Hello steemians,
I know, I know, I'm a bit late in introducing myself. After spending just about all my time in the cryptocurrency rabbithole, daily life caught up with me with a vengeance and I simply had no more spare time.
So first things first, here I am, with photographic evidence of my existence and at the same time proof of houseboat. Sorry for the squint, but not only is it one of the incredibly rare sunny days today in the Netherlands, but I'm looking at the very bright and very very white side of my houseboat. So bright in fact that even though I shot the picture facing the sun, I'm still properly lit, albeit from a strange angle.
Here's a little of my background and short bio.
So I'm JoeyD on bitcointalk, bitsharestalk, mumble and quite a few communication channels that I've most likely forgotten my login credentials for. I've been part of the bitshares community since a little after the launch of the angelshares "donation" and I've been trying to help Fuzzy or @officialfuzzy behind the scenes, mostly with his mumble server for beyondbitcoin hangouts.
For me the meaning of life is life itself. So just about every waking moment I try to dedicate to improving life for future generations. I sincerely hope that by me backing and helping things like bitshares and steemit, we are building the foundation for a better future. My interest in blockchain is primarily to open up possibilities and remove roadblocks and gatekeepers for the next generations. Most likely very much influenced by the things that happened to me.
In case you'd like to know those details I'll write my little bio further down below. For those not interested feel free to skip it, nice to meet you anyway and hope to see you around.
As I've promised a couple of the mumble-hangout regulars and especially the ever tenacious Fuzzy, I'll try to post more here on steemit. What's the worst that could happen, I accidentally write something someone finds useful or entertaining?
Greetings all,
JoeyD
My little bio.
Not knowing what to do with my life, apart from enjoying teaching people and being involved with a small library and specialized centre of study, I ended up going to university. However, I went to university completely unprepared for the cesspool of egos, reputations and politics, that apparently trumps things like actual knowledge and the betterment of mankind. Oh how naive I was back then. Anyway, after I unknowingly made a number of my teachers feel publicly shamed, they did not choose to deflate their shall we say exaggerated views of self worth, nor did they jump on the new ideas. Instead they chose the wholesome path of sabotaging my academic career, with delaying tactics and endless bureaucratic procedures which resulted in me no longer being able to afford studying and actually stacking up a debt. That's how the scholarship system worked in the Netherlands, as long as you got enough "studypoints" within a certain time frame, you won't have to pay back all of it, otherwise you have to pay it all back in full.
My professor informed me that if I wanted to continue studying he recommended doing so in a different country, out of reach and sight of the cabal in the Netherlands and keep my head down. Apparently the exact same thing happened to him in Germany, after which he fled to the Netherlands, keeping his head low ever since. Unfortunately keeping a low profile or disappearing in the crowd was never something I was capable of doing even if I wanted to. So I did what all freedom loving people do who don't believe in hierarchies and authorities, I joined the army.
Counter to what a lot of people seem to think, in my experience the army was not entirely filled with nothing but Murder Hobos. The majority of my colleagues were genuinely interested in helping out people in need, like building schools and infrastructure and things like water purification installations to provide drinking water in war torn areas. Not to say there weren't hobos, quite a few where misfits and outcast of society like me, who joined the army as a last resort.
As a complete surprise to myself, I had the time of my life in the army. It had just about everything I wanted, from teaching and helping people, to always changing and challenging problems to solve and people you could trust with your life. Although they had me occasionally standing on a tight rope, 
it really helped me get a new perspective on life and regain some faith in people. I had kinda lost hope after the university thing and the massive power struggle amongst the members and organisation of the library.
Although I have to admit that the reason I liked it so much, was that I was allowed free reign when procedures and red tape ceased to function. Managing to solve problems that were deemed impossible or doing the work that usually cost a department of 20 people a year and a half almost single-handedly within two months, was exhilarating. But on the other side I never was able to learn to live with all the OCD stuff going on while on the base. It drove me up the wall, quite literally as you can see. 
Alas all good things must come to an end. During a sports event outside in the freezing cold, I got blind-sided by one or more overeager rugby players and slammed my head hard on the solidly frozen ground, right on the temple and knocking me out instantly. It also resulted in some minor brain damage, with massive effects on my life ever since. Once I got injured I got introduced to the dark side of the army and nasty creatures who called themselves psychologists and their weird voodoo and curses. One positive thing about it all was, that it did prevent me from being sent abroad and having to do things that would haunt me afterwards. I've been spared a guilty conscience, eventhough it did not come cheap.
Anyway this is all stuff for later posts maybe. Suffice to say that my bad experiences with gatekeepers and people with power over the lives of others, either through authority, finances or withholding access to things like information and resources is what made me experience dark times and desperately seek out solutions. Only things like the unstoppable opensource movement around GNU-Linux, effectively beating the behemoth monopolies and slowly changing peoples point of view, kept me going. And then came along bitcoin, bitshares and now steemit. While I'm not yet ready to believe that things can't go from bad to worse, at the very least I can see some little stars of hope. Who knows, it might yet turn into a sunny day.
Sorry, I saw this post 15 days late. I'm now following you, so I should see your next one. :)
Great introduction post Joey! Welcome to Steemit. I hope you will enjoy it as much as I do. See you around!
Welcome to steemit, great post and introduction. I look forward to seeing more of your posts
Great post Joey and nice to meet you!
Hartstikke welkom!
Dankjewel!
Welcome to Steemit!
You are going to love it here! ;)
Nice to meet you. I love Bitshare. Happy you finally made it here.
Welcome to the club! Follow me at https://steemit.com/@bitgeek
hello, welcome to steemit. keep sharing, keep exploring !
A similar thing is happening to me right know in University, albeit for political reasons, not for professors hating me. But I understand the predicament of being an outcast.
Also thank you for sharing that part of your life, it comforts me to know that I am not the first nor the last to have lost academic time.
Welcome To Steemit! Following you and upvoting!
Thanks, glad you got something out of that, although I do hope things have gotten a little better now. The internet changed a lot of things, not only helping to bring stuff like what happened to me out in the open, keeping these professors somewhat in check. But also with things like steemit here, where people can more easily learn from others. I don't know if the outcome would have been any different, but had I been more informed or at least aware what to watch out for, I maybe could have prepared myself better.
Btw don't let my story discourage you in any way. I just happened to run into the wrong crowd, but I honestly do believe that there is scientific work that is very important for all of us. Reading back my own story I kinda forgot to put in the positive spin, now it's a bit darker than I had intended.
That usually happens after we publish the first time , it's ok It happened to me as well hahaha
I won't I am taking it as a cautionary tale with a positive spin! In the end we are the sum of our past decisions so if you are happy with yourself (I am in the process of being happy with who I am) then your choice was the right one!
That's my 2 cents on the topic though
Nice to know you friend. 🌸🌸🌻🐩
Follow me @yuslindwi
Awesome post!
Please pour in your comments and upvote https://steemit.com/sleep/@digitaldollar/is-it-sleep-paralysis-or-demon-attack
Follow me @digitaldollar
Upvoted and will follow you as well!
Hi Joey, A big warm welcome to Steemit. Upvoted and Followed.
Yeah, this sounds like you... ;)
Lol, glad I'm not completely delusional. Anyways welcome to steemit Jeroen.
@joeyd a good post... am following u
@vedvati Thanks! I'll check out your blog as well.
Thank you for sharing your story in such details joeyd!
It looks like a really cozy house boat you have there! Don't worry about the scarcity of days with sunshine - I can tell you it is no better up here in Denmark!
Your life mission seems to be very similar to mine. Enjoying life and contributing to a better future. Steemit is such a great platform for doing just that and I am grateful for having found it this early.
I can see from your profile and introduction that you are a very experienced crypto investor. What do you think of the future of EOS? Dan Larimer seems to be a very visionary man..
Thank you, I am looking forward to hearing from you joeyd
@ronni
Hi ronni,
Yeah, I love the sense of freedom that you still get from living on a houseboat, although even there bureaucracy is rearing it's oh so ugly head.
I wouldn't go so far as to say I'm an experienced investor, if I was pure profit driven I could have done way better. Because I tend to primarily support projects I share at least some philosophical / idealistic views with, I'm not the best person to take advise from if you are in it just for the money.
As for my view on EOS. The technology sounds impressive, but like with ethereum, I think you can safely say that in it's current form it's way overvalued compared to it's practical use. So like with all crypto, do not put in more than you are willing to lose and I really mean lose, because the pricedrops in crypto can be brutal and happen in a flash.
Best case scenario, you have a business-plan that absolutely needs tech like EOS to have the best competitive advantage at succeeding. Do not fall for the pixie-dust-hype, where people believe that just the term "blockchain" or "smart-conctract" will magically fix flawed concepts.
Although riding the gravy-train sounds appealing to a lot of people, if you can make a living off of the use of the tech you could also survive major downturns.
So to recap, while EOS seems to solve a couple of design problems with ethereum, like scaling, the way scripting is implemented, multithreading and governance, the elephant in the room is still a lack of practical and competitive use cases. If after 4 years ethereums primary use case is a very convoluted multisig for apparently mostly bullshit ICOs (which it apparently sucks at as well), that is something to keep in the back of your mind, because that is the market EOS is aiming for.
Thank you so much for your thorough reply joeyd!
I guess you will have to sail that boat onto international waters the find total freedom then. Although that might become a bit too lonely out there :)
I am sure there are plenty of traders in the crypto market who are here entirely for profit. But that being said, I still believe our community here on Steemit and investors in the other crypto currencies are a bit more emotionally committed to the cause. We are, after all, first movers or early adapters and those types tend to be rather value and beliefs oriented. The blockchain technology has really hit a nerve on the techies and the freedom seeking segment of the population (primarily males). So I truly believe that a high percentage of us Steemians are indeed here because we believe in it and not just because of potential monetary gains. This is just guess work of course, but I wrote a post about the Steemian personality traits half a month ago and that gave me these ideas. I definitely count myself as one of the "believers" of Steemit and blockchain technology, who are in it for the long term.
Steemit is by far the platform I can relate to the best. It is an already functional platform with immediate value properties like sharing of knowledge, social interactions and a mini society free from government interference. I love this place, a place based on freedom, generosity and vision of a better better future.
Thank you for sharing you honest thoughts about EOS joeyd. My enthusiasm for Steemit is the primary reason for looking into EOS. I think Dan Larimer is a great visionary. When Ethereum started gaining traction I got thrilled about its possibilities, but EOS might actually be a better option for the longer term..
Your suggestion of waiting 4 years to see how Ethereum fares sounds very reasonable although entry price at that time might be significantly higher (or plain zero). This is where the beliefs approach really comes in handy! When we are faced with complex long term investment decisions with a lot of uncertainties then it makes it a whole lot easier to just go with those investments we feel good about. Something you believe in and am willing to follow to the bitter end.
I hope it made sense :)
Looking forward to your future Steemit publications joeyd