Welcome to another edition of my newsletter.

I recently turned 40, and thanks to my wife, who organized three differently-themed birthday parties for my 40th, we met a lot of people and had loads of fun. Thanks to everyone who could make it and celebrate with us. We really appreciate having you in our lives. And for those who couldn’t, please remember you are always there in our hearts.

Me and Rinat published our latest podcast episode on Ransomware which we recorded in March. I hope you enjoy this episode. Rinat added an intro, an outro and some nice background music. The quality of the video is also much superior compared to our old videos. Now you can also listen to or watch our podcast from a single link. Two more episodes have been recorded and are waiting to be published.

I ran the Mizuno Half Marathon, part of the Midnight Sun Marathon (MSM) event, at Tromsø in Norway. This run was inside the Arctic Circle during the summer solstice in the Northern Hemisphere and also a day after my 40th birthday. For more details please read the newsletter below.

I went for a communal sauna in Pust Tromsø and it was an incredible experience where we sat in the hot sauna for some time before jumping into the cold Norwegian sea. I did this around 4 to 5 times during the 1-hour time slot, I had booked.

I took part in the Brands Hatch 10K run, organized on the ex-Formula 1 track to raise money for Heart of Kent Hospice. I finished the 10K run in 55min 15 secs. The run had a rolling terrain, and you could see the iconic red chicane on each turn. Hard on the knee but a very different experience.

Took part in Running Out of Time, a climate relay event. It started in Ben Nevis and finished at Big Ben. It aimed to spread a message about climate change by running across 2436 kms from Scotland to England. I ran Stage 209 and Stage 210.

As soon as I turned 40, I booked myself for the NHS Healthcheck. It’s a simple check-up to assess my probability of getting diabetes, dementia or cardiovascular disease in the subsequent years of my life. My risk was pretty low for everything even though my HDL came out to be lower than normal which should have been higher.

Table of Contents

• 🏃 Mizuno Half Marathon

• 🖥️ Building a PC

• ✍️ 40 lessons for my 40s

  • 💪 Physical Health

  • 🌿 Veganism

  • 💰 Personal Finance

  • 😎 Relationships

  • 🗺️ Travel

  • 🧠 Mental Health

  • 👶 Parenting

  • 💻 Technology

• ❤️ Things I enjoyed

🏃 Mizuno Half Marathon

This basically summarizes the run for me -

• Running under the midnight sun ✅

• Running inside the Arctic Circle at Tromsø, Norway ✅

• Running during the Summer Solstice ✅

• Running at 40 ✅

• Running Half Marathon PB ✅

• Running a sub 2-hr Half Marathon ✅

• Running with wife and friends ✅

• Running in amazing weather ✅

The run started at 2100 hours and I finished just before 2300 hours on 22-Jun-2024. When I went to bed, it was 0130 hrs on 23-Jun-2024 and fully bright outside. The sun never sets inside the Arctic Circle, during the Summer, and that’s why it’s called the land of the Midnight Sun.

The official results are below -

What an experience running under the midnight sun.

We stayed at Scandic Grand Tromsø, went on an Arctic Fjord Cruise, went up to Fjellheisen, and visited the Polaria aquarium.

We ate at Indie, Wedeb’s, Elefant Indisk and Asian Healthy Food's restaurants.

Overall, it was a time well spent on one of the most amazing experiences of our lives.

🖥️ Building a PC

I had been using a Dell Latitude E7440 since 2015. And it was high time that I upgraded my daily driver, either by buying a new laptop or a PC. I went with the latter option as it gives me more options for future upgrades and offers significant customisation over a laptop.

The final specs look like this for my PC -

I used the hard disk from my old laptop and I used my existing monitors, keyboard, mouse and printer.

• ⌨️ Keyboard - Logitech K120 Keyboard

• 🖱️ Mouse - Logitech M185 Wireless Mouse

• 🖥️ Monitor - Dell U2415 24.1" WUXGA IPS LED Monitor

• 🖨️ Printer - HP LaserJet Pro M28W Wireless Mono Printer with Wi-Fi

I ordered most of the stuff from Amazon and the graphics card from Scan. I finished the assembly in one evening but it took me longer than I anticipated as I couldn’t figure out all the cabling. This was also my first time assembling the full PC from scratch since my college days.

The PC requires separate power for the motherboard, the CPU, the graphics card, and all the different hard disks. Once you figure out the fundamentals then it was pretty straightforward. Everything on the motherboard needs power from the Power Supply Unit (PSU) and then every component should be able to talk to each other via the motherboard.

The final setup, including the cost breakdown, can be seen here.

✍️ 40 lessons for my 40s

💪 Physical Health

1. Focussing on fitness is as important as focussing on a career.

2. Taking care of yourself is the biggest gift you can give to your children

3. Getting fit requires discipline not achieving goals.

4. Cardio or HIIT (stamina), Yoga (flexibility & balance), and Weight Training (strength) should be the 3 pillars of your fitness routine.

5. It’s easier to stay fit if your partner is also into it.

🌿 Veganism

1. Continue on this path.

2. Killing animals is not the only way.

3. Something we can do to leave a better world for future generations.

4. The feeling of lightness in your body is exhilarating.

5. Ethical living can be expensive but rewarding.

💰 Personal Finance

1. Understanding your sources of income and outgoing expenses is something everyone should know.

2. Cater to your fixed expenses (mortgage/rent, utilities, insurance, bills, etc.) first before you start spending.

3. Understanding personal income tax, your tax code and how you can optimize taxes, is a useful skill.

4. Investing a small amount regularly is more important than investing a large amount once.

5. Insurance (Life and Critical Illness) and pension are useful even though you don’t use them immediately.

😎 Relationships

1. Relationships require continuous nurturing.

2. Out of sight out of mind is real. So you need to put effort into those who matter.

3. Building relations is harder as you grow older unless you share something in common.

4. Staying curious brings value to a relationship as you are sharing new learnings and experiences.

5. Working on yourself is more helpful than focussing on others.

🗺️ Travel

1. Travelling opens your mind but travel like a local.

2. People all across the world have the same issues and needs as everyone else.

3. You realize that the place you live is not that bad after all.

4. Travelling for an experience is far more fulfilling.

5. Walking or running is the best way to get a vibe of the place.

🧠 Mental Health

1. Focussing on many things is never productive.

2. Screen downtime is much needed.

3. Doing nothing is also equally important.

4. Sleep is the most underrated thing.

5. Walking helps clear your head.

👶 Parenting

1. Makes you appreciate what your parents did for you.

2. Hard but rewarding.

3. Helps you to stay grounded. Simple pleasures don’t cost a lot.

4. Witnessing someone grow is a miracle of life.

5. Always surprised by the unconditional love.

💻 Technology

1. Technology evolves but fundamentals stay.

2. Use technology to make your life simpler and more productive.

3. Help those who don’t understand technology. Make it an enabler instead of a barrier. Digital inequality is real.

4. The most powerful device is in the palm of your hand AKA smartphone.

5. Don’t adopt technology for the sake of it. Adopt it only when it brings value to your life.

Inspired by 30 Lessons for my 30s by Ali Abdaal.

❤️ Things I enjoyed

This section has been inspired by Ali Abdaal’s wonderful newsletter.

🎬 Video - With the Olympics on now, The Fastest Man Alive | Bolt caught my attention and what an incredible run he had in the last three Olympics.

📝 Article - Summer solstice - in pictures showcases some amazing photos from around the world.

📱 App - Timer Plus - Workouts Timer is a nice little workout app to plan your reps, sets, warm-up and cool-down time. Android and iOS apps are both available.

🎙️ Podcast - The Complete History & Strategy of Starbucks covers the most iconic beverage company in the world, Starbucks. Never knew all the details about how Starbucks became so popular across the world.

📺 TV show - Star Trek Discovery Season 3 is highly recommended. A highly imaginative series based in the future about a spacefaring human civilisation.

🌐 Website - Artificial Analysis - Independent analysis of AI language models and API providers.

Thank you so much once again for reading my newsletter this week. Please feel free to Buy me a coffee if you are enjoying what I am sharing.

If you want to follow me around the internet, then please do so here.

Until we meet again next time, stay active, read more, save more, stay disciplined and love more.