In “Code Work,” Hector Beltran examines Mexican and Latinx coders’ personal strategies of self-making as they navigate a transnational economy of tech work.
Beltran shows how these hackers apply concepts from the code worlds to their lived experiences, deploying batches, loose coupling, iterative processing (looping), hacking, prototyping, and full-stack development in their daily social interactions—at home, in the workplace, on the dating scene, and in their understanding of the economy, culture, and geopolitics.
What We Are Reading Today: Required Reading: The Life of Everyday Texts in the British Empire
Mukhopadhyay’s account is populated by a cast of characters that spans the ranks of colonial society, from bored soldiers to frustrated bureaucrats
Updated 30 August 2024
Arab News
Author: Priyasha Mukhopadhyay
In Required Reading, Priyasha Mukhopadhyay offers a new and provocative history of reading that centers archives of everyday writing from the British empire. Mukhopadhyay rummages in the drawers of bureaucratic offices and the cupboards of publishers in search of how historical readers in colonial South Asia responded to texts ranging from licenses to manuals, how they made sense of them, and what this can tell us about their experiences living in the shadow of a vast imperial power.
Taking these engagements seriously, she argues, is the first step to challenging conventional notions of what it means to read.
Mukhopadhyay’s account is populated by a cast of characters that spans the ranks of colonial society, from bored soldiers to frustrated bureaucrats. These readers formed close, even intimate relationships with everyday texts. She presents four case studies: a soldier’s manual, a cache of bureaucratic documents, a collection of astrological almanacs, and a women’s literary magazine. Tracking moments in which readers refused to read, were unable to read, and read in part, she uncovers the dizzying array of material, textual, and aural practices these texts elicited.
The Standard Model is an elegant and extremely successful theory that formulates the laws of fundamental interactions among elementary particles.
This incisive textbook introduces students to the physics of the Standard Model while providing an essential overview of modern particle physics, with a unique emphasis on symmetry principles as the starting point for constructing models.
What We Are Reading Today: ‘Calculus 2 Simplified’ by Oscar E. Fernandez
Updated 28 August 2024
Arab News
Second-semester calculus is rich with insights into the nature of infinity and the very foundations of geometry, but students can become overwhelmed as they struggle to synthesize the range of material covered in class.
Oscar Fernandez provides a “Goldilocks approach” to learning the mathematics of integration, infinite sequences and series, and their applications.
REVIEW: ‘The First Descendant’ offers grind-based fun and frustration
Updated 28 August 2024
James Denselow
LONDON: The First Descendant (Steam, XBOX, PS4, PS5) is a free-to-play, third-person looter-shooter that aims to carve out its niche in a genre dominated by big names (Destiny 2, The Division, etc.).
Developed by Nexon, this live-service game combines the thrill of shooting hordes of alien enemies with a complex system of character progression, weapon variety, and loot collection. While it has its moments of excitement and visual appeal, it struggles to stand out in a crowded market and can often feel like a grind-heavy experience.
One of the game’s most appealing features is its cross-platform accessibility, allowing players on different systems to join forces and tackle the game’s 30-hour campaign together, although the reality of grind-based looting takes many more hours.
The cooperative play is at the heart of The First Descendant, with players able to choose from 14 unique characters, each offering different abilities and playstyles. This variety is bolstered by a wide range of weapons, from standard firearms to oversized, powerful guns that add a satisfying punch to combat.
Visually, The First Descendant impresses with its richly detailed environments and character designs. The game’s world is a mix of futuristic urban settings and eerie, desolate ruins, providing a visually engaging backdrop for the action. The art direction and graphical fidelity are undoubtedly high points, with each character looking distinct and the enemies, such as the towering Colossi and swarming Vulgus, providing memorable, if not particularly innovative, designs.
Gameplay-wise, the game offers a mix of standard looter-shooter mechanics with some unique twists. The combat feels solid, particularly when using the game’s oversized weapons, and the inclusion of a grappling hook adds an element of verticality and mobility that sets it apart from other games in the genre. Mastering the grappling hook can be particularly satisfying, offering opportunities for creative strategies and quick escapes during intense battles.
However, where The First Descendant starts to falter is in its reliance on grinding and the free-to-play monetization model. The game is heavily built around the concept of grinding for loot, character upgrades, and weapons, which can feel tedious after a while. Players might spend hours farming for a particular item or character unlock, only to come up empty-handed. This grind is compounded by the game’s monetization system, which, while not overly aggressive, is always present, tempting players to spend real money to bypass the grind.
The missions themselves, while varied in type, often boil down to repetitive tasks such as standing in one spot to gather resources or defending an area against waves of enemies. Despite the variety of enemies and the spectacle of big boss battles, this repetition can make the game feel “perfectly mediocre,” with moments of excitement that are often overshadowed by the monotony of its core gameplay loop.
The First Descendant is a visually striking game with solid combat mechanics and a promising cooperative experience. However, it is held back by a grind-heavy progression system and a reliance on repetitive mission structures. For fans of the looter-shooter genre, it may offer some enjoyment, especially in its early hours, but it ultimately struggles to rise above its peers in a meaningful way.
“The Yellow Wallpaper” is a short story written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, published in 1892 and often included in Gilman’s collected works.
The story is a classic piece of feminist literature that explores themes of mental illness, gender roles, and the oppression of women in the late 19th century.
The story is told through the first-person narrative of a woman suffering from what was then called “nervous depression.”
She is confined to a room with ugly yellow wallpaper by her husband, who believes rest is the best cure for her condition.
The narrator becomes obsessed with the wallpaper, which she sees as a representation of her own imprisonment and suppression.
The story culminates in the narrator’s mental breakdown as she becomes convinced that a woman is trapped behind the wallpaper.
“The Yellow Wallpaper” was groundbreaking in its frank depiction of a woman’s descent into mental illness.
Gilman used the story to criticize the common medical belief of the time that women’s mental issues were rooted in their biology and reproductive functions.
The story remains an important work that highlights how patriarchal structures and gender norms can contribute to women’s mental anguish.
It is widely regarded as an important work that reflects the historical context of women’s rights and gender roles in the late 19th century.
From women’s limited access to education and professional opportunities to domestic confinement and lack of autonomy, Gilman provides a searing critique of social, medical, and gender norms.
