Orme Cité

Setting Up PyCharm

I'm sure there are enough information online for people to set up their PyCharm. Here I'm sharing my experience on setting up PyCharm with version control and remote mapping. It include the following steps

• Download PyCharm and get free educational licenses

Students and faculties from an accredited university can apply for free educational licenses which are valid for a year. This is for personal use at school or at home. Details please refer to JetBrains.

• Set up project interpreter (mac version)
  • Configurate server
    • At the initial page, go to Configure-Preferences-Deployment-Add New SFTP

New server name: my_server

Host: 172.x.x.x (your server address)

Enter User name and Password (if any), Root path (if your server is communal, set to your user root path), etc.

• Remote interpreter (sftp)

Add Python Interpreter (Mac version) interface look like this

Choose the Existing server configuration and select my_server, and finish setting.

• Create new project
  • Choose the existing interpreter that you just set up
  • select remote project location

Now you are ready to create your project. If you also want to use Github for version control, follow the steps below.

• Preferences - Version Control - GitHub - Add your account

References:

• JB Configure an interpreter
• JB GitHub

New Haven and Worm Composting

I moved to New Haven after living in Montreal for 2 years. After finally settling in and getting back to normal life (1 month later), I started worm composting -- finally! I've wanted to do it for a year, but by then I knew that with a good chance we would be moving soon, so it was not practical to start something like vermiculture. It's really like getting a pet but instead of a puppy or a kitty, you get a colony of thousands of red wigglers.

The reason why I started worm composting almost immediately after moving here is because New Haven doesn't do composting. There are options subscribe composting service where they collect compostables, but it costs like $30 per month. I thought by moving to a college town I would get easy composting back to my life, but no. Obviously at Yale they compost, but the city of New Haven doesn't.

Since I cook every day, I have a lot of kitchen scraps, my dear friend Billy will laugh, but, also mostly organic kitchen scraps. A small compost jar is not enough. In Montreal, I ended up with many jars of compostables until I gave up. Natural decomposing is not fast enough. According to online resources, worms can eat half their body weight every day, so theoretically, 1k worms (~1 lb) can process 1/2 lb of kitchen scraps, which is more than what we have. GREAT! I bought a pretty worm composter, which costs ~$90 dollars, which only can pay for 3 months composting service. I plan to use it for many years, so it's a much cheaper alternative.

Worms, like any animals, eat and poop. And just like any animals, they eat more than they poop. That is why this composting approach works. Also, worm cast is an amazing fertilizer, which I hope will benefit my plants. Here are pictures of my 3-day-old worm bin. I fed the 1k worms a pint of apple and carrot rinds, some garlic skin, and flower cuts. Oh, I also fed them a handful of coffee grounds and crushed egg shells.

Moving usually means exploring and locating alternative sources for your daily needs. The closest Whole Foods is in Milford which is 15min drive away. There's no refill station for detergents in New Haven. In Montreal, I used Baleco (OH/ unscented) and because the refill station is just downstairs at Fou d'ici, I never worried about it. Now that I ran out of laundry detergent and failed to find an alternative (Common Good is not available in CT), I'm trying the puracy laundry detergent. It's 10x concentrated, so I hope I can reduce the amount of plastic that I need to dispose. Still need to explore.

I was lucky to have found Ferme D'Oree in Montreal and had the privilege of having delicious meat delivered monthly. I liked the meat better than Whole Foods, although I did enjoy the convenience of butchery service at WF. Ferme D'Oree pork is simply more delicious and I enjoyed every brief meeting and conversation with Sarah. Today I found Walden Local Meat and ordered my first monthly subscription. I hope that it's delicious.

I'll end this blog with one comment. Thank you, Yale, for providing my husband with free lunch.