It’s hard to pick a genre to categorize this game into. Its open ended nature means it can be action, adventure, fantasy, horror or all of these combined at once. I’m told that the gameplay differs from player to player, and in fact it could change while you’re playing it. (Honestly, I’ve never seen a game before where the genre changes all the time) This fluid nature of the game is definitely confusing and that makes it hard to box into a label. It really is a genre-busting game.

Unlike most other MMORPGs, you cannot customize your character in the game. The skin color and other accessories available to you seem to be randomly determined and you can’t change those options.… Read the rest

But this date is semi-important to me for two reasons. One is because I recently realized that my life has been been blazing through and I haven’t been doing enough reflection on my mistakes or experiences. Sure, I used to (and still do) think about questions such as what is money, what philosophy is about and why freedom is important. But I haven’t reflected enough on my own life experiences and mistakes. I thought reflecting on my 20s will be a good start.

The second reason why this date is semi-important is because nine years ago when I was 21, I had published a post called 30 by 30 – it contained 30 things that I asked myself to achieve by the time I turn 30.… Read the rest

The Outer Limits of Reason by Noson S. Yanofsky

This book is written by Yanofsky, a professor in the Department of Computer and Information Science at Brooklyn College at the University of New York.… Read the rest

2016 was the year I ended up reading most books that I have ever read in any year of my life so far! I read a total of 60 books and you can find all of them on here (it has 59 books, one book that isn’t there is called Ray Dalio’s principles). The books I read in 2015 (a total of 34) is also on ShelfJoy. You can check out my all lists here shelfjoy.com/paraschopra.

Out of these, I like the following the most:

• The Beginning of Infinity: Explanations That Transform the World by David Deutsch. It makes a bold claim that we will always be at the beginning of the infinite progress that lies ahead.

I’m a nihilist. I don’t believe there’s any externally given meaning to our lives. Some people find the lack of an authority like God depressing, but I find it liberating. Devoid of any external guidance, humans truly have limitless potential and can do amazing things. There’s no one to say: ‘hey, that’s not allowed’. Whatever Physics doesn’t forbid is doable.

For me, what gets me up from bed every morning is to create things than nobody else has thought of before.

Why create?

Even though lives are meaningless, humans are cosmically significant. The knowledge and technology we create will eventually impact universe at a large scale. Say humans of future will be able to prevent sun from burning out or they’ll fly out to other stars. Humanity can exist indefinitely and can spread to the entire universe. It’s amazing to know that human creations can have an impact that would spans galaxies; and all acts of human creations – large or small – contribute to that human potential.… Read the rest

Here’s why.

Reality check for 1/7th of the world’s population

We Indians are 1.2 billion people on Earth. Yes, many of us are still extremely poor. But a lot of us in that fat middle and upper class have means beyond survival. Hundreds of millions of us have disposable incomes, we have weekends for ourselves when we go to movies and eat expensive popcorn. Yes, we have cars and ACs. Heck, now we even have Netflix, iPhones and Macbooks.

One would imagine that multiple hundreds of millions of this middle class will at least have a million passionate people. Or at least a hundred thousand people who aim for perfection in their chosen field. Or maybe ten thousand people who aim at being absolute best in the world. A thousand people who have dedicated their lives to making that tiny dent in the universe?… Read the rest

Last month at Wingify, we hit a million dollars of recurring revenue. I’m very happy that the team has been able to achieve this milestone, especially because we’re entirely bootstrapped and haven’t raised any outside investment. There has been a lot of enthusiasm about the million-dollar-a-month figure, and all Wingifighters are pumped up to convert the ‘m’ into a ‘b’.… Read the rest

Why be sad when the world’s beautiful
That’s lame, you know that, but it’s true
And it’s not depression, it’s worse than that

There’s nothing I’m searching for; zilch is what I seek
I have everything I wanted; I should be happy, but I’m not
But I know by morning, I will forget

A happy death is the one that’s sudden and unexpected
Not just for me, but for everyone I love
You shrug your shoulders, but I know you understand

What words do is the curing bit
It’s temporary, that’s okay
At least, you exist

I don’t want to die, I don’t want to live
It’s sad and amusing
But ultimately of no use

So what if this doesn’t impress you
I’m tied up, choked
I deserve a break

People talk, people plan
I, here, existing – endure
Wish it were depression, not sadness

Cheap laughs, grand plans
My life’s become what it always wanted
And yet here I am, writing about sadness

Must save the poem on my computer
All the emotion in the world doesn’t make this universe bother
Whether these words are spoken or not, it doesn’t care

Must save it once again – CTRL-S
Because I’m a paranoid
How ironic that I call myself a nihilist

I might forget all this tomorrow
But people come, people go
Stuff happens, we die – await a miracle

PS: World’s mathematical, math exists
For all that Nihilism, one laugh is enough
It’s not depression, it’s absurdity – sadness and love combined into one… Read the rest

Culture is a necessary, but not sufficient

The way I see it (and many others agree), culture isn’t just free beer and gourmet lunch. (in fact, I think too many “free” things might attract the wrong sorts of folks to your team). Culture is having motivated employees who believe that by showing up at work every day, they are making the world a better place. Culture is being devoid of distracting office politics, culture is believing that morality trumps profits, culture is like a flywheel that like minded people make it self-reinforcing.… Read the rest

The idea of rationality holding supreme power to describe the universe is a very strong one and has actually lead to a lot of progress in recent centuries in terms of increased lifespan and other comforts.… Read the rest