Welcome to another edition of my newsletter.

The newsletter publishing has been a bit slow but I intend to bring it back to normal.

So, I recently ran my fastest 5K ever in 23 mins 20 secs at the Bromley Parkrun event. After getting back to running at the beginning of this year, I have finally improved upon my PB (personal best) since 2020. This is a big achievement for me and the next target is to finish in under 23 mins. Let’s see how long that takes.

We also invited a guest to our podcast last week and it was an exciting talk. I will wait for the episode to get published in a couple of weeks’ time to talk more about it.

I also saw Shahrukh Khan’s new film Pathaan. I am a big fan of SRK and watch all his films. And I was waiting for this film to release as this is SRK’s film in a long time. Definitely worth a watch in the cinema.

My wife ran 10K as part of the London Winter Run and is raising money for Cancer Research UK. Please feel free to donate to this cause if you are keen.

And I have finally breached 1100 on Lichess in the rapid format of the game. It has taken a long time for me to get here but playing regularly has paid off and I am learning new things every day in Chess.

And check out the new Gen-1 from RunwayML. A tool to create a video from a video in a totally new format and imagery. AI tools are getting better and better.

🏎️ Formula E

The world of commercial vehicles is slowly moving towards electric. But what about the world of racing vehicles? In comes, Formula E. Started in 2014 it has already got a strong following within a short span of time.

Formula 1 which is the world’s most prestigious motor racing competition has been at the top for a very long time, since its inception in 1950. But this race is driven by cars powered by fossil fuels.

Formula E has entered this space of racing to help push the technology of electric vehicles. Do remember that racing offers vehicle manufacturers the chance to introduce new technologies, test them and then apply those to their commercial vehicles. The same is happening with Formula E, where battery technology is being improved, charging technology is being improved and also braking technology.

The 3rd generation Formula E car is unbelievable.

Excited about this new era of racing where it’s powered by batteries.

✈️ F-35B

Imagine a fighter aircraft that can perform short take-off and vertical landing (STOVL). An aircraft that can track multiple aircraft simultaneously using radar. An aircraft that is a stealth fighter.

This is the Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II.

Watching this video made me appreciate the various nuances that go into designing a fighter plane. It’s not easy to keep improving these planes and they need to go through a rigorous round of tests before they are purchased by the armed forces of various countries. Truly a marvel of engineering. Though it’s already out of date since its first flight in 2006.

💬 Prompt engineering

So ChatGPT has been a very hot topic for a while. And it recently reached 100 million users.

It also announced a paid version called ChatGPT Plus available for $20/month. Currently, it’s available to customers in the United States only.

But what is interesting to note is the millions of ways people are using it. There are so many use cases now for ChatGPT that it’s becoming difficult to keep track of it all.

So here comes a website, mentioned above, that helps track lots of prompts posted by users and ChatGPT’s response to those prompts. I think this is quite useful when you want to get inspired or just have fun looking at random prompts. This can be used for prompt engineering, an emerging field where you can optimize the prompt to get optimal results.

The website allows you to vote for some of the best prompts as well which is similar to Hacker News.

Meanwhile, Google announced its own ChatGPT competitor called Bard in its most recent blog. Things are spicing up quickly.

🔗 Linktree

I mentioned this in my last newsletter but I thought of getting into it in more detail.

These days we all have a lot of presence online. Most of us have an email address, a Facebook/Twitter/Instagram account, a Whatsapp number, a LinkedIn profile, a GitHub profile (if you code), a personal website (if you have one) etc. Managing all these URLs can be a pain and you might need these at hand for various reasons.

One way to manage them is to bookmark them. The problem with this method is that you can’t open your bookmarks on every device you use. You can if you create a browser profile and then store the bookmarks in it. But you would need to log in to your profile in the browser you frequently use. What if there was a better way?

This is where Linktree comes where you can bookmark all your URLs in a website and just give one URL to anyone who wants to know about your online presence. The advantage of this method is that since it’s a public URL you can access it from anywhere (provided you have an internet connection).

I have created my own Linktree page which is on all my profile pages. Whenever I need to share any of my URLs or refer to any of my Podcast episodes or Newsletter posts, I open my Linktree URL to access those details. That is the beauty. I recently added my ParkRun profile to it to check my runs.

Do check it out and if you need any help then please do get in touch.

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.

Until we meet again next week, drive safely, exercise, go out in nature and enjoy a really warm February in the UK.