iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

John Balestrieri @tinrocket.bsky.social · 18h

She looks like I've told her I've lost her college fund in Atlantic City.

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John Balestrieri @tinrocket.bsky.social · 11/10/2026

oh my. [Photos of sold eBay listings of used bread tags, ranging from $11 to $23 USD]

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John Balestrieri @tinrocket.bsky.social · 11/10/2026

WELL, it's full. Now what do I do with them?

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John Balestrieri @tinrocket.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

Does anyone remember Kookie Cookies (Kookies?) from the 1990s? Sold in NYC area; individually wrapped and sold in delis, cafeterias, etc. Same deal as these two non-Kookie cookies (but larger) — generic cookie with fancy frosting. They had a distinctive smell and texture; I miss them.

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John Balestrieri @tinrocket.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

Show and smell time: Stroke styles are applied to all the strokes on a layer, making it easy to fine-tune a drawing. The style's scale can be changed (to make it appear that it was drawn small or large). The whole layer's stroke widths can be adjusted at the same time, too.

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John Balestrieri @tinrocket.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

I have a 2" wound on my scalp because I bent over to pick up a pretty leaf and hit my head on the patio door handle. Anyway, here's a picture of some tree garbage.

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John Balestrieri @tinrocket.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

Damn, already exists. Don't trust 1am ideas.

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John Balestrieri @tinrocket.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

I've been working on parameters that control the stroke styles. Wild that resolution is unlimited.

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John Balestrieri @tinrocket.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

No figs this season. The trees died last winter and regrew ~10 ft from the roots. One shoot has 12 fig nubbins.

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John Balestrieri @tinrocket.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

eBay has a new AI listing tool in its mobile app, and it's… good.I selected some photos of my second-generation Apple Pencil, adjusted the price, listed it, and sold it within a few hours. I took photos last week and procrastinated listing it because it's normally a PITA.

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John Balestrieri @tinrocket.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

She doesn't agree with the change to her feeding schedule.

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John Balestrieri @tinrocket.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

Touch sparkles are faster now; pure CoreAnimation/CAShapeLayer. Finger touches are circles; Pencil touches are sparkles. Finger or pencil drags show motion. (Selectively—I turned it off for canvas drawing. Double-taps get extra oomf.

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John Balestrieri @tinrocket.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

We've inherited mass-quantities of kitten postcards, including stacks of multiples.

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John Balestrieri @tinrocket.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

Much better: Sparkles on Touches Began only.

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John Balestrieri @tinrocket.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

Oh! Where do the treats come out?

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John Balestrieri @tinrocket.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

Sparkle Touch™ animations for screen recordings. Works across the whole app UI. I'm not sure I need the Touch Up animation after dragging. Maybe only after long drags.

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John Balestrieri @tinrocket.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

Worked on my resize and rotation widget. The center anchor is movable. Tap the rotation widget's handle to switch to a mode that lets you set the anchor point, then tap back and drag/rotate. Snapping is shown in pink.

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John Balestrieri @tinrocket.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

Look, it's late. We're both a little testy.

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John Balestrieri @tinrocket.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

iOS 27 with Accessibility's "Reduce Transparency" Off vs. On.

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John Balestrieri @tinrocket.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

More UI and function changes to collections.

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John Balestrieri @tinrocket.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

Library work mostly done. Albums for grouped work. Stacks for related loose stuff. Hide clutter stuff you don't want to delete. You can still access the iCloud file browser if that's how you choose to work.

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John Balestrieri @tinrocket.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

Libraries with loose pages, albums, and stacks of pages. I abstracted the Serialbox iCloud sync to its own framework.

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John Balestrieri @tinrocket.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

I crashed most of the day, but the shortest member of the pack kept watch. (Her fur is still growing back from surgery in July.)

A beagle with a black and white coat lying at the foot of a bed. The dog is facing left, with its legs stretched out. The background includes a dimly lit room with wooden floors.

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John Balestrieri @tinrocket.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

No tracing this time. The "expressive" qualities of the line are calculated from key-line drawing points/lengths/angles. The stroke width is the only other user control. In theory, I'll be able to make pencil strokes that convincingly fade and change shape.

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John Balestrieri @tinrocket.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

It works! Life drawing. It wasn't frustrating at all. Because I can edit the lines, I kept reshaping until it looked right.

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John Balestrieri @tinrocket.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

Two different texture scales, and key-line mode.

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John Balestrieri @tinrocket.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

Paths can have lines that over/undershoot, and they can curve. Layers can have a paper texture that is independent of the stroke's texture.

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John Balestrieri @tinrocket.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

Ah, my 2021 screenshots didn't overlap paths for a reason: I hadn't solved all the self-intersection issues.

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John Balestrieri @tinrocket.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

Yikes, the first/last time I had the natural media strokes running was in 2021. Let's see if I can get this running again…

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John Balestrieri @tinrocket.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

Looks fantastic on a 13" screen. Still working on the UI. The center of the toolbar has view toggles (key-line, background "ghost" mode, etc.), and the pill below the toolbar shows actions for the current selection. You can long-press objects for actions, like inserting points on a path.

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John Balestrieri @tinrocket.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

I wish I could find a "Smart Cover" for iPad that had two camera openings, so you could rotate the iPad and use the magnetic pencil dock in drawing mode. (As shown) In standard cases, the pencil docks on the other (downward) side.

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John Balestrieri @tinrocket.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

I think my Claude dictation is driving the dog crazy. She moved to the sofa across the room, and every once in a while, she groans.

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John Balestrieri @tinrocket.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

Joanna Stern says the Duo is about the size of a Pop-Tart, so I've been practicing all week.

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John Balestrieri @tinrocket.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

Stroke styles have UI. There will be three classes of strokes: - Plain (generic postscript) - Expressive (variable width & dynamics) - Natural (texture mapped and more dynamics: pencil, paint, etc.) Only Plain and Expressive strokes are in.

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John Balestrieri @tinrocket.bsky.social · 13/09/2026

I plan to add the iCloud sync stuff I put into Serialbox, but I've also added versioning because iOS auto-saves documents. Apple's productivity apps save the undo stack on save, so auto-save isn't a big deal for them. It's bad not to have at least one safety net.

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John Balestrieri @tinrocket.bsky.social · 12/09/2026

I've set up two photo areas in the house, but not one in this closet until today. Anyone want to see more vintage creativity software?

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John Balestrieri @tinrocket.bsky.social · 12/09/2026

Studio Eight was an 8-bit paint program for the first color Macs. It feels like the professional successor to Paintwork Plus and Paintworks Gold for the Apple ][GS. I don't think it had many users. The packaging and hardcover manual were deluxe.

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John Balestrieri @tinrocket.bsky.social · 12/09/2026

It super bugs me when palettes are tiled at different depths, so shadows from one window fall onto another. So, shadows can fall on other palettes when you're dragging them, but when they're docked, the shadows are behind all the palettes, leaving clean UI. I LOVE CLEAN.

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John Balestrieri @tinrocket.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

Next up, shape detection (circle, rect, but not arrows, yet.)

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