Iustin Pop: How to set a per-app locale in MacOS
After spending ~20+ years with a Linux desktop, I m trying to expand
my desktop setup to include MacOS (well, desktop/laptop, I mean end
user in general). And to my surprise, there s no clear repository of
MacOS info. Man pages yes, some StackOverflow, some Apple forums, but
no canonical version. Or, I didn t find it, please enlighten me
Another issue is that Apple apparently changes behaviour without
clearly documenting it. In this specific case, the region part of
the locale went through significant churn lately.
So, my goal:
- keep system wide locale set to English default, with region Switzerland.
- this
region=CHmeans that date and number formats are also changed to CH version, e.g. one thousand + is displayed as1'000,50. - however, for a single app, I want a standard
en_USlocale, with the above number shown/formatted as1,000.50; well, it s more about parsing than formatting, but that s irrelevant.
% defaults read .GlobalPreferences grep en_
AKLastLocale = "en_CH";
AppleLocale = "en_CH";
% defaults read -app FooBar
(has no AppleLocale key)
% defaults write -app FooBar AppleLocale en_USdefaults man page says the global-global is
NSGlobalDomain, I don t know where I got the
.GlobalPreferences. But I only needed to know the key name (in this
case, AppleLocale - of course it couldn t be LC_ALL/LANG).
One day I ll know MacOS better, but I try to learn more for 2+ years
now, and it s not a smooth ride. Old dog new tricks, right?
I m one of the few folks left who run and maintain mail servers. Recently I had major troubles receiving mails from the mail servers used by a bank, and when 
Man, you re no longer with us, but I am touched by the number of people you have positively impacted. Almost every DebConf23 presentations by locals I saw after you, carried how you were instrumental in bringing them there. How you were a dear friend and brother.
It s a weird turn of events, that you left us during one thing we deeply cared and worked towards making possible since the last 3 years together. Who would have known, that Sahil, I m going back to my apartment tonight and casual bye post that would be the last conversation we ever had.
Things were terrible after I heard the news. I had a hard time convincing myself to come see you one last time during your funeral. That was the last time I was going to get to see you, and I kept on looking at you. You, there in front of me, all calm, gave me peace. I ll carry that image all my life now. Your smile will always remain with me.
Now, who ll meet and receive me on the door at almost every Debian event (just by sheer co-incidence?). Who ll help me speak out loud about all the Debian shortcomings (and then discuss solutions, when sober :)).
It was a testament of the amount of time we had already spent together online, that when we first met during MDC Palakkad, it didn t feel we were physically meeting for the first time. The conversations just flowed.
Now 
Man, I still get your spelling wrong :) Did I ever tell you that? That was the reason, I used to use AR instead online.
You ll be missed and will always be part of our conversations, because you have left a profound impact on me, our friends, Debian India and everyone around. See you! the coolest man around.
In memory:
Official logo of DebConf23
Suresh and me celebrating Onam in Kochi.
Four Points Hotel by Sheraton was the venue of DebConf23. Photo credits: Bilal
Photo of the pool. Photo credits: Andreas Tille.
View from the hotel window.
This place served as lunch and dinner place and later as hacklab during debconf. Photo credits: Bilal
Picture of the awesome swag bag given at DebConf23. Photo credits: Ravi Dwivedi
My presentation photo. Photo credits: Valessio
Selfie with Anisa and Kristi. Photo credits: Anisa.
Me helping with the Cheese and Wine Party.
This picture was taken when there were few people in my room for the party.
Sadhya Thali: A vegetarian meal served on banana leaf. Payasam and rasam were especially yummy! Photo credits: Ravi Dwivedi.
Sadhya thali being served at debconf23. Photo credits: Bilal
Group photo of our daytrip. Photo credits: Radhika Jhalani
A selfie in memory of Abraham.
Thanks to Niibe Yutaka (the person towards your right hand) from Japan (FSIJ), who gave me a wonderful Japanese gift during debconf23: A folder to keep pages with ancient Japanese manga characters printed on it. I realized I immediately needed that :)
This is the Japanese gift I received.
Bits from the DPL. Photo credits: Bilal
Kristi on GNOME community. Photo credits: Ravi Dwivedi.
Abhas' talk on home automation. Photo credits: Ravi Dwivedi.
I was roaming around with a QR code on my T-shirt for downloading Prav.
Me in mundu. Picture credits: Abhijith PA
From left: Nilesh, Saswata, me, Sahil. Photo credits: Sahil.
Ruchika (taking the selfie) and from left to right: Yash, 
Joost and me going to Delhi. Photo credits: Ravi.
(I wrote this up for an internal work post, but I figure it s worth sharing more publicly too.)
I spent last week at 
Daniel Knowles Carmageddon: How Cars Make Life Worse and What to
Do About It is an entertaining, lucid, and well-written manifesto
(to borrow a term from the author) aiming to get us all thinking a bit
more about what cars do to society, and how to move on to a better
outcome for all.
The book alternates between historical context and background, lived
experience (as the author is a foreign correspondent who had the
opportunity to travel), and researched content. It is refreshingly free
of formalities (no endless footnotes or endnotes with references, though
I would have liked occassional references but hey we all went to school
long enough to do a bit of research given a pointer or two). I learned
or relearned a few things as I was for example somewhat unaware of the
air pollution (micro-particle) impact stemming from tires and brake
abrasions for which electronic vehicles do zilch, and for which the
auto-obesity of ever larger and heavier cars is making things
much worse. And some terms (even when re-used by Knowles) are clever
such bionic duckweed. But now you need to read the book to
catch up on it.
Overall, the book argues its case rather well. The author brings
sufficient evidence to make the formal guilty charge quite convincing.
It is also recent having come out just months ago, making current
figures even more relevant.
I forget the exact circumstance but I think I came across the author
in the context of our joint obsession with both Chicago and cycling (as
there may have been a link from a related social media post) and/or the
fact that I followed some of his colleagues at The Economist on
social media. Either way, the number of Chicago and MidWest references
made for some additional fun when reading the book over a the last few
days. And for me another highlight was the ode to Tokyo which I
wholeheartedly agree with: on my second trip to Japan I spent a spare
day cycling across the city as the AirBnB host kindly gave me access to
his bicycles. Great weather, polite drivers, moderate traffic, and just
wicked good infrastructure made me wonder why I did not see more
cyclists.
I have little to criticize beyond the lack of any references. The
repeated insistence on reminding us that Knowles comes from Birmingham
gets a little old by the fifth or sixth repetition. It is all a wee bit
anglo- or UK-centric. It obviously has a bit on France, Paris,
and all the recent success of Anne Hidalgo (who, when I was in graduate
school in France, was still a TV person rather than the very successful
mayor she is now) but then does not mention the immense (and well known)
success of the French train system which lead to a recent dictum to no
longer allow intra-Frace air travel if train rides of under 2 1/2 hours
are available which is rather remarkable. (Though in fairness that may
have been enacted once the book was finished.)
Lastly, the book appears to have 
PS: Debian uploads for bubble-gum are moving along. Please if you have any packaging you need done in Debian proper, let me know and I will get on it, time allowing of course.
Edited 2023-08-25 01:32 BST to correct a slip.
I dug out a computer running Fedora 28, which was released 2018-04-01 - over 5 years ago. Backing up the data and re-installing seemed tedious, but the current version of Fedora is 38, and while Fedora supports updates from N to N+2 that was still going to be 5 separate upgrades. That seemed tedious, so I figured I'd just try to do an update from 28 directly to 38. This is, obviously, extremely unsupported, but what could possibly go wrong?
The DebConf video team has been
We took a couple of days of for a family vacation / road trip through
the hills of Central Mexico. The overall trip does not look like
anything out of the ordinary
