Originally published at: http://mycroft.ai/blog/how-mycroft-ai-is-handling-covid-19/
This will not be the usual corporate “how we are responding to COVID-19” message.
Due to the nature of our business and distributed organization, this outbreak will not significantly affect the ability of the Mycroft team to maintain systems and continue development. Following the advice of people smarter than us who understand how viruses work, we are practicing social distancing, proper hygiene, and not hoarding toilet paper. We are also evaluating ways to support medical efforts by devoting 3D printer time and materials to support prototyping and manufacturing of medical devices.
That being said, we are inside just like everyone else so as a team of experienced hermits, we asked some of the team to provide their favorite open-source project (aside from Mycroft) and favorite subreddit, as we will all likely be spending much more time on reddit. Enjoy!
Johnny D, Project Manager
Github Link: https://github.com/pokerth
As a poker nerd, I love the convenience and ease of use that online poker offers. But, some systems that utilize an entirely proprietary software stack leave some players thinking “this might be rigged.” PokerTH is 100% play-money so no risk of losing your hard-earned money on a bad hand.
Watch things explode and sometimes the explosion has multiple colors. Pretty simple.
Gez, Developer Relations
Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team
Github: https://github.com/hotosm
HOT is a global community of coders, mappers and general do-gooders, dedicated to humanitarian action and community development through open mapping. It’s a great cause to lend some time and expertise to, helping people to manage and recover from disasters as well as contributing to the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals.
I’m breaking the rules! Have you seen the new TV Show ‘Devs’? It’s a series exploring a few interesting ideas around quantum computing and comes from the creator of Annihilation and Ex Machina.
If that sounds like your cup of tea, you might also like this episode of the Artificial Intelligence Podcast with the creator Alex Garland.
Åke “He’s just this guy, you know?” Forslund, Senior Software Developer
Gitlab link: https://gitlab.com/inkscape/inkscape
Great vector graphics drawing tool. Do you need to create simple or advanced art for your card game or a snazzy flyer, this is the tool for you!
Are you keeping up with the Commodore? ’cause Commodore is keeping up with you!
It’s still alive after roughly 40 years and people are doing more and more crazy things with it!
Chris, Software Architect
GitHub link: https://github.com/zabbix/zabbix
A very nice infrastructure monitoring tool, used at Mycroft. Agents running on servers regularly send statistics to the Zabbix service for monitoring CPU, memory usage, etc. Zabbix can also check that websites are up and make REST API calls to check the health of an API. Works nicely with Grafana (another open source project) to set up a monitoring dashboard.
I like a good laugh. Not all are funny, but some are hysterical!
Derick Schweppe, Chief Design Officer
GitHub link: https://github.com/arduino
Arduino has been one of the most impactful open hardware projects out there. It has been used in everything from 3D printers to IoT projects. We used it in the Mark 1 to drive the LED matrix that acts as the eyes and face of Mycroft.
In /r/3Dprinting/ you can see some of the crazy stuff people come up with and print on their 3D printers, and in a lot of cases, share openly. There is also a lot of information on some of the many great open source 3D printers including Prusa, Ultimaker, Creality, and Lulzbot.
Joshua Montgomery, First Officer
GitHub link: https://github.com/notepad-plus-plus/notepad-plus-plus
Notepad++ – I’m an avid user of Notepad++. The biggest things I use it for are editing code and keeping track of random notes. I like it for a couple of key features.
- Allows me to remotely edit documents over SSH.
- Keeps my documents in a local buffer for those times when I have to shut down quickly and forget to save my notes.
- Context highlighting, code formatting, etc.
If you’re looking for a full feature text editor I highly recommend it.