2024 Week 17 - Conjam

We’re going to ignore the fact that I’m 10 weeks behind on my weekly blog posts and get right into week 17.

Thinkpad update

Although many of the issues were resolved by kernel and microcode updates, the crash to bios with “2204: System configuration error” persisted. MarkRHPearson suggested it sounds like a hardware issue, and that I should RMA it.

When I RMA’d the laptop, despite me referencing Mark’s diagnosis, and despite the laptop being certified for Linux, they claimed it was a Linux compatibiility issue and refused to repair it. They also refused to refund it, because it was past the 30 day return window. Even though I reported the issues within 10 days of receiving it.

In the end, I had to dispute the charge with my credit card company, and thankfully they were able to get my money back.

I’ve since ordered an AMD 7840u upgrade for my Framework, and it’s been working great.

Japanese progress

I’ve been putting off kanji for a while thinking it would be more beneficial to focus on vocab and grammar. Now that I’ve started putting more effort into kanji I’m realizing that was a mistake. Beginning to study kanji has actually made it so much easier to recognize and remember vocab, so it seems I’ve been making it harder on myself.

I got a collection of graded readers. Even level 0 is challenging, but getting better.

Conjam

I’ve started working on a game for Conjam, which is a local game jam themed around simulation games such as Conway’s Game of Life and Falling Sands. It’s the perfect opportunity to start playing with WebGL, as these types of simulation games can be very efficiently implemetned as pixel shaders.

I’m planning some future blog posts to go into more detail about my game and the development process.

Maria