years old! It's widely speculated infact that Stallone will NEVER DIE. Seriously, I've never seen anything like it. Most people in their 20s can't get close to a physique like this. Stallone's sheer determination and will power has once again seen him achieve unheard of levels of fitness for his age. He's a great role model for anyone over 50 who thinks they're over the hill, as well as anyone else who has a goal or ambition. This photo is also a fairly good advert for HGH use in over-60's. Stallone is on record advocating its use as a way to turn back the clock and a recent feature in Esquire has reported similar things. Sure it has some dodgy side-effects but at that age who really cares about the long run? If they haven't invented anything better by the time I'm that age I know I'll be using it. It's certainly safer than steroids and it's refreshing that Sly actually admits that he's sought outside help from chemistry. It means you feel you can trust him when he says he's roid free.

Oh and that Expendables film... get this cast: Slyvester Stallone, Jason Statham, Jet Li, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Mickey Rourke, Dolph Ludgren, Randy Couture, David Zayas, Robert Knepper, Danny Trejo, Eric Roberts and Forest Whitaker. That's one hell of an action orgy... and apparently Jet Li will get to fight Dolph Ludgren. That's incidentally what my wet dreams essentially look like... I'm comfortable enough in my sexuality to admit that. And with names like 'Lee Christmas' and 'Hale Caesar' you just know it's going to be awesomely cheesey. I am so gay for Sly right now...

This blog will keep you updated on his movements. For more on Sly read my recent article on 'Sylvester Stallone's Training'.

Doh!

2009-02-26T14:21:00.000-08:00

Dang nabbit! Always double check Youtube videos before you post them... over three hundred people now think The Biomatrix is run by a bunch of illiterate morons (not the image I'm trying to project). Power = Feedome...?? Imagine if William Wallace had made that mistake... And now it's earned a high ranking it would be destructive for me to upload a replacement. Oh well, a fixed version will be available to download from the site within the next couple of days...

Edit: Garrgh! And 'opponent' too!! Yeesh! Don't work past 3am guys...

Expand Beyond Your Boundaries

2009-02-20T12:14:00.001-08:00

Consciousness

2009-02-13T16:07:00.000-08:00

For a recent psychology essay I had the rather unreasonable task of answering a question on the nature of consciousness. Is that really fair? That I should have to solve life's greatest riddle for something like 2% of my undergratuate degree?
Well turning a negative into a positive I realised that the essay would possibly be of interest to readers of the the Biomatrix, particularly with its relevance to consciousness uploads. So read on and enjoy but don't expect to find any of the usual whimsy. Think that's heavy going? Try writing the bloody thing.

Is consciousness distinct from the biological function of the brain?

There are several theories on the nature of consciousness, most of which can be categorized as dualist or monist (cited in Velmans, 2000). Dualist theories of consciousness state that it is something separate from, or additional to, the basic workings of the brain and physical phenomena in general. Concepts such as a ‘soul’ or ‘spirit’ are examples of dualistic beliefs. Meanwhile, monism states that there is only one type of substance, with materialists maintaining that this one substance is the physical world we see around us, and that consciousness is tied to the physical workings of the brain. By this reasoning consciousness is no different from any other physical phenomena. There is some evidence and many theories supporting both these camps and currently no widely accepted explanation for how consciousness arises or what exactly it is. This essay will examine arguments both for and against the idea of consciousness as distinct from the functioning of the brain.

The philosopher Rene Descartes (famous for the quote ‘Cogito, ergo sum – I think therefore I am’) was one of the first philosophers to analyse the nature of consciousness in a rational way (cited in Revonsonsuo & Kamppinen, 1994). Here he reasoned that consciousness was separate from the material world as firstly, unlike consciousness, other objects are unable to think or make decisions, and secondly, unlike other objects, it is not possible to describe the properties of consciousness/a thought – for example its location or size (you can’t for example say what colour your ideas are). This offered early support for dualism and gave rise to the school of thought known as ‘Cartesian dualism’ where the physical world is characterised by its extension in space, by which definition consciousness must be something else non-physical. Many religions consider this nonphysical substance to be a ‘soul’ or ‘spirit’.
The belief that humans have a spirit or soul is known as ‘substance dualism’, where consciousness is entirely separate from the body and so in theory could exist independently (cited in Velmans, 2000). This is the stance taken up by many religions such as Christianity where it is believed we have a separate soul that can survive even after the physical death of our bodies to live on in ‘hell’ or ‘heaven’. Incidences of out of body experiences (OBEs) and near death experiences (NDEs) have been taken as evidence supporting substance dualism. An OBE is characterised by a sensation in which an individual feels that they are somehow ‘floating’ out of their body. Sometimes they may claim to be able to see things from a different angle as a result, or even to be able to ‘travel’ in this spirit form while their bodies remain static.
Studies looking into the ability of patients to remotely view pieces of paper etc during out of body experiences have proven inconclusive however leading many such as Susan Blackmore (1998) to claim that nothing actually leaves the body during such experiences. Much like sleep paralysis or dreams, OBEs or NDEs could be caused by unusual activity in the brain. This is seemingly supported by studies that show that OBEs can be purposefully induced in patients (Blanke & Thut, 2007). In particular this has been achieved by magnetically stimulating the temporal lobes of the brain which are known to be related to visuo-spatial awareness, multi-sensory integration and self awareness.

On the other hand, reducing consciousness to the physical activity of the brain (materialism) is a form of ‘reductionism’; the act of reducing phenomenon to their most fundamental aspects. In the philosophy of mind this school of materialism is known as ‘type-identity theory’, where simply: brain state A results in conscious experience B. Here experiences are caused simply by the firing of neurons with specific neurons corresponding to specific sensations. This is seemingly supported by studies where patients’ exposed brains have been stimulated by electrodes resulting in their reporting a variety of subjective experiences including vivid flashbacks (Penfield & Perot, 1963). Further, studies using split brain patients (where the corpus callosum and other connective tissue between the brain’s hemispheres has been severed) has shown dissociation of awareness. For example when shown two words, one in each visual field, they are found to only be capable of reporting those in the right visual field – presumably as the left hemisphere is both responsible for the right visual field and, critically, speech (cited in Revonsonsuo & Kamppinen, 1994). This has been interpreted in a variety of ways; as there being two separate streams of consciousness – one for each hemisphere (Sperry, 1984), or as there being just one – that of the vocal left hemisphere (Gazzaniga et al, 1977). One philosopher, Puccetti (1988), went as far as to claim that we all constantly have two simultaneous consciousnesses but that it only becomes evident under such circumstances.
Regardless, these studies and others focusing on various other forms of brain damage, seem to support the idea that consciousness is inextricably tied to the functioning of the brain. If consciousness truly is simply a function of the brain, then it should be possible for neuroscientists to pinpoint its location and many have tried. Some psychologists have equated consciousness simply to language (Julian Jaynes, 1976), which would suggest that it is seated in the left-hemisphere where language is located (which interestingly concurs with Gazzaniga’s explanation of the split brain patients). Critics of this theory however point out that animals, and even some non-speaking humans (such as feral children or deaf/dumb patients) appear conscious without the need for language. While it is hard to imagine thought without language, it certainly need not be present for ‘choice’ to occur (the ‘intentionality’ aspect of consciousness (Brentano, 1995)) which seems to be a fundamental aspect of what we consider consciousness to be.
Much of our higher brain function, such as language and cognition, seems to be handled by our pre-frontal cortex with the more menial tasks such as breathing being left to our brain stems (cited in Pinel, 2006). It is certainly possible therefore to presume that consciousness might be generated within the frontal areas of the brain and many legion studies seem to support this idea. For example patients in persistent vegetative states exhibit less activity in the cortex, and furthermore this is often as a result of a severance between the cortex and brain stem.
This idea also seems to make sense from an evolutionary standpoint, with more basic organisms having no or small underdeveloped prefrontal cortexes. However is this then to say that they are without consciousness? The danger here is that we mistake intelligence for consciousness. Another popular argument is that consciousness is actually the result of various brain areas functioning in unison and that it can not be isolated to one region (John, 2001).
One criticism for type-identity theory in general however is ‘multiple realisability’, put forward by Hilary Putnam (1967), which points out that while two people or even creatures of different species can have a common subjective experience, such as pain, it is unlikely that this always correlates to the exact same brain state - suggesting that something more must be at play. Token-identity theory however side steps this problem by stipulating that a single instance of a nerve firing correlates only with a single instance of experience as opposed to a more universal correlation.
Steven Sevush (2002) proposed another interesting recent theory that attempts to locate consciousness. Sevush argues that rather than being the result of a complex neural network, consciousness could actually exist within single neurons. He claims that what we consider to be our conscious experience is not the result of a single macroscopic mechanism (the brain) but rather of a ‘chorus’ of individually conscious neurons. His support for this comes from examples of single neurons dealing with enough dendritic information to account for the full range of conscious experience. Certainly single celled organisms demonstrate that life can exist within a single cell, so why not consciousness?

In these materialist descriptions consciousness is often viewed as simply an ‘emergent property’ of the brain, a view sometimes referred to as ‘emergent materialism’ (cited in Velmans, 2000). That is to say that consciousness is simply a bi-product of the physical processes of the brain, and so when the brain dies so too does consciousness. By this reasoning two identical brains would also result in two identical consciousnesses, almost reducing the process to that of a highly advanced computer.
One criticism of this theory however is that an ‘emergent’ consciousness cannot explain causality. That is, if consciousness simply arises from the workings of our brain it shouldn’t be able to affect its working; it would be akin to a television program affecting the circuitry of the TV (Goswami, 1995). If consciousness does not affect the brain however, then surely we are not truly in conscious control of our actions? Intuitively this seems unlikely and is another source of criticism for type-identity and token-identity explanations, yet it goes hand in hand with another school of thought known as ‘epiphenomalism’.
Epiphenomalism, a term originally coined by Thomas Henry Huxley (1874), claims our conscious control is actually just an ‘illusion’ and that we are not really in command of our actions at all rendering us as simple observers. This has been supported by studies such as those of Libet (1982), where participants were asked to randomly move their hands and then report at what time they made the decision to do so (a clock was in view). What was discovered was that the participants actually exhibited a ‘readiness potential’ (a pattern of activity within the brain that signals the intention to move) prior to the point when they reported making the decision consciously. While the study is interesting, there are several methodological problems, including the fact that it will have taken the participants a certain amount of time to read the time which could explain the ‘lag’.
Parallelism describes these effects differently, by saying that our consciousness and the physical world simply run in parallel with no causality at all between the two (cited in Carter, 2000). This is often explained as the work of God; that God made our consciousness awareness and our actions synchronised to give an impression of free will while allowing for a controlled destiny.
Many object to the idea of parallelism and epiphenomenalism on intuitive grounds. Additionally by rendering our consciousness impotent in this way, such theories call into question the purpose of having consciousness at all; for if we are not in control of our actions then what is the point of being aware? Certainly if we have no influence on our behaviour there doesn’t seem to be any survival value for it, which would make it unlikely that it would be a result of natural selection, or even included in the designs of a God. It also calls into question what it is exactly that Christians claim goes to heaven after we die; a spirit devoid of free will whose actions are dictated by God?
However when we consider the amount we can achieve without consciousness – driving a car, brushing our teeth, or even heading downstairs to make sandwiches in the case of some sleepwalkers – it makes one question even more the purpose of consciousness regardless of its role in directing behaviour.

Property dualism, a sub-branch of emergent materialism, describes the way in which consciousness can arise in a slightly different way by comparing it to phenomenon such as light (cited in Velmans, 2000). Light is notable for the fact that behaves both as a wave and a particle. Similarly heat is actually really just movement at an atomic level. Property dualism claims that similarly, when biological matter is arranged in a certain way, it becomes at once physical and conscious. It is possible then that consciousness is a force as yet not fully understood by physics with characteristics that could result in both the physical process of the brain and the mental phenomenon of consciousness.
Quantum mind theory takes this stance further by explaining consciousness as the result of as-yet not understood quantum mechanics. In Shadows of the Mind (Penrose, 1995) Penrose and his colleague Hameroff suggest that ‘microtubules’ present an environment where quantum mechanics could affect the brain at macroscopic levels. The relationship between consciousness and quantum physics is also demonstrated by the ‘wavefunction collapse’, where simply being aware of a sub-atomic particle has been shown to have an affect on their physical position (cited in Carter, 2002).
Critics of this theory however, point out that such an explanation does not solve anything, but rather simply speculates that two unexplained occurrences may be related. Philosopher David Chalmers (1995) described Quantum mind theory as an example of his ‘law of minimization of mystery’, that its supporters took the view that ‘consciousness is mysterious and quantum mechanics is mysterious, so maybe the two mysteries have a common source.’

Similar to property dualism is ‘dual aspect monism’, which describes all matter as being founded on some form of underlying ‘information’, much as the virtual environment of a computer game is founded at the most basic level on binary code. Here consciousness and physical reality are two aspects of the same substance. The ancient philosopher Plato was actually one of the first to make such a claim stating that underlying all of reality was ‘pure reason’.
Considering the implications of quantum physics then, it is not too great a leap to claim that this underlying ‘information’ might be consciousness itself which some recent theories now suggest (Goswami, 1993). Such a theory, ‘monistic idealism’, results in the rather large claim that the entire universe might be self-aware but could also offer support for the concept of consciousness in single neurons. However, this again falls prey to David Chalmers’ law of minimization of mystery, lumping together two unexplained phenomenon without shedding light on either.
For these reasons ‘new mysterians’ take the bleak view that consciousness is simply too complex a concept for the human mind to grasp, agreeing it seems with Ken Hill, famously quoted as saying that ‘if the brain were simple enough for us to understand it, we would be too simple to understand it.’
Whether consciousness will ever be fully understood is impossible to say. At this point there is still no agreement on whether consciousness is something distinct from the functioning of the brain or whether it is simply a byproduct that serves no real purpose. There are still a host of arguments for both monism and dualism as well as everything in between, with no end to the debate in sight. Currently it seems that an alteration is needed in the way consciousness is viewed, though perhaps compromises such as dual aspect monism or property dualism stand the best chance of providing a solution that might satisfy both camps; maybe it’s possible that consciousness can be at once distinct from our brain function and tied inextricably to its workings.

Why you should be patient and why you should NOT electricute your head...

2009-02-05T18:34:00.000-08:00

The Bio-Blog has been a bit quiet just recently, as has the Biomatrix to be honest. You're probably wondering why this is. Actually you probably aren't, but you're sure as hell going to find out! If you continue reading that is...

Basically I'm working on my dissertation which is eating up most of my time (my personal life has recently seen an awesome development (for once) which is eating up the rest or leaving me yearning and moping around). I've undergone a paradigm shift of late, one so great that I just got Secret Invasion in the post and haven't even read it yet. We live in interesting times...

But stay tuned because as soon as that dissertation is in (Friday 15th at the latest) I will return with a summary or perhaps even the whole thing for you to peruse. Ground breaking research in the field of transhumanism especially for you (and my course)! On top of that I'll be uploading a new galery of bodybuilding with an artistic flaire compliments of my Stinky sister. Trust man, it's going to be cool (just check out the new Biomatrix banner for a taster). This should also make me lots of money by drawing bodybuilders to the site once more.

In the interim I present to you the findings of an interesting Biolab experiment I did a few years back but forgot to report at the time:

While it is true that electrical stimulation of certain areas of the brain can result in strange phenomenon (including vivid flashbacks and seisures) this does NOT mean that you should try and use the conductive pads from your muscle stimulator on your head. Yes it seems like a good idea when you're drunk, but it will only result in you feeling weird and sore for several days. Trust me on this one.

Categories of Transhuman technologies.

2008-12-30T11:17:00.000-08:00

While studying public reactions to Transhumanism for my dissertation I discovered that people viewed the permissability of different elements of Transhumanism very differently. This is when the problems with defining Transhumanism become clear. Is Transhumanism any technology or technique used to design oneself? Is it already among us? Is plastic surgery an example of Transhumanism? Is caffeine? Is training? Is this too many questions? Has it got to the point where it's ridiculous? Has it? Have I? Have you???

In order to help somewhat I propose the following categories for describing various transhuman techniques in terms of the actual procedure and physical cange involved. I have also arranged them roughly in terms of current perceived acceptibility (or my perception of the perception...or something). Please quote me if you wish to use the terms in your own articles:

Repairing - Potentially Transhuman technologies used in a non-transhuman way.

Advanced training/Lifestyle adjusting - Extreme training techniques that go outside the realms of casual fitness such as becoming ambidextrous, calorie restriction, weight lifting or omni training.

Augmenting - A removable attachment that enhances capabilities, such as a hypothetical 'Iron Man' armour or to a lesser extent speedsoles or even a watch.

Boosting - A temporary measure such as caffeine, steroids or non-insertional gene doping.

Embelishing - a permanent or semi-permanent external change that serves no real purpose such as a piercing or tattoo.

Restructuring - rearranging external or internal elements of a human, for example plastic surgery.

Replacing - permanently replacing an organ or limb with something such as bionic legs. Often here the Transhuman aspect might be more of a side affect than the intended purpose of the procedure (intended as a Repairing procedure but resulting in enhancement).

Adding - permanently integrating something additional into the human form such as a brain chip.

Altering - where the actual biological structure of the human is changed, such as when modifying DNA.

Redefining - a change so great that the person is unrecognisable as human, such as a consciousness upload.

Transhumanism Focus Group Take 1

2008-12-13T08:40:00.000-08:00

As some of you may know, for my dissertation I'm doing the 'public perception of Transhumanism' (read as 'Adam's mates talk about Superheroes' - how did I pull that one off???). There are lots of journal articles available on the web that discuss the permissability of Transhuman technologies from a scientific perspective (download a whole zip file of them here: www.the-biomatrix.net/Transhumanism.zip), but there has thus far been nothing on what the general public make of these ideas which is a problem as it is the general public who will get the final say on whether or not they become mainstream. That's where my study and I step in. Interesting stuff.

To achieve this I am using focus groups - semi-structured conversations between 5-8 people - and the first took place last Tuesday. I was pretty nervous about this at first as I'd never done anything like this before. I actually used to be the go-to guy for speeches and presentations at my old sixth form but that all ended in flames when I gave the gaduation speech on 2 hours sleep. Turned out I had my qeue cards in the wrong order. Obvious thing to do in that situation? Read them in the random order I found them in. Could have gone better...

Anyway I woke up at 7am to prepare my handouts and was shitting myself. I decided to OD on caffeine tablets too which may not have been the best idea. Although with my i-Phone, caffeine tablets and springboost shoes and springback speedsoles I was something of a testament to human enhancement myself.

Printing out the handouts in the libray I started dancing to my music though which greatly improved my mood. When I then arrived in 16AD04 and saw the set up with the cameras, recording devices and one-way glass I suddenly went on a power trip that dispersed the last of my nerves. I realised that all this was was a conversation with my mates, except better because everyone had to talk about what I told them to.

So how did it go? Actually it went pretty fantastically and ran over to be twice as long as anticipated (and as I'd promised my participants... :-S). I have literally tonns of data to work with (and to transcribe... joy).

One thing that was clear from the start was that generally no one has heard of Transhumanism. For such a potentially transformative subject (no pun intended), it's suprising how little is known. When asked to speculate as to what Transhumansim was, most people were along the right track (except those who thought it was somehow related to cross-dressing or sex changes... come on guys, why would I be doing my dissertation on that??), and parralells were drawn to science fiction. So far, the general concensus seems to be that Transhumanism isn't cool. As a transhumanist, this is kind of upsetting. Especially as the study might be being published. Am I going to inadvertantly be the guy who puts an end to a movement I've followed with great interest? Am I going to be the guy who pisses all over the great bonfire of Transhumanism?

The objections were varied. One of the issues that was raised was the idea that enhancement technologies ('surplus' advancements as one participant described them), would lead to a greater class divide as only the rich and wealthy gain access to the ability to be faster and smarter. I however pointed out that this was already the case in many ways as the rich afford better cars, computers, clothes, medicine and food. I put it to the group that really Transhumanism was no different. The counter argument for this, which was interesting, was that Transhumanism could be used as a weapon - and that was how it was different. This was a theme that actually came up regularly, along with a general mis-trust of the government and any other powers that might be put in place to regulate the technology. Could this be inspired by science fiction stories of dystopian futures brought about by genetic technology?

Afraid I was becoming the boy who killed Transhumanism, we moved onto the vignettes. Here the group were presented with little hypothetical scenarios in which an individual might turn to Transhuman technologies. Here it was still mostly considered wrong, with participants claiming that it took the struggle out of life and potentially the competition out of sport. If everyone made themselves perfect it was speculated that it could even elliminate individuality. This actually made me think, and I'd read a similar article in a journal. My response was jotted down on my iPhone:

Transhumanism - more instant gratification, no challenge or variation?No, this is when humanity turns to art & other challenges/forms of expression. And supreme individuality will arise from transhumanism for those who want it. Many people are gaining weight thanks partly to computers, but those like myself who value physicslity can still use a gym to attain higher levels of fitness. For the first time our outward image & our physical body will represent exactly what is inside. Like an online avatar. For the first time we will truly be able to excell in any field. For are not our individual weaknesses essentially disabilities? When is abnormal shortness shocking enough that it warrants treatment? Only the individual, with his own dreams, aims & experiences can make this decision.

More evidence that I am completely insane? Yes. I'm not even sure if those are my views, but they certainy offer an interesting counter argument (if I do say so myself). But still there is no doubting that it's an interesting topic and I'm excited to hear the issues raised in future groups. The next one is on Monday and I currently have two participants... shit.

Want to see just how much damage I do to the field? Stay tuned!

Immortality and the economic crisis

2008-11-20T16:26:00.000-08:00

This just in: The economic crisis sucks!

Sure I heard people complaining about it and saying how bad it was for people in finance and banking and the like, but I was pretty sure it wasn't actually going to affect me. I thought it was just another one of those doom and gloom stories like the 'Bird Flu' scare where the media make out the world is ending and we're heading for a post-apocolyptic Terminator style future... but then it turns out to be dissapointingly boring and there are no explosions and I have to carry on doing my work as opposed to wearing a vest and throwing grenades.

I mean everyone would be losing money at the same rate right? Sure you'll get poor but then so will everyone else... Sure the value of your house will drop but then if you buy any others they'll be cheaper too... And then when the economy rights itself again (hopefully thanks to Super-Obama!) everyone will be back to square one. The media weren't helping by scare mongering as that was what was causing the problem in the first place. If only I'd written this article sooner we could have avoided this whole sordid affair... I'm the boy who could have saved the world...
People, here me: there will almost certainly be no explosions and definitely no killer robots. Boring I know. Calm down and buy stuff (preferably my e-book...)

But then the severity of the issue hit home - one of the advertisers on the Biomatrix.net went bankrput and so (understandably) stopped advertising on the site... Shitty Man Nipples...
That's 10 pounds a month I'm losing! That ten pounds was a night out for me here in Surrey, and with Tuna Paste prices soaring I can barely afford to eat. The other day I had to buy Tesco value mayonaise!! It tasted like rabbit sperm!!

Maybe I was hasty in my nonchalance... Maybe the end is infact nigh... Maybe the T-100s are coming... My laptop has actually already started rebelling.

So I am making preparations for the apocalypse. Being the forward thinking transhumanist editor of the Biomatrix.net I of course have a solution... I am creating a free talking avatar!

Bet you didn't see that coming. You see according to Martine Rothblatt, this is the first baby-step toward uploading a consciousness (the eventual goal of many transhumaists).
It's kind of like facebook but with a 3D image of yourself that learns to behave like you do. This actually works better than I expected and your avatar includes a photo of your face and you can talk to the AI (it speaks out loud). It gets some of its information from personality tests you do etc. I wouldn't say mine is indistinguishable from me but it's certainly worth checking out...
Then at the same time you can document your life experiences for all to see... a kind of personal time capsule.

So when the inevitable economic end results in the break down of society, and you die of the resultant bird flu and robot invasion, at least you will live on in a way online. Imortalised in cyberspace. Sure, it's not quite as good as not dying... or even actual mind uploading... but then again it is charming in its own way.

Read a fuller article here: http://www.baltimoresun.com/entertainment/custom/today/bal-to.rothblatt18nov18,0,1422693.story

Or check out the actual thing here: http://www.lifenaut.com/

Well that was a bit of a ramble... I'm in a pretty dark mood today... At least it was kind of topical.

Six rounds with Rocky Balboa

2008-10-29T18:33:00.000-07:00

There's already a Rocky Balboa review on the Biomatrix and I think it's pretty obvious from the content of the rest of the site that generally all things Rocky are to be worshipped. There wasn't much more to say on the matter until recently Nathan and I embarked on a daring project that would help us to see the Rocky films in a whole new way - by watching them back to back in just one day. It was a mammoth undertaking, a fool's errand, but there was no way around it - it had to be done... because otherwise... hmm... it just had to okay? For the motivation the series has offered to bodybuilding, athletes, boxers and others alike I felt it deserved to be watched in its entirety.

Putting in the first disk we were full of energy and raring to go. I had some Newcastle Brown and was looking forward to seeing a film I hadn't seen for quite a while. In my buzzing mood and with gaps in my memory this first installment went down a treat, even more so than on previous occasions. This film more than any other really shows how truly under-appreciated Stallone really is. The script is witty, entertaining, filled with likeable and relatable characters and a decent plot while Stallone's acting is on par with greats like Marlon Brando (not my words). You really feel for Rocky, both in his love life, his training and in the ring (I love it when he describes Adrian as 'filling gaps' (not a euphamism by the way)). Anyone with any kind of humanity will route for him so much it'll be hard not to jump out of the seat during the training montage and fight scene. Then there's the music... so far so good. During a brief interlude I got myself another Newcy Brown and we moved on.

It was a bit strange watching the end of the first film again immediately after seeing it the first time, but this was something we came to quite like as it showed the continuation and really nailed the home that this was a series we were watching.
The second film however I found harder to swallow. I didn't realise how similar it was to the first film, but with none of the direction or the freshness. It also seemed somehow over-long. I did cheer up towards the end when the new and improved training montage kicked in (I love the unique training methods - inspiring stuff) but even the fight was a bit lame, particularly with the bizzarre ending.
On its own 2 is an okay film that just doesn't live up to its predecessor, immediately following 1 however it almost had me down for the count.

Fortunately three offer a change of pace and as soon as 'Eye of the Tiger' kicked in I was back in the game and Nathan showed similar rejuvination. That tune never fails to get me psyched and this was no exception. The incredible definition Stallone achieved at 3% bodyfat also woke me up - inspiring stuff.
There was none of the drama or emotional stuff seen in 1 & 2 but to be honest I'd had enough of that. 3 is pure comic-book style over-the-top 80s action. Class. Throw Mr T and Hulk Hogan in there too and you've got a winning formula.
Actually there is one emotional bit - the death of Mickey. A touching scene for me that's accentuated by a touching score from the ever present (except in four) conti. When Rocky cries it sends shivers down my spine. It's even more heart wrenching after just seeing these two form a bond for five hours. Unfortunately Nathan kind of mocked the performance which sort of ruined it for me this time round but hey... I'm not bitter... not bitter enough to remember it and write about it two weeks later or anything...
Pumped and reinvigorated we swapped the beers for protein shake and whacked in the next disk.

During four I had again reached saturation point. The weird thing is that four is normally my favourite but I suppose that was the problem - I've seen it over 50 times and at 6 hours in I didn't feel the desire to see it again. In reality this installment is really just one long music montage, which is great to whack on during a workout (my normal use for the film) but not so great to concentrate on if you're completely brain dead. While the Slyman was fighting the cold war I was fighting to keep my eyes open - and losing. I'd been hitten hard and protein shake, nor beer, nor even tea would do it... I'd need a strong coffee if I was going to keep moving forward.

I don't know if it was the caffeine boost or something else (perhaps the fact that I hadn't watched this one for over a year) but by five I suddenly found myself more awake than ever before. I can't really comment on Nathan's state of mind, but if I had to I'd put it at zen-like concentration.
Five has always gotten a bad rap which I think is unfair. Sure it's a bit soapy and it's kind of contrived that he should lose all his money and end up back in his old house from the second film, but the point is that just like Rocky himself the film is going back to its routes. And while three and four were fun I think five is actually better for it.
It's also at this point that we were beginning to notice how impressive it is that we've followed this character through so many life changing events - his first win, his marriage, the birth of his child, the growth of his child... it's almost like you know the character and again this just helps you route for him more. Especially during the street fight where the steaks are raised and the bad guy is even more of a dickhead than usual.
The little nods to the old films start to appear here too - such as the priest from the first film, and even a return to the boxing arena that we saw in the first scene of Rocky 1 (something I'd never noticed before). All this really helps to keep the illusion of a believeable world and made our (thus far) 8 hour vigil seem (slightly) more worthwhile.
Sure there are flaws in the continuity - I mean Rocky's son seems to age like ten years while he's in Russia. And it's funny how his bad eye is only an issue in the second film... but these plotholes are actually pretty few when you consider the scope of the series.
Another nice thing to see is the return of Mickey. I seem to remember that I worked out the flashbacks must have been filmed specifically for this film (not collected from discarded footage). I can't remember how I worked this out so you'll just have to take my word for it.
I also didn't pick up on all the father-issue stuff that's in the film previously. See, even after the twentieth watch you can still spot new things in a Rocky film. 'Get up ya' bum - Mickey loves ya!'.

It was Rocky Balboa that I had been looking forward to the most perhaps. After four it's my favourite Rocky, but it's also more modern and more serious.
One thing I didn't like was the lack of the serial style 'recap intro' that graced the beginning of the previous films. Nathan protested that showing the end of five would completely not make sense in the context of the film - but I felt a little summary of the previous five would have been nice for old time's sake. I suppose that's why this is 'Rocky Balboa' and not Rocky 6.
Rocky himself has changed slightly in this installment too as suddenly he seems wiser than before - passing his knowledge on to his son, a girl from his block, a random kid called 'Steps' and anyone else who'll listen. While the change is noticeable however it isn't out of place - as it stands to reason that the extra years and a life of action would leave him with a different perspective.
And that said though, it's still impressive how true to form the film is and this time there are even more retro nods - such as the re-appearance of Spider (the same actor and all) and even the very same turtles from from Rocky 1. It's impressive too that Appollo's trainer manages to grace every episode. The fact that Stallone could get so many actors and places involved and committed throughout the series is a testiment to the quality of the films and again really makes you believe that you've watched someone's whole life. At the beginning of the series who'd have thought that Appollo's trainer would be training Rocky to fight in his 60s? I doubt even Sly would predict it but in the context of the series it all makes sense - even in the cartoony middle films the overall plot follows a natural and organic evolution that can only occur when you have such well developed characters. Even Rocky's body has changed and adapted over time.
Six also demonstrates more than any other film how the films have mirrored Stallone's own life - how he went from nothing to overnight success, how he lost his way for a while, and how he returns after a long hiatus to successfully reclaim his glory days. And always against insurmountable odds.
Having seen the whole series through and now being introduced to Rocky at his lowest ebb, you want him to bounce back more than ever. And when you see him training at that age (to get those abs) you realise that no challenge is too great to Rocky or Stallone. It fills you with determination and pride.

At the end I was sad to see Rocky go, and sad that Stallone swore never to do a number seven. Then again he also swore never to do a five, or a four, so perhaps there's hope. The way I see it 'Rocky' is no ordinary series of films - it can break outside of the accepted trillogy format just like Bond. And though it pains me to say it I think there's one chapter left in Rocky's life. I think we need to see him die.

Whether or not this comes to pass however the experience has left me with a confirmed love for the series and the great man himself as well as a rejuvinated enthusiasm for the gym and the great gym of life. I think it's fair to say that Nathan felt the same. Not any film can do that to a guy - Rocky is my bible.

'In the warrior's code there's no surrender - though his body says stop his spirit cries 'never!''

I could have been doing work...

Meditation

2008-09-22T06:56:00.000-07:00

Several years ago I was on a trip to France with my 6th form Media class and staying at the Disney Land Paris resort (the ‘ranch’ type one). During the day we went on lots of rides while pretending to be doing work while in the evening we snuck out and went exploring.
We met girls, found alcohol and did flips into bushes. Then we threw a tennis ball at each others crotches. I decided I was in love with one girl in particular but as usual ballsed it up and came back to my room at about 3am yearning but still buzzing none the less.
Without thinking I flicked on the light to be greeted by the site of my roomy. I felt pretty bad - I’d forgotten this guy had opted to stay in. He wasn’t sleeping though, he was just sitting their frozenonto the spot. I waved at him and got no response. I thought this was odd but decided he’d probably had some kind of epileptic seizure. Unsure what to do I decided to look around for a pen to draw a willy on his head or perhaps some other amusing image (I’ve matured since then... maybe...).
As I crept closer with the pen in hand his eyes suddenly flickered open like something out of a horror movie. I let out a loud yet manly scream then collected myself.
‘Sorry if I’ve disturbed you...’ I said pretending to be writing on the wall.
‘No don’t worry,’ he said, ‘I wasn’t sleeping.’
‘Ah okay...’ I sat in silence for a moment before my curiosity got the better of me. ‘Just sitting... and... doing nothing then eh? Nothing better than a bit of sitting and doing nothing while everyone else is out exploring Paris...’
‘Meditating.’ he corrected me. Freak.

This event had put me off the idea of meditation for several years. It seemed to me that the only people who did it were weirdos and social rejects. I still suspect this may be the case.
However, having thought long and hard I remembered that I actually was a weirdo and as I got into this whole self-improvement malarkey the idea began to spark my interest.
Meditation has been said to have many benefits including clearer thinking, better moods and energy and even gains in intelligence. Some practitioners also speek of reaching different states of consciousness which sounded trippy and interesting. I decided then to put my preconceptions to one side and give it a go.
Sticking to the format of my previous experiments I decided that once a night for a week would be long enough to determine whether or not this was for me. So on the Monday I read up on the topic and learned the basics. There are various different ways you can meditate but the most popular way is to sit somewhere quiet and focus on a mantra. This being a word or sound that you repeat to take you mind off distracting thoughts. Other methods can include focussing on a point in your mind or a sound such as your own breathing.
Some people do it by just not worrying about the thoughts. They don’t purposefully start new threads but they don’t stop thoughts that do float by either – they just let them pass through and kind of ‘observe’ them from an outside perspective until they eventually stop being a problem.

The first thing I noticed when trying to meditate is that I instantly become thirsty, then itchy and then I need a piss. My back aches from sitting up and it feels like everything is against me. I’m certainly not used to sitting still for more than ten minutes without bobbing around, yelling obscenities or worse, singing. I go to the toilet every thirty minutes and constantly clear my throat which is a strange and annoying habit that makes me seem nervous and little bit mental. Basically I’m not a very relaxing person to be around and I find it very hard to sit still and unwind.
Writing this article right now is the closest I ever come to chilling out and later I plan to do a workout. If I’m lucky I might let myself play Bioshock for like an hour before bed.
The way I learned to overcome this problem was the same way I learned to improve my sleep (read the article) – to not worry about it. Basically I realised that when you’re meditating you’re allowed to itch your face if necessary and slowly this becomes less and less necessary anyway. Once you finally do enter into a peaceful state it starts to get weird. I recommend that you do sit in the traditional pose with your legs crossed and your fingers forming the little circles (your index fingers lightly touching your thumb). It’s important to be sat up so that you don’t fall asleep (although I personally like to lean against something to prevent back ache) and the two touching fingers give you something else to focus on and give you a strange sensation once thing start getting trippy.

To get to this stage has taken me a little while so don’t be put off if you don’t get the same effects immediately. Basically what starts to happen is that areas of your brain will be shutting down while others remain active – this is what puts you into the ‘trance’ or whatever and has been attributed with feelings of ‘oneness’ or ‘enlightenment’. The effects are actually very similar to certain types of drugs and they can be pleasant, healthy and productive. The coolest part is the feeling that you have no body – the oneness that makes hippies believe they are flying or one with mother nature (you’re not). This is because you have become completely unaware of your own body. To accelerate this experience you can actually imagine yourself expanding outwards and just being ‘everywhere’. Try it, it’s weird. Although it becomes old fairly quickly too...

Doing this regularly for 10 minutes a day for the past week has also lead to me feeling more calm in general and perhaps a bit more clear-headed. I guess this might be ‘zen’…
They have also left me with slightly more energy – acting as kind of power naps without the feelings of grogginess and fatigue that those bring.

I haven’t achieved any states other than the aforementioned one-ness, but as you get further some people have reported seeing vivid colourful patterns, having the sensation of an OOBE (out of body experience), reliving memories or gaining new perspectives.
The problem is that all that stuff sounds mental and also I can’t really be arsed with it. If you want to dedicate tonnes of time to it then go ahead, but I’m perfectly happy with just a bit of focussed chilling every now and then (it also recently helped me out when I was trapped in the back of a van. I thought ‘what would Bruce Lee do?’ so I sat there meditating in the pitch black. That’s how I was found – I looked well cool (in that sense it is a cool way to preserving energy)).

So try it if you want, I just won't be joining you. Whatever you do though don’t miss out on Disney Land because of it.

What is NLP?

2008-09-01T16:39:00.001-07:00

When it comes to NLP (which stands for Neuro-Linguistic-Programming) people generally tend to fall into one of two camps: those who think it’s this amazing tool that can totally change your life and get you everything you want, and those who think it’s a cult full of weird idiots along the lines of Sceintology; neither is completely true.
From what I can gather it’s a few money grabbing con artists who have given the practice a bad name (and some dubious attempts to connect the principles to wider pseudo-scientific theories);
and this is a shame as there is actually a fare bit of useful information to be gained from it. Many of the ideas revolve around the use of communication, language and gestures to understand cognitive processes and build a ‘rapport’ with another individual. In particular it is useful for sales people as a means to help persuade a potential customer to buy a product.

NLP was co-created by Richard Bandler and linguist John Grinder in the 1970s and contains several key areas:

Modelling
Modelling is the broad term for the systems used by a ‘modeller’ to adopt their client’s gestures, patterns, beliefs and more to make themselves more agreeable and persuasive.

The Meta Model
The Meta Model focuses on errors and assumptions in a client’s language to gain insight into the speaker’s thought processes and looks to respond to the construction or a sentence rather than its meaning and content.
For example if you were to say ‘everyone loves me’ the NLP expert might respond ‘everyone?’, or ‘what would you say love is?’. In other words – annoying.

The Milton Model
The Milton Model has the NLP practitioner using language that is purposefully vague or ambiguous to allow the listener to project their own meaning onto what’s being said and so almost certainly agreeing.

Representational systems
This is the idea that we use visual, auditory and kinesthetic methods to understand ideas and that different people prefer to use different ones. Our language is supposed to give away which we are using – for example people who say ‘I see’ or ‘see what I mean?’ might be visual types, while people who say ‘you hear what I’m saying?’ might be auditory.
By adapting our behaviour and language to suite the representational system of the intended
recipient it is thought that we can build a better rapport more quickly.
Personally I believe that they have left out an important fourth option that being lexical – where ‘know what I mean?’ might be an indicator. I’m fairly certain that I’m that type.

Accessing cues
Accessing cues refer to the way our eyes give away our thought processes where basically we look up and left or right when visualising, level and left or right when processing sound, or down and right for kinaesthetic.

Mirroring
Mirroring is a technique by which you subtly mimic the posture and body language of whoever you’re talking to thereby building rapport. This is also taught in crappy self-help dating books as a technique for pulling.
Apparently it can be very powerful but subtlety is really the key here – make it obvious and you will find it has the reverse effect with people just ending up pissed off at you.
NLP also has various techniques that use these principles to therapeutic effect. These include ‘Anchoring’ by which you associate a word or movement with a positive memory as a way to instantly recall a good mood or feeling; and ‘Framing’ where you try to change the way you view or remember a painful event or anxiety inducing thought. For example you may re-frame the image of a phobia with a comedy soundtrack and all in pink so that when you visualise it it causes humour rather than stress.
This is only really a taster but it gives you a basic understanding of NLP’s key principals. A lot of it from there is common sense.
Bare in mind that the methods have little scientific verification, but the rapport building stuff at least is widely used in business and generally accepted as effective.

Never Back Down Review

2008-08-24T16:40:00.000-07:00

Having just bought the DVD I have recently re-discovered the awesomeness that is 'Never Back Down'. Unfortunately it seems the majority of reviewers fail to share my enthusiasm of the film (at the time of writing Rotten Tomatoes has it at around 20%) and so I felt I needed to give it some love right here.

There's one way I can get you to see why the film is pure class. Like they say, a picture is worth a thousand words. So here goes:

Serious, how can you not love a film with that in it??

Amber Heard aside however, the main problem most reviewers seem to have with the film is that it's uninspired in that it very closely follows the conventions of the fight film. That is to say it ticks all the boxes: wise guru, father issues, romantic sub-plot, revenge as the motivation, training montages and final showdown. In this sense they claim the film offers nothing new that we haven't seen before in Rocky or The Karate Kid.

My point however is: what's wrong with that? The genre is one that very rarely sees a new entry and as much as I love both Rocky and The Karate Kid I feel that an update is long overdue. For fans of those films Never Back Down offers everything you could hope for - a contempory take on a classic formula that plays down the cheese and plays up the stakes, the brains and the acting skills. This is a mixture of Fight Club and Step Up but structured in the familiar Karate Kid formula.

And to say it offers nothing new at all is also unfair. For starters this is the first time we've seen MMA in a mainstream film, something which was long overdue and which makes for spectacular, visceral fight scenes.

The film also offers a fairly in-depth meditation on the ethics of combat, using some clever imagery and literary references to make its point. Other reviewers have again missed the point here reading the film's message as 'sometimes it's better not to fight'. For this reason they complain that the fight at the end is contradictory and caters only to the studios with no thought for integrity. The title of the film alone however should be enough evidence that this is not the case. My understanding of the message is that sometimes you do have to do something - to fight - if only to prevent yourself from having to fight in the future and to protect the things you care about. Like the shield of Achiles.

The slightly deeper nature of the film is also reflected in the characters who aren't your usual two dimensional stereotypes. Each one has their own 'fight' in the film and each is likeable and charismatic in their role. Our protagonist Jake in particular is a very well fleshed out character, played with gusto by Sean Faris, and his problems are easy to identify or at least sympathise with making you route for him all that much more when he goes up against bad guy Ryan.

Throw in a rocking 'high school' style sound track, an awesome cast and some nifty directing and editing (both of which nicely compliment the contempory setting and technological themes) and you have the best film for getting pumped since Rocky 4.

*****

My Week Without Caffein

2008-08-21T15:39:00.000-07:00

Allot of people/wesbsites have advised that I give up caffeine. 'Why?' I ask them. 'Because it's good for your health.' they answer. 'How is it?' I ask intrigued. 'Because of... the health...' they mumble.
Thing was, despite allot of people knowing it's good for your health, few people seemed to really know exactly what the advantages are. Search on Google 'giving up caffeine' and you'll get hundreds of relevant links. Search 'reasons to give up caffeine' however and you find far fewer results show up. I decided that there was only one way to find out exactly what the effects were - try it myself.
So here it is - my diary from my week without any caffeine. Just to put this experiment into perspective you should know that I was really hooked on it up until this point. I mean I would drink about four cups of coffee at work, then five or six cups of tea when I got home. That's one big caffeine injection. This challenge certainly wasn't easy.

No Caffeine Day 1
It's day one of my week without caffeine and I already want to die. It started badly when I arrived at work and a colleague had already made me a coffee. I had to actually poor it away, which was painful but also like a symbolic commital to my fast. People didn't like it either. I'm known as one of the guys who always has a hot drink. When I refuse they just look at me like 'you've changed...' Drinking tea and coffee is a social thing aswell, you don't notice that until it's gone. By 12 I already had a headache, which is terrible. Normally I'd be on my 3rd drink by then. I was all stressed out too about my MOT which was booked for 5pm. I'd have given anything for some caffeine... injected straight into my eyeballs preferably. So at lunch I decided to buy some decaff coffee. It's better than nothing as I enjoy just the calming effect of any hot beverage, but it still tastes like dirt in mug of water. Mmmm dirt... It's like a mockery - sacrilege - against real coffee. And it's expensive.
I prefer tea anyway, and I don't think you can get de-caf tea can you? And green tea is just like putting a leaf in your drink - pointless.

No Caffeine Day 2
So today was the second day of my caffeine fasting and it's again been a struggle. I did find it marginally easier to get out of bed this morning but that could just be down to the fact that I went to sleep an hour earlier - because of the headache I was suffering due to lack of caffeine!
It reached its worst point at work when at 12 it became almost unbearable (not helped by Rachel taunting me). At lunch time I just ambled around then sat on a step with my head in my hands like a tramp. I wanted to cry... Fortunately for some reason it actually improved by about 2 but then my day just got really weird and stressful and tested my vigil to the full. All I wanted was to go home and sleep, maybe vomit a bit, but sadly that was not to be as I ended up at some horrible weird gypsie party that was going on next door. Alcohol actually helped however as did the fear which took my mind of my caffeine problems. When I got back though I was full of nerves (I'd snuck out and was hoping they weren't going to come looking for me) and found I have never wanted a mug more. I held out though.

No caffeine day 3:
Or middle actually. It's more the middle of the tunnel seeing as it's only the third day. It's light though as I haven't had a headache today, and have actually been feeling quite healthy. Except randomly I've been feeling crippling pain in my bad wrist/hand (and also my back actually), but I don't think those are related.
Part of the solution I found was milkshake. I've always loved milkshake, and its actually even more soothing than tea during my Adam time. The other thing that helped was to look at it as a challenge. Even if I'm not sure about the reasons I'm doing this, it's still an opportunity to test my will. My iron will. Just like the gym. I've made it through the rain - just like Barry Manilow.
I'm still planning on going back to drinking tea and coffee after the experiment but maybe I'll drink a bit less if it means I'll always have this extra energy.

No Caffeine Day 6:
Day six of my no-caffeine challenge and I actually feel pretty good for it. I feel loathe to admit it, but I seem to have more energy and my body clock is now almost like that of a normal human. I'm pretty sure I sleep better (and I've been having some bizarre dreams - Saturday night I joined the 'Labrador resistance movement' (I was the only non-dog member)) and I feel more awake as a result. I feel less of a jittery wreck and have been relaxing more too.
Saying that I did still lie-in until 2pm on Sunday, but Si had been round the night before and didn't leave until 4am which is late even for me. Without my usual caffeine boost I was nearly comatose by the time he left.
I've possibly been less productive overall, but that's a good thing in a way as I was beginning to tire myself out. Infact I'm so pleased with the results that I'm strongly considering staying this way and being a permanently decaf guy.

No Caffeine Day 12:
Although this was meant to be just one week it actually seems to have become nearly two without and with no clear end in sight. I've finished the test now so I can drink as much as I want but I've found I quite like feeling a bit more fresh and a bit less jittery. You know how you drink alcohol to loosen up and be more sociable? Well if you're really hooked on coffee I find it's kind of the opposite of that... I'm a lot more relaxed now and my body clock is no longer that of an owl.

Conclusion:
Well it's now day 15 and I'm still going strong having had only one weak mug of tea when I had a particularly bad headache (I don't really count chocolate as the amount is so small). The way caffeine works is by blocking receptors in your brain that normally tell you you're tired. In other words you're still tired, but your brain thinks you're not. This obviously isn't particularly good - our body gives us cues for a reason and ignoring them will only worsen the problem. I'm still going to have a mug of tea every now and then because I love it. But I'm not longer going to be hitting myself with 4-5 coffees at work and tea will now be just a special treat.
So here are the reasons that I found first hand to give up caffeine. If they seem appealing to you maybe try giving it a go:

Better sleep
More normal body clock
More energy in the mornings
Less jittery and more relaxed
When you do have caffeine you feel the effects more

Additionally if you're one of the unfortunate people who have high sensitivity to caffeine it could even cause heart palpatations, panik attacks and insomnia. Not cool.