I am a computer programmer turned author and translator who lives in Toronto since 1996.
As a translator, I specialize in IT-subjects, financial subjects and scientific subjects, mainly medical and pharmaceutical subjects. I translate from/into English and Dutch/Flemish.
As an author, I have written five books and co-authored two. I am currently working on another project.
I love technology, not because it is "cool" but because of what it can do for me.
My current passion is Japanese culture and language. I sing enka, practice Japanese classical dancing (nihonbuyou), kitsuke (kimono dressing) and wasai (Japanese tailoring).
I maintain a website with a mainly scientific and rational interest:
thamno.com. I also do maintain a weblog for De Standaard, a major Dutch newspaper in Belgium (in Dutch). It can be
found at this link.
I am the Toronto correspondent for Wereldnet, a program by the VPRO on Dutch state-owned radio.
This is a link to most of the programs in which I have appeared between 2001 and 2008 (in Dutch). More recent programs are hosted elsewhere, but I still need to obtain a link.
Atheists do not believe there is no God, they simply do not believe there is a God.
Give people the theory of evolution, and they'll have a fighting chance to improve their lives. Give them a religion, and they'll suffer and die while praying for improvement.
Ultimately, what does it matter whether evolutionary theory is true or not, if life behaves exactly the way we would expect it to if it were true?
I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours.
-Stephen Henry Roberts
Science is the poetry of religion
-Richard Dawkins
Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich.
-Napoleon Bonaparte
Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction.
-Blaise Pascal
There was a time when religion ruled the world. It is known as the Dark Ages.
-Ruth Hurmence Green
Religious hatreds ought not be propagated at all, but certainly not on a tax-exempt basis.
-James A. Michener
Religion is an insult to human dignity. With or without it you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion.
-Steven Weinberg
Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away.
-Philip K. Dick
