Photo by Jaap Arriens, NurPhoto via Getty ImagesNurPhoto via Getty ImagesIn March 2024, the U.S. government took an unprecedented step toward banning TikTok, the wildly popular social media platform owned by China-based ByteDance. Congress, in a rare and overwhelming display of bipartisan agreement, passed a bill citing national security concerns. The Supreme Court then unanimously upheld the decision.On January 18, TikTok went dark across the country. Then came a stunning reversal.Within 24 hours, the app was back online as if nothing had happened. The following day, President Trump announced a 75-day delay in enforcement, vaguely promising to work something out.Suddenly, lawmakers who had previously championed TikToks ban, citing it as an urgent national security risk, fell silent. They offered no protest, no demand for explanation, no criticism of the presidents reversal. Without new data or justification, Democrats and Republicans alike seemed to shift their perception of TikTok. Just like that, the platform had morphed from a Trojan Horse to a harmless app.How could such a dramatic shift occur?MORE FOR YOUThe Science Behind Illogical DecisionsWhen smart people make irrational choices, we often assume they are acting out of selfishness, stupidity or stubbornness.Yet, its hard to believe that an elected official who truly viewed TikTok as a serious threat to national security would consciously disregard that danger. The cognitive dissonance would be overwhelming.Neuroscience explains how people resolve this kind of internal conflict.The late neurologist George York spent years analyzing brain imaging studies and psychological research, identifying an unexpected pattern: in moments of significant threat or opportunity, human perception gets distorted. He called this phenomenon brainshift, a process that helps explain why even intelligent, rational individuals make choices that seem baffling in hindsight.Imagine youre a member of Congress who voted to ban TikTok, confident in your decision due to legitimate concerns about Chinas potential misuse of user data. Now, the political landscape has shifted. The presidents team has already warned lawmakers to support his Cabinet nomineesor face primary challenges. The message is clear. Those who defy him on key decisions risk political consequences.This is where brainshift and TikTok collide. You could simply surrender to fear, but for someone sworn to protect the nation, thats not an easy reality to accept. Instead, without realizing it, your perception begins to shift. The danger posed by China, once so obvious, now seems less urgent. The data hasnt changed, but the way you perceive it has. And with that shift, silence suddenly feels like the most reasonable course of action.This subconscious process isnt confined to politics. Under the right conditions, anyoneregardless of intelligence or moral convictioncan experience brainshift. Its a vulnerability hardwired into human biology, with roots in early human evolution. For our ancestors, survival often depended on taking action despite fear. Hunting wild animals with only a wooden spear was dangerous, but essential to make it through long winters. Brainshift helped early humans overcome their anxieties by altering their perception of risk, making threats seem less daunting and action more attainable.Modern neuroscience confirms that this ancient mechanism still operates today, with countless examples in the medical field. When confronted with significant opportunity or danger, the brain suppresses the fear center (the amygdala) and engages the parietal lobes (which shape perception), all without conscious awareness.A prime example can be seen in how we assess technology in medicine.The Irrational Fear Of Generative AI In MedicineJust two years after its introduction, Generative AI has already become a transformative force across industries, including healthcare. With its capabilities doubling annually, GenAI now matches clinicians in diagnostic accuracy across multiple independent studies. Soon, it could empower patients to self-diagnose with greater speed and accuracy than in the physicians office. In time, GenAI will enable patients to manage chronic diseases more effectively and select personalized treatment plans.Despite GenAIs potential to save thousands of lives, policymakers and medical professionals remain fixated on its risks rather than its benefits.Largely absent from the debate is any acknowledgment of the staggering toll that human error takes in medicine. This is a huge blind spot that suggests brainshift may be distorting perceptions.According to Johns Hopkins researchers, medical errorsincluding misdiagnoses, surgical mistakes, and communication failurescontribute to more than 250,000 deaths annually in the U.S., making them the third leading cause of death after heart disease and cancer.Yet these staggering numbers rarely receive the same scrutiny as AIs hypothetical risks. The disparity in perceptiondespite the fact that both human medical errors and AI failures can lead to equally severe consequences, including deathmirrors the brainshift process seen in the TikTok debate.Policymakers hesitate to support AI-driven healthcare reforms, fearing the political consequences should an AI-related error harm a patient. In contrast, they know that when human error leads to harm, the blame falls solely on the individual clinician. Physicians, meanwhile, see AI as a threat to their professional autonomy, status and income if the technology becomes a widely accepted source of independent expertise.Lost in this debate is the reality that AI has the potential to significantly reduce preventable deaths. Once again, brainshift clouds perception, preventing people from recognizing how this technology could help patients manage chronic conditions, provide expert guidance outside of office hours and identify misdiagnoses or treatment errors.If not for brainshift, we would already be prioritizing large-scale research to weigh AIs potential benefits against its risks (rather than focusing primarily on limiting its clinical applications) and exploring opportunities to apply GenAI to enhance patient safety.Instead, distorted perceptions make AI seem more dangerous than the evidence supports, overshadowing the very real dangers of medical errors and the worsening crisis of healthcare access. Once regulators, elected officials, and clinicians fully acknowledge medicines existing shortcomings, priorities will shift from restricting GenAI to leveraging its life-saving potential.Brainshift And The Approval Of Controversial Alzheimers DrugsIn summer 2021, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved Aduhelm, a controversial Alzheimers drug, despite strong opposition from independent experts and limited evidence of its effectiveness.The drug, designed to clear amyloid plaques from the brain, was promoted as a groundbreaking treatment. However, clinical data showed minimal cognitive benefit and significant risks, including brain swelling and bleeding.The scientific community was overwhelmingly opposed to its approval. An expert advisory panel cited insufficient evidence that Aduhelm slowed cognitive decline, with 10 of 11 members voting against its approval (and the last voting to abstain). Several resigned in protest after the FDA overruled their concerns.How did FDA officialstasked with making evidence-based decisionsreach the opposite conclusion from nearly every independent expert?In this high-stakes situation, fear and reward likely fueled brainshift in equal measure. Agency leaders faced intense pressure from advocacy groups demanding hope, feared media backlash, and worried about the agencys funding, which is largely tied to pharmaceutical companies. To resolve the dissonance between the scientific data and these external pressures, their perception of Aduhelms benefits likely became amplified while its risks diminished. Once that shift in perception occurred, approval no longer felt irrational. It seemed like the reasonable choice.Had brainshift not obscured their judgment, the FDA might have taken a more measured approach: perhaps a phased approval, requiring ongoing data collection and submission before full authorization. Instead, they approved the drug outright, a decision that eroded public trust and diverted resources toward a treatment of questionable value.Breaking The Cycle Of BrainshiftOvercoming brainshift in medicine starts with recognizing how it distorts decision-making and leads to unintended consequences.To mitigate its effects, healthcare leaders must actively seek diverse perspectives and embrace critical feedback. Open dialogue and challenges to assumptions will help counter distorted perceptions before they lead to poor choices.Additionally, enforcing transparency in data and decision-making processes would reduce bias and increase accountability among leaders.Mitigating the effects of brainshift in both politics and healthcare would lead to better outcomes for the nation. If elected officials had to explain what had changed about TikToks security risks, if the FDA were required to justify why it disregarded its advisory panel, and if regulators had to weigh the risks of human misdiagnosis against AI errors, better decisions would follow.The FDA was contacted regarding this story on Friday, Jan. 31. A spokesperson for the agency declined to comment, citing a temporary pause on public communications during the agencys transition under the new administration.

In brief: China's DeepSeek threw the multi-billion-dollar AI industry into chaos recently with the release of its R1 model, which is said to compete with OpenAI's o1 despite being trained on 2,048 Nvidia H800s and at a cost of $5.576 million. However, a new report claims that the true costs incurred by the firm were $1.6 billion, and that DeepSeek has access to around 50,000 Hopper GPUs. The claim that DeepSeek was able to train R1 using a fraction of the resources required by big tech companies invested in AI wiped a record $600 billion off Nvidia's share price in one day. If the Chinese startup to could make a model this powerful without spending billions on Team Green's most powerful AI GPUs, what would stop everyone else doing it?But did DeepSeek really create its Mixture-of-Experts model, which still tops the Apple App Store charts, at such a low cost? SemiAnalysis claims that it didn't.The market intelligence firm writes that DeepSeek has access to around 50,000 Hopper GPUs, including 10,000 H800s and 10,000 H100. It also has orders for many more China-specific H20s. The GPUs are shared between High-Flyer, the quantitative hedge fund behind DeepSeek, and the startup. They are distributed across several geographical locations and are used for trading, inference, training, and research.Courtesy of SemiAnalysisSemiAnalysis writes that DeepSeek has invested much more than the claimed $5.5 million figure that sent the stock market into a tailspin the report states that this pre-training cost is a very narrow portion of the total. The company's overall investment in servers is around $1.6 billion, with around $944 million spent on operating costs. The GPU investments, meanwhile, account for more than $500 million. // Related StoriesAs a reference example, Anthropic's Claude 3.5 Sonnet cost tens of millions of dollars to train, but the company still needed to raise billions of dollars of investment from Google and Amazon.It's noted that DeepSeek has sourced all its talent exclusively from China. That is a contrast to reports of other Chinese tech companies, such as Huawei, trying to poach workers from overseas, with Taiwanese employees of TSMC being highly sought-after targets. DeepSeek allegedly offers salaries of over $1.3 million for promising candidates, much more than competing Chinese AI firms pay.DeepSeek also has the advantage of mostly running its own datacenters, rather than having to rely on external cloud providers. This allows for more experimentation and innovation across its AI product stack. SemiAnalysis writes that it is the single best "open weights" lab today, beating out Meta's Llama effort, Mistral, and others.Masthead: Solen Feyissa

Paul Travis started his career as a marketing consultant but left the industry after a layoff.He launched a dating program for singles over 40 during the pandemic called The School for Love.Now, Travis is a certified sex educator and embraces a digital nomad lifestyle.This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Paul Travis, the 59-year-old founder of The School for Love based in Bainbridge Island, Washington. It has been edited for length and clarity.I'm a sex educator and the founder of The School for Love. I have a BA in mathematics and computer science and completed the Harvard Executive Program in Brand Management.After a two-year stint as the VP of marketing for Net Nanny Software in the early 2000s, I took my Harvard postgrad executive branding work into consulting for a variety of client engagements, from rebranding to new product launch to marketing systems implementation, in industries from food manufacturing to laser lighting to SaaS services.In December 2013, I was engaged to implement a customer community program for Avalara, a fintech company. Eighteen months later, I transitioned to full-time employment as a senior program manager for the web marketing team.After losing this job, I decided to leave consulting behind and become a sex educator.I was laid off in September 2020Avalara brought its first CMO aboard in late 2019. In January 2020, my manager told me that the two program management roles inside marketing would be eliminated. I set out to find another position within the company, but with the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic and financial uncertainty, most hiring came to a standstill.As we entered spring, I mentally braced for losing more than $10,000 monthly in income and benefits. I was earning six figures a year when I left Avalara. I'd enjoyed growing with the company through an IPO, but at the same time, I was tired of the increasing energy drain and uninterested in another corporate gig.I was excited and uncertain when I was laid off in September 2020, but I trusted that I was embarking on the next big chapter of my life.I knew I was interested in midlife datingAs David Bowie said, "Aging is an extraordinary process whereby you become the person you always should've been." I learned how important variety is to me, so returning to a past chapter like consulting (like returning to a past lover) didn't call to me I wanted to build a company.I researched a few ideas that had been in the back of my mind and decided to focus on midlife dating, with which I was extremely comfortable after my divorce following a 19-year marriage.Given the lockdowns and masking during the pandemic, I understood how difficult this was for singles many of whom say it was already more challenging than during the last 10 years.Given my years of study in nonviolent communication, tantra, and interpersonal work, I felt a passion brewing to help people in this very different realm of training, propelled by COVID-19.I started an online program for singles over 40In February 2021, I launched my twelve-week online program, "The Great Dating Reset," for $999 under the umbrella Pandemic.Love to help spiritual singles over 40 cultivate "authintimacy" a portmanteau of authenticity and intimacy.I found my initial clients from advertising on Facebook. It was heartwarming to help Sue, a 52-year-old woman, navigate a new relationship and save her from being taken advantage of for a few thousand dollars. Equally so for Sally, who had been painfully dumped from a seven-year relationship and found esteem and self-love through the homework exercises.Since rebranding in January 2022 as SchoolForLove.com, I've run two to three group programs online each year. Later in 2022, I created and hosted a summit for this same audience, "Dare to Date Differently," along with 12 other speakers.I next became a certified sex educatorIn speaking regularly with people about their dating lives and our program, I found just how often singles brought up sexuality as a core area of worry, shame, or frustration. I set out in 2023 to study with Dr. Martha Tara Lee in Singapore and became a certified sex educator, certified by AASECT (the American Association of Sex Educators, Counselors, and Therapists).I haven't yet reached my former salaried income level, but I've lowered my expenses by renting out my house and having a tight budget. I downsized into my Sprinter van and embraced van life. I'm thankful technology allows me to work as a digital nomad. I've traveled more in the past three years than ever.I'd make the choice all over againI'm delighted to make a genuine difference in people's love lives rather than in corporate software and marketing.I'm writing a book on "Authintimacy," so I spend a lot of time on social media and marketing systems, talking to clients and prospects, and managing several freelancers. I'm in the process of launching my second program, Authintimacy Brotherhood.I work six to seven days a week from anywhere between 8 a.m. and 8 p.m., but I take time every day to be in nature, play with my dog, and nurture my spirit away from the computer.Society teaches us to get on the "life escalator," and everything will eventually work out for retirement. That's not how my life has worked, but I have no fears about retirement.I've had some devastating detours, awesome advances, and circuitous change-ups. I have no career regrets and appreciate the various chapters and people in my life.

Many companies are requiring workers to return to the office.Employees who've been more isolated during remote work might need time to acclimate to the office again.Etiquette experts shared tips with BI to help smooth the transition back to in-person work.You've been called back to the office and someone walks over who you've only ever talked with on Slack or Zoom.What do you do?Or maybe you recently traded the privacy of your living room office for a hot desk in an open-floor plan and your friend FaceTimes you.Should you answer at your desk?It's etiquette questions like these that workers who became used to remote work might need to brush up on as more companies mandate a return to the office. And for some Gen Zers who graduated during the pandemic, remote work may be all they have ever known in their careers.While there may not be a one-size-fits-all approach to how to behave at the office, BI talked to etiquette experts to get their advice on smoothing the transition back.Arden Clise of Clise Etiquette says the biggest complaint she's heard from clients is that workers need to brush up on their social skills and remember "the niceties that we can get into a habit of doing when we're spending more time with people, but have gotten forgotten when we're isolated in our homes."So whether you're re-entering the corporate office world after a few years of being remote or starting your first in-person job, here's a refresher on post-pandemic office etiquette.Business attire: A little self awareness goes a long wayMany white-collar workers are dressing more casually when they return to the office today compared to pre-pandemic."As I'm working with HR and companies, I see every one of them dusting off an old dress code policy," said Lisa Richey of The American Academy of Etiquette.Daniel Post Senning of The Emily Post Institute said it can be helpful to "think about what the floor of your formality is for a professional environment or interaction.""That's going to be different for different people in different industries, different jobs, different work cultures," he said. "But making an effort to think about how you want to present professionally and setting some baseline standards for yourself, and then adhering to them, is a really good place to start."Take note of what your peers are wearing and consult your official dress code policy if your organization has one. In lieu of company guidance, you can ask what might be appropriate if you don't know, the experts advised.Besides your clothing, grooming and hygiene are also integral to how you present yourself at work."How you choose to dress and present isn't just about personal expression, it's also about showing respect for the people and environments that you're operating in," said Senning.Don't get too personal when meeting a colleague in personThe return to office means you might see a coworker in person for the first time after knowing them as a virtual head-and-shoulders for the past few years or you might see a colleague again for the first time in a while.It's perfectly appropriate to shake hands in either case, but be careful not to make insensitive comments about how someone might look different than you expected, or how a coworker's appearance might have changed since you last saw them in person, the experts said.Saying a simple hello and goodbye when you come and go are easy "'gimme' social interactions," as Senning calls them."They cost you nothing, and done well, and repeatedly, they really forge important social bonds," he said. "They build a sense of connection and trust that is going to carry you through tense meetings, critical feedback, miscommunications, things like that later on."Shared spaces are exactly thatThe pandemic made hot-desking, where multiple workers share the same desk at different times, more common.If you're hot-desking, make sure you clean up before you leave and remove any of your personal items from the desk for the next person.As for conference rooms, check in with your company's reservation system to make sure you're not using a room someone else has reserved."Conflict can arise around a shared resource if people aren't taking a certain level of care," said Senning.Being on time is particularly important for in-person meetings as opposed to virtual ones because of the extra effort your colleagues made to get to the office, he added.And, unlike in virtual meetings, where you might secretly give your attention to other browser windows or IRL happenings at the same time, you should put your phone away in an in-person meeting and give your fellow attendees your undivided attention. (If you don't, they'll certainly notice.)The age-old wisdom on avoiding fish at the office stands, says Clise. Remember to clean out anything you stored in the communal fridge periodically. And if you're taking the last cup of coffee, make a new pot of it.Take lunch in the breakroom or cafeteria versus at your desk to "have more opportunities to chat with others," Clise suggested.Depending on your office setup, you should also be careful to approach phone calls a certain way."It's been true for years that one of the biggest complaints about coworkers' behavior in open office environments is people talking too loudly on phones," said Senning.When returning to the office, step away from your desk to take personal calls. Don't use speakerphone in a cubicle or open-plan office; you can if you have your own office, but close the door."Being able to project your voice at home versus working at an open space in an office is very different," said Clise.At social gatherings, you're still at workHappy hours, learning lunches, and other team outings may pick up as employees work from the office more frequently."You're still accountable at business social events," said Senning. "These are still your colleagues and your coworkers, and you want to be aware that those relationships will still exist the next day in those work and professional environments."Don't feel pressured to drink or to need to explain your reason for teetotaling. For those who are drinking, it can be a good idea to stick with the one-drink rule."Enjoy the conversation, interact with your coworkers, and know when it's time to go home," said Richey.'Every interaction counts'Some etiquette guidance far predates the pandemic and may hold up just as long after: Avoid sensitive topics like religion or overly personal matters, as well as swearing.It's also in your best interest to steer clear of gossip, Clise says."Typically when someone gossips with us, they gossip about us," she said. "That can create an environment where you don't feel safe because you're not sure who you can trust and people are talking about other people beyond their backs."A good rule of thumb is to remember that "every interaction counts, whether it's a virtual meeting, an email, or an in-person interaction," said Richey.For Clise, it's about "being really self-aware and realizing that work is not just us, it's a team.""We need to be sure we're being helpful and encouraging others to share their thoughts, to feel that they belong, that they're included," she said. "We're not coming in thinking, 'Oh, it's just me and I'm just doing my job.' It's all a team effort."And while it's true many employees "could use a little polishing" on their soft skills coming out of a long period of remote work and social isolation, says Senning, "it's really comforting to know that while these skills can deteriorate, they also come back."

As people take greater control over the rituals surrounding their deaths, cremation has become an increasingly popular option worldwide. This shift has prompted the thoughtful design of spaces that address the profound emotions tied to cremation, life and death, and stillness. Architects are increasingly grappling with the question of what role architecture plays in these rituals.

Designing for Density: How Modernist Principles Continue to Shape Social Housing Solutions TodaySave this picture!Trident 2 building types in Heng On Estate, Hong Kong. Image WING via Wikipedia under license CC BY-SA 4.0When discussing modernist living, several iconic private residential projects may first come to mindLe Corbusier's Villa Savoye, the Case Study Houses, most notably by Richard Neutra, Pierre Koenig, and Charles and Ray Eames, as well as the glass houses by Mies van der Rohe and Philip Johnson. Most of these projects exemplified an idealized vision of modern living, set in picturesque landscapes and characterized by experimentation with new construction methods, materials, and spatial concepts. Their designs embraced openness, blurring the boundaries between private and public spaces, largely unburdened by constraints such as density, efficiency, accessibility, public transit integration, or communal considerations.While these modern homes remain influential in contemporary residential design, they alsoperhaps unexpectedlylaid the groundwork for high-density housing principles. Concepts such as the interplay between public and private space, modular construction, and prefabrication, initially explored in these private residences, have been adapted to the vastly different constraints of social housing.Save this picture!In East Asia, these principles continue to inform the development of large-scale housing solutions in cities like Singapore, Taiwan, and Hong Kong, where the demand for efficient, high-density living remains a pressing urban challenge. Related Article Architecture Classics: Modern Housing on the American Continent 1930-1960 Designing for Density: Modernism in Housing StrategiesOne of the most notable modernist housing projects is the Siemensstadt Settlement, completed in 1931 in Berlin, Germany, and recognized as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. This initiative, developed by a private housing cooperative for workers at Siemens' nearby electrical factory, provided over 1,350 affordable apartments. Designed by a team of renowned architects, including Walter Gropius and Hans Scharoun, the project sought to eliminate traditional block-edge developments and dark, enclosed courtyards. At the same time, it prioritized uniformityensuring that all tenants had apartments of similar size, with equal access to natural light and ventilation.Save this picture!Around the same period, in 1940s Brazil, following the death of Eduardo Guinlewho had commissioned a private mansion surrounded by expansive lawns and lakeshis heirs decided to transform the estate into a residential quarter that embraced modern architectural and urban planning principles. Lucio Costa was selected to design the project, Eduardo Guinle Park Housing, placing a strong emphasis on integrating the existing landscape with residential blocks. However, this commitment to preserving views led to an unconventional east-west orientation for the buildings, exposing their long faades to direct sunlight. To mitigate heat gain, Costa implemented a strategic use of brise-soleil, a shading solution that became a defining feature of the design.Save this picture!Costa's planning embraced the modernist principle of open layouts, particularly in large living areas, with interior walls primarily aligned perpendicular to the faade. While a traditional double-loaded corridor was not utilizedgiven, the relatively low density of the developmentunnecessary circulation space was minimized, with circulation limited to a compact lift lobby serving two elevators and a staircase. Notably, Costa also introduced a dual-level unit design, separating living and sleeping areas with an internal staircase. Though distinct from the loft-style interiors later popularized by Charles and Ray Eames in their Case Study House projects, Costa's approach laid the groundwork for flexible apartment layouts that continue to influence contemporary housing design.Save this picture!Save this picture!The post-war period saw an unprecedented demand for social housing. In response, Le Corbusier designed the Unit d'Habitation in Marseillethe first large-scale multi-family residential project of his career. Intended to house those displaced by wartime bombings in France, the design reflected modernist ideals of communal living, efficiency, and the vertical garden city concept. Formally similar to earlier modernist housing experiments, the project maintained core principles of uniformity and shared spaces. A highly efficient unit layout was achieved through a carefully placed, centrally located core, serving a double-loaded corridor that maximized residential density while ensuring each unit had fair access to natural light and ventilation. Additionally, communal spaces were strategically distributed throughout different floors, culminating in an activated rooftop designed for collective use. Save this picture!Continuing the Modernist Ideals: Contemporary Social Housing Solutions in East AsiaThe principles of modernism continue to shape contemporary social housing solutions, particularly in East Asia. Strongly influenced by Western architectural theories and urban planningespecially those developed in the post-war eracities in the region have adapted and expanded upon modernist ideas. The fundamental approach to housing as an efficient, modular building block, often integrated with well-planned transit systems, as seen in Le Corbusier's urban visions, such as the Radiant City, remains a blueprint for high-density urban development. Initially devised to address post-war resettlement and advancements in construction technology, these modernist principles have proven particularly effective for East Asian cities striving to provide housing for lower-income residents in densely populated areas with a robust public transportation network.Save this picture!With some of the highest population densities in the world, cities such as Singapore, Taipei, and Hong Kong have transformed modernist housing concepts into contemporary typologies. In Hong Kong, public housing has, before the 2000s, evolved beyond using the apartment unit as the building module, treating entire tower forms as standardized, repeatable typologies rather than just individual units. While these tower designs may not fully respond to various site conditions and consider different community needs, they are very much a direct inspiration from modernist housing principles of duplicating buildings (or towers) across a newly planned town development. These designsoften replicated across different neighborhoods and site conditionsalso echo the ideals of projects like the Siemensstadt Settlement, prioritizing equitable access to natural light, ventilation, and efficient spatial planning with minimal vertical circulation cores.Save this picture!Save this picture!The shared climatic conditions of these citieshot, humid, and densely builthave necessitated additional considerations in housing design, particularly in maintaining bathroom hygiene and comfort. In Hong Kong, despite the constrained footprints of individual apartments, typologies such as the Trident, Concord, and Twinplanned by the Hong Kong Housing Authority between the 1970s and 2010sincorporate a key spatial feature: ensuring that every bathroom has direct access to a window to help maintain efficient ventilation without relying on building's HVAC, which are non-existent at the building level in Hong Kong for cost considerations, but only on the apartment level. While improving ventilation, this strategy also results in highly irregular building forms, increasing the surface-area-to-volume ratio and creating the distinct jagged faades characteristic of these housing types.Save this picture!Save this picture!Although many typologies were developed 30 to 40 years ago, their influence remains visible in contemporary public housing. Efficiency and cost-effectiveness continue to be prioritized, yet there is an increasing effort to balance these factors with residents' quality of life and spatial comfort. Today, social housing developments in the area still follow similar principles. However, Hong Kong's approachpreviously relying on standardized tower blockshas given way to a more flexible strategy that treats the individual unit as an adaptable module. This, in particular, can be seen in Singapore's HDB (housing and development board) housing developments and Taiwan's social housing efforts. This way, housing developments may better respond to site constraints while maintaining core design strategies rooted in modernist ideals.Save this picture!To ensure a fair and pleasant way of designing housing blocks, a common feature across these typologies is the emphasis on equal access to daylight in individual units and shared spaces. As seen in Taiwan's Hop Yei Community Housing, stairwells and elevator lobbies are positioned adjacent to outdoor spaces whenever possible, ensuring natural light and airflow even in central building locations. Additionally, vertical voids allow daylight to penetrate deep into the building's interior, enhancing the quality of shared spaces. As such, the modernist principles of housingfocusing on efficiency, density, and urban planningcontinue to shape how people live in East Asia today.Save this picture!Save this picture!This article is part of the ArchDaily Topics: 100 Years of Modernism. Every month we explore a topic in-depth through articles, interviews, news, and architecture projects. We invite you to learn more about our ArchDaily Topics. And, as always, at ArchDaily we welcome the contributions of our readers; if you want to submit an article or project, contact us.Image gallerySee allShow lessAbout this authorJonathan YeungAuthorCite: Jonathan Yeung. "Designing for Density: How Modernist Principles Continue to Shape Social Housing Solutions Today" 03 Feb 2025. ArchDaily. Accessed . <https://www.archdaily.com/1026428/designing-for-density-how-modernist-principles-continue-to-shape-social-housing-solutions-today&gt ISSN 0719-8884Save!ArchDaily?You've started following your first account!Did you know?You'll now receive updates based on what you follow! Personalize your stream and start following your favorite authors, offices and users.Go to my stream

Project Files: https://www.patreon.com/posts/121390711 .This is the 3rd episode of unreal engine procedural content generation tutorial series I am doing. Here we are going to create a custom sphere grid node to spawn meshes in the PCG graph. By default we have a cubic shape grid and we will learn to make custom PCG nodes using blueprints in this episode. Unreal PCG Full series: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLNTm9yU0zou4iyHxH2Ml6dHoOZvsB5JZK // ! https://www.patreon.com/codelikeme Patrons will have access to project files of all the stuff I do in the channel and other extra benefitsJoin this channel to get access to perks:https://www.youtube.com/channel/UClb6Jh9EBV7a_Nm52Ipll_Q/join Like my facebook page for more content : https://www.facebook.com/gamedevelopersclub/ Follow me on twitter : https://twitter.com/CodeLikeMe2 Follow me on reddit : https://www.reddit.com/user/codelikeme #CodeLikeMe #unrealengine #ue4 #indiegamedev

Nature, Published online: 03 February 2025; doi:10.1038/d41586-025-00296-9Quantum mechanics depicts a counter-intuitive reality in which the act of observation influences what is observed and few can agree on what that means.

How do Hula-Hoops keep from falling down as we twirl them around?

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