Sometimes you walk past a place you’ve walked past a hundred times before and suddenly notice something special about that place, and find yourself wondering why you’d never noticed it before. Ever had that?

I had that yesterday when I was walking towards my bus stop on my way home. I saw this mural in the Cathedral quarter in Belfast, and for the first time I really saw the mural.

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The mural’s boundaries are made up of countless of small tiles, each inscribed with a drawing or a message. One tile in particular jumped out at me. It said, “I believe in angels”.

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My first thought when I read that was, so do I.

Now that probably needs some explanation. As you most likely know, I’m an atheist. I consider myself to be a sceptic, and my atheism is a result of my scepticism. So as an atheist I naturally don’t believe in angels of the spiritual kind.

I do however believe in a different type of angel, one that I’ve had the immense honour and privilege of having known for almost as long as I’ve been alive.

I am of course talking about mentally handicapped people, specifically people with Down’s syndrome.

My younger sister Monica has Down’s syndrome, and through her I’ve come to be a volunteer at an annual summercamp for mentally handicapped youth.

Now I have to be honest here and admit that I didn’t always like going on that camp. A part of me felt obliged to do it, for my family. The camp was hard work and could be quite challenging at times.

But it was immensely rewarding. Every smile on every participant’s face made it worthwhile. And now that I’ve stopped doing it since I moved to Northern Ireland, I miss it. I miss the kids. I miss their smiles.

Because these people, often considered ‘inferior’, are actually the brightest, happiest, and most intensely alive humans I’ve ever met.

And every time I went on that camp with them, I came back changed. I came back with new knowledge and a fresh perspective on things. A fresh perspective on what’s really important, and what really isn’t important.

From these people I’ve learned more about life and the things that really matter than I’ve learned from any school or any number of books. These mentally handicapped kids have been my greatest teachers. They’ve been my angels.

So yes, I believe in angels.

Modern day researches have to cope with massive amounts of data. From medicine to astronomy, from computer science to counter-terrorism intelligence, research analysts are sifting through immense heaps of data to find patterns and form hypotheses: medicine A is effective, star B might have 7 planets, user C prefers Dutch websites, Achmed D is a terrorist insurgent.

The problem is that research analysts are human, complete with human biases and preconceived notions.

Which means that they will often, knowingly or otherwise, focus on the data that supports their preferred hypothesis and ignore or disqualify data that contradicts it.

Here’s where Analysis of Competing Hypotheses (ACH) comes in. Based on a methodology originally developed for the CIA, ACH is an open source software package that allows researchers to filter the data and derive plausible, unbiased hypotheses.

Here’s a short video that explains the methodology behind ACH:

ACH has applications all over the spectrum. Journalists for example are often forming hypotheses based on shards of evidence they gather from their news sources.

The ACH software can help researchers avoid many pitfalls of manual data analysis, and might result in better, more accurate hypotheses being formed in a wide range of fields.

And that is a good thing indeed.

[This is a post by Barry Adams from Adamus.nl. For the best viewing experience, I recommend you read this post on Adamus.nl]

Christopher Hitchens, one of my heroes, is dying. Everybody is dying, but for Hitchens “the process has suddenly accelerated”.

He’s been diagnosed with a particularly ferocious form of throat cancer and is currently undergoing chemotherapy. Yet he still continues to write, and even found time to do a video interview with The Atlantic:

Hitchens is not shy about his cancer, choosing not to retire in to obscurity to wage his war against the disease but to fight it openly and in plain sight, for all to see.

For this I admire the man even more than I already did. He has always been a public figure, and the fact that he’s not letting a little thing like cancer get in the way of that says volumes about his strength and determination.

You’d think that after 2009’s blockbuster no sane producer would dare tackle the Sherlock Holmes mythology for the foreseeable future. After all, any attempt at re-imagining Arthur Conan Doyle’s famous ‘consulting detective’ would inevitably be compared to Ritchie’s film, and the final result would have to be damn fine indeed if it was to survive that comparison favourably.

Yet the 3-part TV series recently aired on the BBC seems to have managed exactly that. Or, actually, it’s so bloody good and ingenious that no one even bothers to compare it to the Downey Jr film. The TV series, you see, is an entirely different animal.

The producers of the series have moved the setting to modern times, and have cleverly adapted the Holmes mythology to fit nearly flawlessly in this 21st century background.

They’ve also managed to cast spectacularly good actors in the roles of Holmes and Watson (and, as one producer remarked, have succeeded to cast an actor in the role of Holmes with a name even sillier than that of the detective himself).

What they haven’t managed is to conceal the fact that they’re the same people behind the current Dr Who. Some of that series’ flaws emerge in Sherlock as well, such as the amazing coincidences that move the plot along, and the protagonist’s apparent omniscience.

Also depending on your taste the character of Moriarty, when he finally makes his appearance, is either utterly brilliant or campishly disastrous. (I’m squarely in the former camp, by the way - I thought he was superb.)

I always thought Sherlock Holmes was a bit of a silly character. A Victorian age superhero of sorts, his observational deductionism as unlikely as Superman’s x-ray eyes.

But despite all this, I thoroughly enjoyed the re-imagined Sherlock series. With three 90-minute episodes ending on a cliffhanger, I sincerely hope there’s more to come.

If you live in the UK you can watch the series on BBC’s iPlayer. If you don’t, I’m sure your torrent/newsgroup site of choice will be of help.

I’ve been a member of Mensa now for about two years, both Mensa NL and British Mensa. That’s not a very long time, nor have I been a particularly active member, so you can take what I have to say about Mensa as seriously as you’re inclined to.

Mensa, in case you weren’t aware of this organisation - which is entirely plausible so don’t feel bad about it - is the self-described ‘High IQ Society’. There is only one prerequisite for membership in Mensa: your IQ has to fall in the top 2% of the world’s population.

This effectively means one in fifty people can become Mensa members. Not many actually do become members. In a country such as the Netherlands, with 16 million inhabitants, the potential membership number of Mensa is over 300,000. Last time I checked Mensa NL boasts only around 6,000 members.

I joined Mensa for a purely egotistic reason: I wanted to know if I was really as smart as I thought I was. The answer was ambiguous. Yes I passed the Mensa test and can call myself a ‘high IQ person’, but the margin was narrow and I barely made the cut.

Of course I had preconceived notions about Mensa before I signed up to do the test. I bought in to Mensa’s promotional slogans and envisioned it as a society of intellectuals sharing and debating ideas and coming up with notions for the betterment of all mankind.

This was, after all, the concept on which the society was founded.

It didn’t quite turn out that way. The first thing I noticed when I joined Mensa, and orientated myself on its online discussion forums, was that many Mensa members perceived themselves as victims.

Apparently these high IQ people felt persecuted in some way. Misunderstood from a young age onwards, many Mensans saw themselves as left out of ‘normal’ society, unable to connect with their peers and struggling to conform to society’s norms. They felt themselves as being ‘different’ and often bullied because of that.

Now I’ve seen this type of self-victimisation too often to simply accept it at face value. Everyone from teenagers to Christians, from civil servants to top-level executives, are eagerly casting themselves in the roles of victims.

This is readily amplified by humanity’s innate tribal attitudes (’us’ against ‘them’) and you realise how easily people form social groups centred around (often vaguely defined) characteristics that help separate them, in their own perception, from the ‘rest of the world’.

It was disappointing to see this self-victimisation and tribalism in Mensa. I thought that as a consequence of a high IQ, Mensans would be less likely to succumb to such base urges and dangerous social patterns.

Unfortunately, it quickly became apparent that Mensans aren’t at all different from the masses of humanity - aside from that high IQ of course.

That high IQ is actually part of the problem. You see, I believe it serves as a shield for people’s convictions, a vindication for their beliefs no matter how strange and deluded.

For example, I was appalled at how many Mensans are in to what we collectively term ‘New Age’ spirituality. From astrologers to energy healers, from psychics to homeopaths, Mensa boasts a frightening abundance of people who have thrown every last remnant of rationality and common sense overboard and have committed themselves entirely to plainly ridiculous ideas.

Not only that, I got the distinct impression that these people felt that their membership of Mensa - their high IQ - was a vindication of their beliefs. “I’m smart,” they seem to argue, “so what I believe is right.”

This extends all across the spectrum of beliefs, from spirituality to ideologies and political convictions. Climate change deniers on the Mensa forums are as ferociously delusional as anywhere I’ve seen, as are blatant Islamophobic racists (more commonly referred to as PVV/BNP voters). And they see their high IQ as validation, a protective shield that allows them to ignore or discard any criticism.

Rational thought and skepticism (real skepticism - i.e. not taking any proclamation at face value), which I’ve always associated with intelligence, is no more common on Mensa’s discussion forums than it is on the Daily Mail’s comment section.

So I’m fairly disillusioned. I thought Mensa would bring me great joy, that membership of this high IQ society would help me grow as a person and enlighten me.

Unfortunately Mensa does no such thing. If anything it allows its members to dig themselves deeper in to their own personal convictions, warding off any challenge with the protective blanket of a high IQ.

I’d renounce my Mensa membership today, if only it didn’t look so damn good on my CV….

I enjoy reading books. I buy new books nearly every week, and at any given moment I have anywhere up to five different books on my bedside locker in various stages of reading.

I have a preference for certain types of books. Science fiction, specifically. One of my favourite SF authors has always been Dan Simmons. His 4-part Hyperion saga is one of the finest works of SF to date.

Recently I picked up a copy of the 20th anniversary edition of Carrion Comfort, Dan Simmons’ horror masterpiece about mind vampires. Yet after reading the new introduction Simmons wrote for it, I’m loathe to continue reading it.

You see, the introduction reminded me of the fact that Mr Simmons is actually not a particularly nice man. For starters in the introduction Simmons is guilty of a certain type of barely veiled chest-thumping that doesn’t sit well with me. I’m no fan of false modesty, but some of the phrasings in that introduction felt a little too much like arrogance and conceit.

Additionally, it reminded me of why I stopped visiting his official website years ago. One glance at the forum’s “Hot Button” category quickly reveals a certain type of right-wing nutcasery usually associated with the worst excesses of Fox News, ranging from revisionist Iraq-invasion apologetics to climate change denialism and raving anti-socialised healthcare madness.

Mr Simmons himself is an eager participant in this orgy of Glenn Beck-style paranoia and douchebaggery, especially when it comes to the topic of Islam. He’s the exact opposite of anti-Semitic - he’s plainly Islamophobic.

Now I have my own issues with Islam, primarily on civil liberties, women’s rights, and freedom of speech. But the vileness of the particular brand of Islamophobia rampant on those dansimmons.com forums is nauseating to behold, as it’s rooted purely in ignorance and hatred.

So my challenge now lies in separating the books from the author. So far I’ve received great satisfaction from reading Dan Simmons’ books, but I can’t deny that his political opinions are what I’d consider horrendously hateful and misinformed. I’m afraid my continued enjoyment of his works relies on my ability to forget about the author when I’m reading the book.

I’ve been eagerly emphasizing the point scholars and sceptics such as Nicholas Carr have been making: that the Internet is changing the way we think.

Today it’s time to shed light on the other side of the debate. In today’s Guardian there’s a superb interview with Clay Shirky in which he explains why he believes the Internet is a force of good in the world.

The interviewer, by her own admission, doesn’t really ‘get’ social media:

Unfortunately, I am precisely the sort of cynic Shirky’s new book scorns – a techno-luddite bewildered by the exhibitionism of online social networking (why does anyone feel the need to tweet that they’ve just had a bath, and might get a kebab later?), troubled by its juvenile vacuity (who joins a Facebook group dedicated to liking toast?), and baffled by the amount of time devoted to posting photos of cats that look amusingly like Hitler.

But Clay Shirky’s boundless optimism is infectious, to say the least:

“If we took the loopiest, most moonbeam-addled Californian utopian internet bullshit, and held it up against the most cynical, realpolitik-inflected scepticism, the Californian bullshit would still be a better predictor of the future. Which is to say that, if in 1994 you’d wanted to understand what our lives would be like right now, you’d still be better off reading a single copy of Wired magazine published in that year than all of the sceptical literature published ever since.”

Shirky also makes the point that new technology doesn’t create entirely new behaviour, but instead enables already existing motivations to be expressed in new behaviour:

“Techies were making the syllogism, if you put new technology into an existing situation, and new behaviour happens, then that technology caused the behaviour. But I’m saying if the new technology creates a new behaviour, it’s because it was allowing motivations that were previously locked out. These tools we now have allow for new behaviours – but they don’t cause them.”

On the debate about whether the internet is changing the way we think, he makes an interesting point:

“But the alarmism around ‘Facebook is changing our brains’ strikes me as a kind of historical trick. Because we now know from brain science that everything changes our brains. Riding a bicycle changes our brains. Watching TV changes our brains. If there’s a screen you need to worry about in your household, it’s not the one with a mouse attached.”

He also has some interesting thoughts on the ‘pay-for-news-online’ debate, but you’ll have to read the whole interview yourself for that. I recommend you do - it’s remarkably insightful.

Since I moved to Northern Ireland I’ve tried to make this wee country my new home. I’ve gotten to know many new people, I’ve read up on local politics and culture, and have tried to understand the country’s national identity.

The latter, however, is something I’ve failed horribly at. Not only that, I’ve become increasingly frustrated with what seems to be an utterly schizophrenic sense of nationality that reigns not only within Northern Ireland, but the UK as a whole.

First some basic background on which is which, as many people outside of the UK get confused (actually, a lot of people inside the UK get confused too):

The UK refers to the “Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland”. Great Britain, in turn, is divided in to three countries: England, Wales, and Scotland. You can read a great illustrated explanation of the whole structure here: the difference between the UK and Great Britain.

Adding to this, different names are applied to different collections of the 4 countries that make up the UK. There’s a superb diagram on Wikipedia that tries to explain the whole complicated nomenclature in one glance: British Isles terminology.

Then, when it comes to sports, things start to get ugly. In football, all four countries of the UK have a separate national team: England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland. In rugby, however, there is no Northern Irish team - instead they play as part of the Ireland national rugby team.

In the Olympics, there is a ‘Team GB’, which if the name was accurate would mean it includes only athletes from England, Scotland, and Wales. But, wait a minute, there are Northern Irish athletes in Team GB as well, so it should actually be called Team UK.

It gets worse when you look at national anthems. When Wales and Scotland compete in a sport, their own national anthems are played. When England competes, however, it’s not the English national anthem that gets played but the anthem for the whole of the UK (”God Save The Queen”). Apparently England has no anthem of its own, so it opts to use the UK’s anthem. But this doesn’t always sit well with the Scottish, Welsh, and Northern Irish, as England doesn’t represent the whole of the UK so it shouldn’t necessarily be allowed to use the UK anthem.

The Northern Irish situation regarding national anthems isn’t straightforward either. In rugby for example, depending on where the match is being played you’re likely to hear at least two different national anthems for the Ireland team. And in football Northern Ireland often uses the UK’s national anthem, except in the Commonwealth Games, where Northern Ireland uses a different anthem (”Londonderry Air”).

This is just the tip of the iceberg. Northern Ireland, Scotland, and Wales each have different bones to pick with the English when it comes to the appropriation of the UK’s national identity - each country, to varying extents, wishing to be seen as separate but also as part of a greater whole. Referring to the UK as ‘England’, that consistent error foreigners make (myself included before I moved), doesn’t help.

The somewhat nauseating focus of British politics and media on England tends to make matters worse. It often seems as if the English have forgotten that the UK is more than just England, something which is an endless source of ire for the Scottish, Welsh, and (Northern) Irish.

So I’ve decided to give up on the whole national identity thing. There are limits to what I’m willing to endure for the sake of integration. I’ve come to realise that it’s much easier for all involved if I’ll just stay totally and irrevocably Dutch. I may even enhance my Dutch accent.

Zo dere joo haf it. Ai em a dutsjman in nortern airlant.

I can’t. Hate Tom Cruise, that is. I can’t help it, I love the guy.

Yes I know he’s a Scientologist, that totally bizarro-world nutcase religion with some really whacked-out ideas about space thetans and trillion-year old aliens, the same religion that’s not above using violence and extortion to keep their secrets intact. But hey, at least they don’t rape kids.

It’s not that all of Tom Cruise’s films have been so awesome - some have even been pretty damn bad. Really, really bad. But you have to admit that many of his films have been pretty good. Some films have even been really, really good.

But none of this really matters. Because the main reason I can’t hate Tom Cruise is because he doesn’t take himself very seriously.

This is one of Hollywood’s leading men, a one-man box-office hit-generator who is arguably one of the most famous people alive on the planet, and he goes around and does things like this:

And then, for no other reason than because he wants to, he goes ahead and repeats it on one of TV’s biggest annual events: the MTV Movie Awards.

(Unfortunately there’s no video available outside of the US due to Viacom’s anally retentive copyright-obsessed lawyers denying the rest of the world the glory of Les Grossman via legitimate means, so I suggest you find the video on your favourite file-sharing site.)

A man that is that famous, and yet possesses sufficient quantities of humour and self-mockery to do this sort of thing and enjoy it, deserves praise.

So there you have it. I like Tom Cruise. I really do.

Nicholas Carr, the writer who I’m fond of quoting, has once again managed to stir up a controversy. This time it’s about links, specifically links in a piece of online text.

Carr argues that links embedded within a text are disruptive and interfere with a proper reading of the text. He claims putting links to other webpages referred to in a text are best put at the bottom of the text. A quote:

“Links are wonderful conveniences, as we all know (from clicking on them compulsively day in and day out). But they’re also distractions. Sometimes, they’re big distractions - we click on a link, then another, then another, and pretty soon we’ve forgotten what we’d started out to do or to read. Other times, they’re tiny distractions, little textual gnats buzzing around your head. Even if you don’t click on a link, your eyes notice it, and your frontal cortex has to fire up a bunch of neurons to decide whether to click or not. You may not notice the little extra cognitive load placed on your brain, but it’s there and it matters. People who read hypertext comprehend and learn less, studies show, than those who read the same material in printed form. The more links in a piece of writing, the bigger the hit on comprehension.”

Once more I’m inclined to agree with Carr, and once more Carr has his share of vocal critics.

The web is definitely doing something to how we think and how we consume information - be it through bite-sized chunks of media, distracting hyperlinks, or just excessive porn - and we need to understand exactly what is happening to us and how it affects us.

It may turn out to be a positive effect, or it may turn out to be harmful. But the web’s effect on our brains is very real.