John Balestrieri

OK, now my shader graphs:

1. Use Metal's Function Stitching API to make stitchable shaders from nodes

2. Bridge custom/compile-time Metal code with stitchable nodes

3. Allow graph files to be used directly in my Metal-based applications, such as the RealityKit harness (second image).

4. 🔥

l love layout algorithms. 🔥

Gallery and detail view transitions.

Serialbox: Small boxes, big picture. https://testflight.apple.com/join/dBGtmEBY

New TestFlight beta:

• New name (again), icon update coming.
• High-res export
• The location tools will have to wait for a future beta.
• More fixes, polish, and performance improvements.

I’m submitting this version to Apple for a pre-order page. There’s lots of room in the public beta. Reposts appreciated.

Ready to prep this for TestFlight.

Working on dragable grid layout.

I took a photo.

40mm Timex MK1 aluminum chronograph

It's been thinking way too long.

I wrote some fairly complex shaders last year, with modular, nested functions, and it’s hard to get back into that code now. I’d rather work in a graph-based shader editor, and Codex was happy to help. ➀︎

I built one from scratch 20 years ago, so it doesn’t feel like cheating. ➁︎

For the watch peeps: Timex MK1 aluminum “California”

iPhone 17 Pro, 4x lens

Long, dull video: I have stroke UV mapping in the live framework now, and more precise stroke picking. Everything is very responsive.

LLM coding with ADHD: I sometimes forget what I asked it to do by the time it finishes. In the 2 minutes it was working, I moved on to a few other tasks.

Time to sell this bottle of Orbitz. I must have bought it in the 1990s (?)

Progress on the input simplifier; input line in gray; optimized path in red.

Tetris, but you can rotate the piece in 3D until it’s one block wide.

I got the rocket emoji pin from WWDC ‘17, courtesy of John Wilker. Thank you, John! @jwilker@wandering.shop

I stepped into the woods to pick up a piece of trash, but then I recognized the triangular hole in the fabric. It was my Fisher-Price parachute. Blue cords poked through the topsoil. Then a snowtrooper appeared.

The step stool I made in jr. high is perfect for chopping the avocado pits for composting.

Damn, I was hoping to take a quick nap on the sofa.

I want to make a minimal, flat Minecraft clone: Top-down world exploring, then a side view when you mine.

I still miss Miner ‘49er (I think) that ran on the TRASH-80 at my summer camp.

LLM programming is like guiding a vacuum robot and nudging it toward the piles of dog hair.

When making code changes, I ask the LLM to “explain it like I'm 5” and it has done wonders for our communication.

Working on my curve simplification. Gray is raw Pencil input (hundreds of points) and red is the simplified path (a several control points).

“I’m checking which geometry helpers already exist so I don’t invent new math badly.”

I love Codex + GPT 5.4

Reimplementing variable width strokes; initial progress.

Smokey Bear ‘44

(iPhone 17 Pro, 4x)

There’s no narrative, just the visual weight of the panels on the page.

Tofu: When you want to eat a block of something.

Working on a small weekend iOS project and delighted that it’s only taking up 50mb of RAM and not pushing the CPUs and GPUs into the red zone.

How is it even possible?

What?! I’m earning money on Reddit.

My home insurer provided us with a Smart Thing that monitors power quality, and it’s been helpful for alerting us when the oven clock needs resetting when we get back home.

Today’s mood.

QA, all day

“I used to dig my own ditches, but now I direct the ditch digging.”

Making progress and performance is better.

There are a few major systems working together.

1. Paths and vector data
2. Metal triangulation & rendering
3. Layering and compositing
4. Pencil & touch tools & widgets
5. UIDocument, serialization, undo, etc.