Hi Steem community - A window into understanding who I am today

Hi Steem community my name is David and I am from the island of Malta. For those of you who do not know where Malta is, there is this great image of Malta’s location on the map below. 

Image sourced from Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malta)

It has been a few months since the first time that I crossed paths with Steemit but with everything in life I waited from afar seeing what is happening with this creation and sure enough, it is spreading like wildfire. It fits well with me since I have always wanted to blog about different things, things that interest me and hopefully that can also help others. 

So who am I 

Can be such a hard question to answer since what we see ourselves being is not always who we actually are but I’ll do my best to give the best possible high level representation of myself. 

I have always been into technology and was always fascinated by it since I was a child. Constantly taking things apart seeing how they work and what makes them tick. It was normally easier to disassemble things rather than putting them back together but anyway.  

Then when I was around 12 years old we got our own desktop computer. 

Image sourced from Wise Geek (http://www.wisegeek.com/what-are-the-differences-between-a-laptop-and-desktop-computer.htm#older-computer)

It was connected with a dial-up modem and sometimes took hours to connect to the internet, but when it did it turned into a trove of information. It was lovely, and even though I had that much power and means to get into programming all I could think about is games and chatting. Well, the average kid I guess. 

As I got older I continued my schooling but was getting less and less interested in going to university and was more interested in getting a job to earn some money to buy a car and all round have some cash to spend. Looking back now I know that was not the best decision of my life, far from it, but every bump in the bumpy road of my life thankfully lead to who I am today. Back to me I guess :) 

So time went by and my interest in IT continued to grow, however this time it was not regarding gaming or chatting or wasting hours browsing brainlessly on the net. No, now it was different. I started becoming fascinated by how these applications, both web and native, ran on potentially millions, and nowadays billions, of devices with centralised servers saving and serving all the data. Stunning. Just a few hundred, thousands or millions of lines of code and viola, an application that can do a specific task so well. It had potential. I could create these apps and would make millions while helping people with a meaningful application. But wait. Darn, I did not know how to code. 

This seemed like a huge hurdle. Looking at a coding book for C++ just gave me a headache so I put it on the side and started getting curious about ways to make money. I came across a few multi-level marketing businesses but these all followed the usual pyramid scheme structure which is great when you are on top but requires a lot of continuous work when you are on the bottom. So after over a year of trying I ended up giving up on that idea. There was too much non rewarding work to be done, I had to spend my own money, and I had to stay convincing people that this is what they should be doing. Really not my kind of thing. 

Then came Forex. Just knocked on my door and took me totally by surprise. 

Image sourced from The Huffington Post (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/laiza-king-/want-to-start-trading-lea_b_11375196.html)

I got extremely curious about how you can just trade currencies online and the huge amount of volatility that allows you to make some pretty decent cash, if you can hold it together for long enough that is. So I started reading books and forums and articles and... you get the point. I read whatever I could get my hands on and tried and obsessed really. I got pretty good with technical analysis and had pretty decent entry and exit strategies but there was one key problem that was not easy to overcome. My emotions. I would find an excellent trade, would enter at the right time, would set up where I would take profit and where I would stop out of any trade would it turn against me but would be torn inside that I was going to lose out of profits so I would move my take profit level higher and the pair would lose momentum and correct itself, which is a pretty normal move, and I would end up losing out on what would have been a very profitable trade. So it was difficult to control my emotions while trading, but my entry and exit levels are pretty decent. 

This got me thinking. There are programs which trade automatically with a set of predefined rules. Ah and again the programming aspect of my life came up. Here I realized that I really need to learn how to program applications but knowing this would take time so I decided it made more sense to focus on creating a really good trading system and then finding someone to code it for me. So that is exactly what I did. I paper traded and tested out a system to a full year and the results were good. I had calculated all the costs, spreads etc, and this system was what would give me my financial freedom. The way I would be able to enjoy my life and travel and everything without spending 8 to 12 hours at work. I hired a coder to code it for me and after a few weeks and some communication issues, the auto trader was complete. A week after deployment the bot was losing money. I tested all the trades done by the bot and to my surprise the results were correct. What had happened? I assumed it was just a bad week and let it trade for a whole month. The results were just as bad. I went back to my paper trades and revised the whole year of trades and found out that for two whole years the system I developed worked like a charm, however before and after that time gap the system just failed miserably. What was even worse was that at the time I had paid £2500 for this code to be written and it was no longer than 100 lines. This did not seem like the way I wanted to do business.  This taught me 2 things. Firstly I really needed to learn how to code, giving me the ability to test different strategies without spending all my savings, and secondly that a static rules based system was not going to work and was bound to fail given enough time. 

After so much work and time put into these “projects” I really needed some time to think. It felt like running a really long marathon, getting to the finish line and the finish line was not there. I knew I needed to learn how to code and so far I had given up. So I took a different approach. I was always a good student who was usually amongst the best in class so why not go back to school. So 27 years wiser I decided to start reading for a Degree in Software Engineering and it was the best decision I have ever made even though the educational systems are inherently flawed. At least I am mature enough to see past the brainwashing exercises forced onto students. It has been tough working and studying in tandem but the rewards have been great. I have learnt so much and I actually know how to code now. I still have a lot to learn and in this industry the more you learn the more you realise how little you know. 

Currently I am about to start my final year and hopefully, by mid next year, I will graduate. Truth be told I am more excited about finishing my thesis and then having more time to work on projects than I am excited about getting the degree itself.  

I have met quite a few people in the industry who have no degrees and no real education, however, they are gurus in what they do and this has taught me a lot. It has shown me that when it gets tough you should not give up. You should never give up. You should evaluate your decisions frequently and if what you are doing is still good for you and for your goals then you should push on but if not you should just move onto something that makes more sense to you and excites you. 

What excites me

The Blockchain 

So as you now know my interest in coding spouted from finance but now I see there is a new kid on the block (well 8-year-old kid I guess). The blockchain. And it is one of the reasons why I am here right now. 

Image sourced from Bitcoin.com (https://news.bitcoin.com/revolutionary-protocol-emergence-bitcoin/)

I remember when Bitcoin had just started. And I heard how many people were saying what a scam it was, and I sort of blindly followed (sheep meqqqq meqqqq). What stuns me is that I have been a coin/banknote collector since I was a young boy, however, I did not decide to get at least one bitcoin to add to my collection. Maybe it was because there was no actual coin to collect. 

Then year after year more people were talking about it. One guy, I will never forget. He was setting up his new bitcoin mining rig in his new house. Bitcoin was around $200 at the time and he was ranting and raving about how amazing it is. I did believe him but I guess I did not get that excited at the time. I had just started my studies and was made redundant so I could not invest anyway. And today it stands at around $2000. He was right :) and that excites me. Seeing all the new blockchain technology that is coming out every day. Etherium with it’s Dapps and Steem and Wagerr and hundreds of others. 

I am currently reading white papers and other resources, making heads and tails of how blockchain works. The concepts behind mining and how this can be used in our everyday lives. 

Trading 

Forex was a huge interest of mine and to one extent or another still is. However the way our monetary system is controlled by the bankers and governments is pretty annoying. Same goes for news. Everything seems to be curated especially for people to believe half truths and full lies. The more time goes by the more I am losing faith in these institutions and also in Forex though on a positive note I will always have that passion of reading charts and, through technical analysis, have an opinion of when and where the price will hit, slow down, reverse or continue its move. The psychology behind technical analysis is a very interesting topic altogether. 

Software Engineering 

The things that can be done through coding are vast. More vast than most people imagine. If all the coders in the world has to strike we would probably see a total collapse of our current modern infrastructure. Think about it. What does not use some script of program nowadays? Very few things. And the more time goes by the more we are becoming dependent on technology. A trend which can only accelerate given time. I can only see a couple of situations where this will not remain true. We are hit by a massive solar flare or maybe hit by a huge meteorite, so basically a catastrophic worldwide disaster. Can it happen? Yes. But at the end of the day every industry will suffer greatly were this to happen, so this will not deter me from pursuing this career. 

What I want to achieve on Steemit

The monetary incentive is always a boost, I cannot lie about that. 

Seeing how Steemit works is just mind blowing. 

All in all, I would love to be a part of this great community and would like to write about things I love and the things you want to read about. I love my country (and so many other places), travelling (when I have time), technology, robotics, the blockchain, coding, AI, etc, and I’m a pretty good with my hands too, however truth be told I have much less time to do manual projects at home nowadays. So let me know what you would most like me to read about and let’s start this great relationship :)

Wow that was long :) Congrats for getting to the end and thank you for your patience.