Let's see if we can make this happen.

The original intent for this blog was to capture my progress in what would some day be the start of a new business. A side hustle. Something to keep me occupied during my hours at home. Since then, I have had five different jobs that have definitely made me question my place in the fabric of this world. I know this is purely anecdotal, but the people at these companies, despite what they say and promise, do not care about your goals or interests. At least if it doesn't help them make more profits. Which is fair. I believe that a business should always have the business' best interests in mind. I cannot help but feel pain when considering all the promises that were never kept by these individuals who profit millions of dollars off of the hard labor of everyone who works on a project. I know they do not have to disclose where those profits are distributed, but it would surely help to make the team feel like their long hours meant something. 

I don't know if I could do any better. I really don't. I say I would like to be more open with my employees about the company and its finances, but I honestly do not know if I would be capable of such a feat. Before I could even get to that point, I first need a business to start off with. I've thought about video game development, but never actually cared to learn programming that mattered. I know enough program language to make a badass spreadsheet. I need to learn a real computer language. Another potential business plan was to start a publishing company focused on literary books, novels, and comics and board games. I really liked this business model because the investment was minimal. I would need to secure material and an avenue for distribution. Simple. The problems started occurring when I really looked at what I wanted to do. I didn't care for the books and board games. I enjoyed the company of the people who did enjoy these materials. 

This got me thinking. How can I make a living by bringing together individuals who share common interests and would share in a conversation with me. This is where I am stuck. I grew up thinking that mathematics and science were everything. My entire education was about polishing my analytical skills and applying these skills to life's challenges. An education that I applied to every aspect of my life. I lived for systems and control. Yet, here I am. Unable to decide on my future because I am afraid of the uncertainty. 

COVID-19 is still very much in full swing in the United States. I've been unemployed for the last six months and my unemployment benefits ends this week. It never occurred to me once, "What if I cannot find employment?" I never considered that the United States would be thrown into so much chaos. Then I remembered my anecdotal experiences with corporate companies. Yeah. It all makes sense. At the same time, I hate that it all makes sense. 

Six months of patiently waiting for an employer to graciously offer to pay me wages to make them profits that I will never see. I am disheartened at the idea of not finding meaningful work. At the same time, I resent this culture and its constant need to consume. 

That's when I had a light-bulb moment. I rigorously watch YouTube, but the people I follow are human and cannot realistically produce content fast enough. I've stopped watching YouTube for a few days to allow for the creators' content to build and then consume in one sitting. This was a habit of mine as I typically used their content as background noise as I worked. Now it has me thinking. I want to create a publishing company for people to discuss the material being discussed. I've always liked forums and there are so many websites that operate as a forum of sorts. I want to be different. I want for people to engage with the material differently. 

Let's start with a platform. A platform for games that tell a story. A story that engages the reader. The reader who is linked to the community and influences the game. Almost like the people in the community are creating a story for the game. Give them the tools to generate new stories and allow others to play through each story. Analytics behind the story can be linked to the community to promote more creatives to make more stories. An open world where the players decide the story they want to play. The world is made by players. Choose your own adventure. Heh. I basically described Dungeons and Dragons. Well, that's what I get for trying. 

Good night.

-A

Overpowered Abilities Concepts #16

48) Astral Summoning. Performs a summoning of an ancient being. A different unit is summoned depending  on the arrangement of the nearest nearby allied units (allied heroes are priority). 

Command Formation. Four allied units in front of this unit. 

Freedom Formation. Three allied units in front and one allied unit behind this unit. 

Liberty Formation. Two allied units in front and two allied units behind this unit. 

Justice Formation. One allied unit in front and three Allied units behind this unit. 

Valor Formation. Four allied units behind this unit. 

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49) Inverted Reality. Flips the current health and mana of all heroes. A hero does not die as a result of 0 HP. A hero does die if their mana drops below 5%. 

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50) Wandering Despair. Summons a non-targetable, slow moving cloud that inflicts damage over time, reduces movement speed, attack damage, and armor to all units inside the cloud. Death of a unit inside the cloud will increase the cloud size and duration. Cloud drifts to the nearest unit. 

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51) Crown of the Underworld Ruler. Passively depletes the health of units attacked by this unit. Does not stack and cannot be removed. 

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52) Shadow-hook. This unit reaches into the void to snatch an unsuspecting unit; dragging them back into the void and reappearing in front of this unit. 

EX: Single-point target that ensnares a unit from behind. Similar to Pudge’s Meathook, but the collision occurs from behind the target unit. 

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Overpowered Ability Concepts #15

47) Rejuvenating Force. This hero regenerates 100% missing health over a short period. Increases attack damage proportional to the health missing versus health remaining.

EXAMPLE: 1000 HP (total)

• 100 HP missing | Regenerates 20 HP per second and increases attack damage by 11%. Lasts 5 seconds.
  
• 200 HP missing | Regenerates 40 HP per second and increases attack damage by 25%. Lasts 5 seconds.
• 300 HP missing | Regenerates 60 HP per second and increases attack damage by 43%. Lasts 5 seconds.
• 400 HP missing | Regenerates 80 HP per second and increases attack damage by 67%. Lasts 5 seconds.
• 500 HP missing | Regenerates 100 HP per second and increases attack damage by 100%. Lasts 5 seconds.
• 600 HP missing | Regenerates 120 HP per second and increases attack damage by 150%. Lasts 5 seconds.
• 700 HP missing | Regenerates 140 HP per second and increases attack damage by 233%. Lasts 5 seconds.
• 800 HP missing | Regenerates 160 HP per second and increases attack damage by 400%. Lasts 5 seconds.
• 900 HP missing | Regenerates 180 HP per second and increases attack damage by 900%.  Lasts 5 seconds.

EXAMPLE #2: 1000 HP (total);

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Overpowered Ability Concepts #14

46) Burden of Consciousness. This passive ability affects all non-player controlled units. Once a unit feels that they are losing a fight, they will consciously retreat and attempt to heal. Neutral creeps will band together to protect their brethren. Units will begin to wear and equip stronger weapons based on the situation they are facing. If an enemy hero is attacking with invisibility, creep units will bring dust of appearance on the next wave. If an enemy hero is spamming AoE spells, creeps will spawn sporadically and not at the same time. If an enemy hero is last-hitting too many allied creeps, creeps will attempt to deny allied creep.

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Overpowered Ability Concepts #13

45) Terrestrial Light. Unleashed an immensely powerful force from underground. The energy wave travels in a straight line, unbound, damaging all enemy units in its wake. Reduces damage inflicted upon recast.  This ability will have a short cooldown, but the damage inflicted will not be at a maximum until a much longer cooldown.

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Overpowered Ability Concepts #12

41) Insensitive. Passively blocks all damage. If the summation of potential damage inflicted onto this unit over the last 10 seconds exceeds this unit’s total health, this unit is killed; otherwise, this unit will remain at full health at all times.

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42) <insert ability name here>. Created from the lack of coding knowledge, this unit glitches when casting this spell. Enemy units: inflicts damage, slows, stuns, hexes, or reduces armor. Allied units: heals, increases attack speed, increases movement speed, increases attack damage, or increases armor. Duration of buffs placed as a result in this ability range anywhere between 1 to 6 seconds (1d6). When cast, this ability has a slight chance to glitch causing three of the following affects: 5% chance affect targets this unit. 5% chance to swap positions of target unit and this unit. 5% chance to target another nearby unit instead of target unit. 5% chance to sell an item from target unit’s inventory (full refund). 5% chance to double duration of buff placed. 75% chance to activate random spell (initial ability).

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43) Tyrannical Seizure. This unit may claim any building as its own. Any gold gained from controlled building is transferred to this unit. Any units produced from the controlled building are under full control of this unit. (Merchants and fountains are not buildings).

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44) Parasitic Nuance. Attaches parasite to host unit. Parasite slowly grows while on host unit. Parasite springs into action upon host unit’s death. Health and attack are proportional to the host unit’s health and attack and increases with duration on host unit. Parasite will kill host once health and attack is double that of the host.

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Overpowered Ability Concepts #11

33) Terminal Link. This unit channels a link that binds all nearby enemy units in a chain. All damage inflicted to affected units, including this unit, is transferred to the last unit in the chain until last unit is killed or this unit releases binding.

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34) Critical Effort. Percentage chance with each attack to grant bonus damage on next attack. Bonus damage is calculated as part of this unit’s attack damage.

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35) Gigaburst. Inflicts damage to target unit. If target unit is killed by this effect; splashes residual damage to nearby enemy units. Effect continues with each affected unit.

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36) Fabled Winds. Inflicts damage to nearby enemy unit and hides nearby allied units. Actions performed by allied units while under this effect do not reveal unit.

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37) Toxic Spear. Hurls a spear at target location coating nearby units and vegetation with toxins. Permanently reduces health of affected units. Vegetation withers and dies; nothing will grow in affected area.

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38) Moon Lance. Advances game clock 12 hours. Destroys all illusions, summons and controlled units (with limited timer), and wards. Revives all heroes. This ability is automatically triggered upon this unit’s death. Refreshes cooldown for all items and abilities, except for this one.

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39) Fighting Spirit. This unit will automatically engage in combat. Gains experience with each successful attack landed. Permanently increases this unit’s attack and movement speed for each unit killed by this unit.

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40) Four-leafed Clover. Passively increases percentage chance of all abilities and items. Passively increases bounty from units killed by this unit.

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Overpowered Ability Concepts #10

27) Strategic Endeavor. Passively rewards unit for successfully participating with called actions such as: destroying enemy tower within 10 seconds; killing enemy hero within 10 seconds; defending allied tower for 30 seconds; calling missing enemy hero and enemy hero appears within 10 seconds; healing or replenishing mana for allied heroes when below 50%; allied hero healing or replenishing this unit when below 50%; notifying allied players of new enemy hero equipment, items costing 1500 gold or more and purchased within 60 seconds; placing wards at designated ward locations.  This unit must be the one to call the action.

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28) Best Combat. This unit cannot attack any unit directly. Passively counters all attacks and spells when directly targeted by enemy units. Percentage chance to dodge damage and effect from units directly in front of this unit.

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29) Bombastic Finale. This unit channels otherworldly energies that inflict minimal damage; targets nearby enemy units. This unit gains all bounty from affected enemy units that are killed while this ability is being channeled.

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30) Art of Zen. Drastically reduces this unit’s movement, attack, and turn speed. Amplifies this unit’s spell damage and effects.

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31) Codenames. The dead tell no tales. One player is randomly selected to carry out a secret mission to assassinate a hero unit within a time limit (typically 5 minutes) failure to follow through on assassination results in punishment (typically death). Grants friendly fire when target hero unit is an ally.

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32) Essence of Time. Randomly destroys an item in target enemy unit’s inventory. Inflicts damage over time. Item effects are scaled down until nothing is left. Item cannot be sold as merchants are aware of the curse. Does not affect consumables. Curse is removed if item is used in a recipe.

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Overpowered Ability Concepts #9

26) Wrook’s Move. Inflicts damage to enemy units in a line (240 AoE). Additional effects are determined by nearby allied heroes. Projectile speed and distance is increased for each nearby allied agility-hero. For each nearby allied strength-hero, increases area of effect by 120 and stuns for 0.2 seconds. For each nearby allied intelligence-hero, increases damage by 10/15/20% and slows movement and attack speed by 10%.

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Overpowered Ability Concepts #8

25) Winter Storm. Globally reduces casting range and movement speed for all units.

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Overpowered Ability Concepts #7

24) Cloud Strife. Lunges at target unit from anywhere on the map, damage is proportional to distance traveled. Successful kill by this effect will reset cooldown for this ability.

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Overpowered Ability Concepts #6

23) Knife’s Edge. This unit sacrifices itself to inflict damage to nearby units equal to this unit’s health before activation. Increases death timer by 50%.

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Overpowered Ability Concepts #5

18) Mayhem. Randomly attacks all nearby units, allied and enemy; increases attack damage, for the duration, when unit is killed by this effect.

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19) Last Laugh. This unit is unable to move, cast spells, or attack. When killed, all damage acquired from point-of-cast is gathered into a single physical attack that is projected towards target unit.

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20) Echo Chamber. Player chat is passively flooded with unanimous support for team via well known international players, regardless of match position.

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21) Habitual Delights. Passively grants bonus damage to allied units that successfully perform a combo; either by themselves or with allied players. Combo bonus increases with each successive action.

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22) Benevolent Influence. Target unit cannot kill or inflict damage.

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Overpowered Ability Concepts #4

17) Time to Kill. Passively delays ability cooldowns for a short duration after casting.

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Overpowered Ability Concepts #3

16) Descent from the Heavens. This unit unleashes a powerful attack at a target AoE equal to current attack damage; this is treated as a normal attack and prompts attack modifiers.
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Overpowered Ability Concepts #2

15) Ultimate Support. Shares health regeneration with marked allied unit. Multiple marked units will reduce health regeneration proportioned to number of allied units marked.

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Overpowered Ability Concepts #1

1) Unstoppable. Attack damage is directly proportional to total damage received. Death resets damage accumulation.

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2) Evolutionary Advantage. Death of unit passes along buff or stat modifier as a permanent bonus upon re-spawn. Buff may be negative or positive.

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3) Untraceable. Unit cannot be tracked; no unit can gain vision of this unit's sight. Unit will not be visible on minimap.

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4) Cautionary Sensation. Actively locates (one-time ping) enemy units on minimap; passively tracks enemy units’ movement (mini-icons are visible on minimap for the duration after a short time where this unit does not move) on minimap while not moving.

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5) Deafening Stalker. Only the last unit attacked by this unit can see this unit. Reduces affected unit's communication (reduces audio in/out and delays any typed message) with allied units when this unit is nearby.

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6) Unseen Assailant. Successfully killing an enemy unit renders this unit invisible. If this unit attacks or casts a spell, this unit is revealed; does not reveal this unit if the attack or spell successfully kills an enemy unit.

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7) Dreary Aura. Nearby enemy units will have their attack damage, attack speed, health, and movement speed reduced each time they are damaged.

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8) Accelerator. This unit gains bonus attack and movement speed for each nearby enemy unit.

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9) Red State Aura. Drastically reduces accuracy of nearby enemy units; reduces affected unit's attack and spell damage for each missed attack.

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10) Blind Focus. This unit has no sight radius; gains bonus attack damage and gains nearby enemy communication (audio in/out and any typed messages from nearby enemy unit).

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11) Natural Strength. This unit's strength is equal to double the combined bonus strength from equipped items. 

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12) Geological Phenomena. All attacks, spells cast by this unit, and equipment on this unit are infused by the terrain.

• Dirt: Physical attacks are tougher and movement is more fluid.
  
• Vegetation: Spells draw energy from nearby vegetation reducing spell cost and increasing spell damage.
  
• Water: Physical attacks splash or spillover to nearby units.
  
• Stone: The solid surface increases projectile speed and range.
  
• Blight: Spells draw negative energy from nearby blight inflicting an intoxicating poison.
  
• Scorched: Radiating energy increases mana regeneration and increases attack damage.
  

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13) Perspective Invisibility. This unit is rendered invisible to targeted enemy unit as long as this unit remains directly in front of target enemy unit. Attacking or casting spell does not reveal this unit.

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14) Phantasm. This unit can only target one unit until target unit is killed; while target unit is still alive, this unit cannot acquire a new target. Passively attacks target unit when target unit is not in this unit’s sight radius.

My Brand - A Self-assessment of My Goals

Greetings all,

Over the past few weeks, I have been collecting my thoughts about where I see myself in the next few years.  Many friends and relatives are moving on with their lives and I fear I may have become fixated on staying stationary.  I lack inspiration to do anything productive.  In an odd manner, I feel more productive at work then I do with my own prospects.  This may heavily rely on the fact that I make money by performing work.  COLOSSAL CONCEPT!

A few discussions with my sister has me thinking about going off and starting my own business, again.  The first and foremost, to obtain an independent source of income one must identify what will be generating that income.

What skills do I have and what can I apply from them?

• 3D modeling
• Understanding of working space.
• Water filtration systems
• Understanding current methods to purify and move water.
• Structural metal buildings
•  Understanding the limitations of materials, even steel has a breaking point.
• Injection molding and polyurethane molding
• Understanding modern production of low-cost high-strength materials.
• Acoustic suppression systems
• Understanding that making something acoustically pleasing is just as important as aesthetics.
• Microsoft excel (VBA)
• Understanding basic programming.
• Manufacturing solutions
• Understanding basic processes and order of operation.

 Know that I have laid out my skills, I need to apply them to my personality.  What defines me as a person.  Why would someone want to go into business with me?  What is the connection between my brand and my skills? 

• Calmness
• Consistency
• Curiosity
• Drive
• Focus
• Humor
• Imagination
• Open-mindedness
• Optimism
• Originality
• Practicality
• Pragmatism
• Resilience
• Simplicity
• Solitude
• Spontaneity
• Uniqueness

 So, what's the connection?  What are my potential customers' needs?  What can I bring to the table that no one else can do?  What will keep them coming back for more?

If I truly want to change the world... What do I need to do?  What will be more core value in which I build my commercial infrastructure?  How about:

Focus on Imagination with emphasis on Curiosity, Originality and Uniqueness; Simplifying Practical Solutions with an Open-minded and Optimistic Approach.

The short version will have either a cool acronym or a meaningful correlation.

New Toy: Secondary Lens for Olympus OM-D E-M5

I am really excited to be going on a trip very soon. Mostly because I will get some much deserved time off from work. I really wish I had some PTO to compensate for the time off. Oh well. Back to the purpose of this post... I recently received my new lens, M.Zuiko 40-150mm f4.0-5.6 II R (Silver), we'll see how well this lens works with ranged shots while traveling. I have already tested it and the camera does make some strange noises while focusing. I need to play with it a bit more to fully understand the capabilities of the camera.

I was considering sharing my pictures online and have decided that I will only be sharing the pictures I feel are worthy of being shared with anonymous viewers. The few pictures I have uploaded into my DeviantArt account are only the best and are the originals. I truly wish to explore the world and preserve my adventures. It all seems like a very long journey, but I'll leave that discussion for another time.

Take care.

New Puzzle: Ravensburger World Map 1665

32"x48"