Weekend Reading #335

This is the three-hundredth-and-thirty-fifth weekly edition of our newsletter, Weekend Reading, sent out on Saturday 4th October 2025.

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What we're thinking.

The undulations of the market have resolved with a fresh breakout in some areas of speculative tech and a rally in crypto all round. Week to week gyrations beneath the surface notwithstanding, markets are powering to new highs regularly. It feels a bit weird to be honest as some stocks are not doing well. Private credit has collapsed. The heroes of the past few years can't catch a bid. Turkish stocks too have collapsed anew. Go figure.

What we're doing.

I've been to Singapore many times for business and always enjoyed it. But I wanted to come here with the whole family to see what it was like from a family perspective and for the kids to see what a properly functional Asian city looks and feels like. We have been here for almost a full week. Most people suggest a few days, but I wanted to get to the point where we do all the obvious things and then have time to spare. We chose to stay in a self-catering apartment rather than a hotel because that would help us experience a little more of what it's like to "live" here (although obviously it's nowhere near long enough to know).
 
And so, we ticked off all the items on the things-to-do list. We went to Sentosa, a massive development across the bay from the marina, which houses all the latest family attractions. From Kidzania to a Sky Luge. From Universal Studios to the Oceanarium to a cable car. This place is exceptional. We did most of these things and the kids had a ball. We went to the Gardens at the Bay next to Marina Sands, which were really spectacular (especially the air-conditioned part - the flower dome and the cloud forest). We went on a night safari at the Mandai Wildlife Park (essentially the nocturnal animals at the zoo) which was really excellent. And of course we went to LOTS of shopping malls. Orchard, which is the upmarket area here literally has them stacked next to each other. Every indoor activity imaginable is available in these malls.
 
Singapore itself is a modern marvel. Quite possibly the best example of how last week's article of why hot countries are poor is so apt. Singapore is of course an equatorial economic success story and income equality is low. And it shows. It's quite possibly the safest place on earth. Public transport is beautifully efficient and designed. Taxis are inexpensive. Traffic, apart from rush hour, is minimal. The streets themselves are perfectly curated with greenery and flowers everywhere you go. It really is a very cool place. It is built for its climate. You spend early mornings and late afternoons and evenings outside but the rest of the time you simply have to be indoors given the heat and humidity. But everything is airconditioned. Everything. Restaurants and groceries are not quite as expensive as London but still expensive. Property prices are very high, especially in the good areas. Taxes are low so it makes sense, I guess. But it doesn't feel like a grudge purchase to live at these prices given what you get in exchange. The city infrastructure is world class. It is located perfectly for anywhere in Asia to travel to. The weather is less than perfect but then again, most people here are local or come from the rest of Asia where many of them have grown up with the humidity and Singapore is paradise in comparison.
 
I had some meetings here too. This is a place of business with immense opportunity. This is why Eugene has chosen to be in Southeast Asia. The UK is positively dead in comparison. And everyone is keen to do business, to engage and to be creative. What a pleasure. It's a great city (state) and we had a great time all round. Next is Indonesia having arrived in Bali a few days ago. More on that next week. DC

What we're reading.
 
Golden son, the second book of the Red Rising series is one of the best fiction books I have ever read. It also has one of my favourite lines I've read:
 
"You are a worm who thought himself a serpent just because you slither".
 
 The sheer originality of the story, never mind the prose as per above, of the writer, Pierce Brown, is incredible. He is doing something so rare in today's world - being genuinely creative and original in all aspects. Exceptional book, thoroughly enjoyable. I'm already halfway through book 3! DC
 
As far as insects are concerned, mosquitoes rank at the top of my most abhorred creatures list, especially having caught dengue before, a long time ago while in school. It’s a thoroughly unpleasant experience, not to mention risk of death from unstoppable bleeding as platelets get wiped out by the virus. On the flipside, it was an extremely efficient way to lose weight (although cardio endurance gets wiped out), though definitely not recommended. So it was with great horror that I saw that the aedes variants that carry disease, specifically aedes aegypti which is the variant in Singapore that got me all those years ago, were found in the UK – in Kent and at Heathrow airport. Seems like climate change is adding one more problem to the UK’s list, amongst many others on its growing litany.
 
In other news, if you’re not sufficiently worried about zero-day exploits in tech, here’s one more to think about: zero-day exploits in DNA. The culprit: our newest friend, LLMs aka AI, as outlined by a team at Microsoft that underscores how the same way we often get LLMs to paraphrase words to deliver the same meaning without looking ostensibly a copy-paste, there is potential for LLMs to also paraphrase DNA expressions – especially those of deadly toxins which are currently blocked from synthesis for obvious security reasons by sequencing screening software. This is literally the equivalent of getting around censorship (wouldn’t argue against censoring away potentially civilisation-ending biotoxins) by synthesising DNA sequences that look completely different from what the screeners are looking for, thereby evading them, while maintaining their effect and function – good and bad alike. Just one more angle for the brave new AI-powered world. EL