Bart's bio

My name is Bart B. Van Bockstaele and I am a computer programmer turned author and translator who has been living 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 books, all on computer programming and other computer-related subjects. I am currently working on two projects which are not computer related.

I love technology, not because it is “cool” but because of what it can do for me.

I have a passion for the Japanese culture and language. I sing enka, practice Japanese classical dancing (nihonbuyou), kitsuke (kimono dressing) and wasai (Japanese tailoring).

Living in Toronto, a green city with some amazing urban wildernesses, I love to go for walks and bike rides in Toronto’s parks and ravines. I like to take pictures, and I am active as a turtle tallier and frog watcher for the Toronto Zoo. I am also doing research into snake mortality in Toronto.

I maintain a website with a focus on Toronto. It can be found at thamno.com. Until I created the House Of Quack, I posted my skeptical articles there as well.

I am the Canadian blogger 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 of the Dutch World Service. 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 because of the different organisation of the new Wereldnet website, I cannot provide a link, yet.

Recently, I was invited to become the science columnist for newz4u.net, something I have gladly accepted.

Some of my articles can be found on Digital Journal, a Canada-based so-called citizen journalists site.

I am a member of CASS, the Committee for the Advancement of Scientific Skepticism.