| Welcome (25th Feb 2017) |
Procter Periodical #10 |
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What a year.I started this post in December feeling confident I would be good to post and here we are in Feb! I welcome sponsorship for this and my related podcast, if you are interested then just drop me an email.adamprocter@researchnot.es If you would however just like to buy me a coffee please do.
Ok so lets get started; Wow what a year 2016 has been and when I say year I mean academic term ! I’ve got so much going on it's unbelievable. So much happened from Oct - Dec indeed. I have in fact learnt a bunch of things in life and keep realising I've plenty more to learn. I've also learnt so much about dogs and there is a ton more to learn. Being that I'm a massive advocate of life long learning it's strange that I hadn't been applying that to learning the day to day of life. So here's to learning more and hoping that in the process my heart is not overly burdened. (written in Dec) Jan and Feb did bring that massive burden and I’ve thus dedicated this newsletter to my lovely dog, Belle whom I had to have put to sleep in Feb and I miss her dearly. Sometimes life throws some horrible curve balls, so Belle this electronic newsletter is for you. 
Back..On the games course front wow just wow you can read about some of the progress back in Nov on the first third year here and there is much more to tell just on that front, the course overall is going great guns and out performing my expectations which is amazing. Keep an eye on the blog for updates and forthcoming events. And if you think the course or the blog sounds interesting please do share and share a like. Between draft one and the release of this newsletter all the students handed in for Semester 1 and all 3 years are excelling but the third year work was of a fantastic caliber and on the 23rd of Feb I launched our new Final Major Projects (FMP) site so please take a look. I’ve some more blogging to do on the games course projects but for now instead I’ve recorded short 20min podcasts with each final year team (7) and you can subscribe to my podcast here. You can listen to each episode on SoundCloud too.  Rewinding a little I also helped launch the Bricks from the Kiln website updates with Andrew Lister for issue 2, which is launching in print very shortly here. Andrew Lister over the summer sadly left Winchester School of Art for the United States of America, which I have yet to really overcome, he is such a nice guy and so knowledgable on Graphic Design. So the updates to the site where remotely communicated which in fact turned into a rather lovely casual email and iMessage affair which meant we could launch it with his return to Winchester for a talk on Bricks 2 ! No expensive spared indeed ! Andrew is a super great design tutor and I am excited for his prospective students at Chicago. A few other things to mention I finally got gitlab up and running on https and then I let the let's encrypt certificate expire and I couldn’t renew it yet so I bite the bullet and just bought some year longer SSL certificates so all should be up and running again also my new Discourse server is up and running thanks to iSolutions (our IT team at the University of Southampton) which is great and I'm super pleased. Next steps are to get these in action to actively support my PhD which I am in the process of writing up a comprehensive 12 month report which should (hopefully) transform into my upgrade too and then I can get fully immersed in making, testing and iterating. I am going to write up a proper review of a colleague and friends new book one from his series of Tiny Books called Start! Stop Procrastinating on notes.adamprocter.co.uk so look out for that soon, if you like the sound of the book just get it as I know it's going to be a corker. In this regard I started a staff review series on notes in general so check out this one on the rather great Illustrator and Tutor, Sarah Langford. I am planning to feature more staff profiles from my POV and is another way for me to practice writing. I’ve been involved in some work with getting onboard we are open cooperative to run some thinkathon’s at Winchester and in London to help the PORTUS project broaden and open up the education materials and artefacts they have created over the last 10years to the public, something I am very keen on is open and this project has been going great guns, again something I need to catch up on and I hope we can do more with we are open. I’ve even been to Berlin and back on another great field trip with Winchester School of Art. I have personally already found this curation has helped me to track down stuff I liked. So here goes the list of some cool stuff I have found recent(ish!). I have started a wiki to collect software links for creative coding and gaming. http://wiki.adamprocter.co.uk/ Design ThinkingAral talks about Facebooks nonsense save the world Zukerberg Manifesto https://ar.al/notes/encouraging-individual-sovereignty-and-a-healthy-commons/ Annoying as ever Facebook going to ruin the Manifesto for me too ! Aral here also talks about what ind.ie are trying to do and probably the best interview with him so far on the subject of privacy. https://overcast.fm/+FNfnM-RtY Blockchain Basics. http://wiobyrne.com/what-is-blockchain/ John Berger died. http://hyperallergic.com/348914/john-bergers-rare-art-criticism/ Design thinking Origin story Wonderful delightful onboarding update from Mozilla is explained and showcased here in this video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V5FlzF32pMc An old one but there is still plenty of bad design out there! Part of the ideas from the Tiny Books release is the idea of starting with the WHY http://readwriterespond.com/?p=689 Legendary master filmmaker Werner Herzog (Grizzly Man, Cave of Forgotten Dreams) examines the past, present and constantly evolving future of the Internet in Lo and Behold: Reveries of the Connected World. Hybrid DesignOvercast podcasting app details on V3 redesign really intresting. https://marco.org/2017/02/20/overcast3 Amazing co-operative Digital Physical game Beasts of Balance came out http://sensibleobject.refr.cc/adamprocter Discussing a design or app job this slider will help (spoiler you can’t have it all)  CSS Grid is coming, learn it... http://gridbyexample.com/video/?utm_campaign=digest&utm_medium=email&utm_source=app The Marvel App blog post amazing stuff off the time! Looking at the future of UI aka no UI
Moving towards no UI but AI and the like! Usability testing start set of recommended materials and links choose-your-own-adventure-to-learn-usability-testing-basics/ WSA Interaction Lab launched Great podcast on Kano https://overcast.fm/+GfMgMivHI GamesThe Last Guardian was finally released (and no I haven’t completed it yet) Great rundown of great games coming in 2017 http://twitter.com/dotsandspaces/status/816756011524558848 Downloaded a host of game engines after watching this on Lynda I am a massive Amiga fan so if anyone wants too buy me this let me know Crazy Carts Board game STEAM VR Licence training now free Their was Terrible onboarding in Mario Run this breakdown relives it in all its terror TeachingMinecraft and Teaching Erase all Kittens - coding 17 ways to get kids into coding ProductivityFlat Hieracy, is the only way forward, top down is broke, seriously get on board with the Co-op side and more Flat Organisations are the Future Taskpaper is ace check this out Pomodoro in Slack KanBan in Trello, One to watch a chat app that connects services together ? Slack on ACID perhaps, not had a chance to play yet. Music & FilmI can keep this simple, I watched star wars and it was great and Ryan Adams new LP came out and I like Katy Perry’s move to purposeful pop, although having been a fan of her’s since watching her documentary, she has always been purposeful. https://itun.es/gb/KTqWhb?i=1203833818 Yes these are Apple music links but I think paying for music is a good idea and I feel that with the continued position that Spotify will only make money if it reduces its costs to the record labels and thus ultimately the artists, I would encourage you to join a service that at least has a large bank of cash to have a loss leader.  Tilted by Christine and the Queens - Fantastic Video amazing dancing! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9RBzsjga73s&index=18&list=LLrA89nVY3RkH0UMFGHY5KfQ Design Docs to watch https://freebiesupply.com/blog/design-documentaries-for-your-holiday-watching-list/ Randoms(Faux) Activism Sells… As we see a lot of the world divide I encourage empathy. Back up!Back up! Back up! How Toy Story 2 was almost lost Whats in that iPhone of yours ? Ok thats enough! Follow me on Twitter and keep an eye on dctr.pro for links as I find them!  I’ve also been very fortunate at work to get a new 15” TouchBar MacBook Pro which I have to say is great, read this for some detail on why TouchBar may not be great too however Mac is in for repair at the moment due to a noisy backspace key however I hope this new approach to being a one mac power house person Ill be more productive at home, work, the library and other bolt holes. Why No Hey Siri on Mac I have no idea but this can help http://www.idownloadblog.com/2016/07/13/how-to-enable-hey-siri-macos-sierra/ I'm not going to promise tomes of Procter Periodicals next year but I'm going to keep trying and try to be more consistent. Oh and before I forget to blog or podcast about it, Apple will certainly announce some insane AR product soon and maybe something on the Car but I don’t expect a Mac Pro. #procterpredictions Please do tweet me any comments or ideas and please do share if you like the newsletter. Thanks for spending your time to read this. Adam  Me elsewhere |
