# Ege Mert Balçık

> Ege Mert Balçık is a computer engineering student at METU (Ankara, Türkiye) working on medical AI and vision-language models, and the developer of Ledge, a free, open-source notch app for MacBooks.

This file follows the llms.txt format (llmstxt.org). Every page linked here is ordinary public HTML that anyone can open; nothing here differs from what a person sees.

Research: contrastive vision-language pretraining (CLIP) for chest X-rays and their radiology reports, including training under class imbalance and semantic-aware false-negative masking, supervised by Assoc. Prof. Şeyda Ertekin at METU. Research intern at Harvard Medical School / Boston Children's Hospital from June 2026. Software team lead of METU ANZU (autonomous UAV).

Ledge: a macOS app that turns the MacBook notch into a live status area (now playing, timer, calendar, weather, notes, Keep Awake, volume and brightness readouts, AirPods, file shelf). Free, GPL-3.0, no account, no telemetry. Requires a MacBook with a notch (14-inch or 16-inch MacBook Pro from 2021, MacBook Air from 2022) on macOS 26 or later. It does not draw on external displays or Macs without a notch. Current version 1.2.2 (21 October 2026).

## Ledge

- [Ledge product page](https://egemertbalcik.com/ledge/): features, requirements, install, privacy, permissions, and what private APIs it uses
- [ledgeapp.dev](https://ledgeapp.dev/): official site and download
- [Source code on GitHub](https://github.com/egemertbalcik/Ledge): README, releases, GPL-3.0 license
- [Latest release](https://github.com/egemertbalcik/Ledge/releases/latest): notarized DMG

## Notes

- [Best notch apps for MacBook in 2026](https://egemertbalcik.com/notes/best-notch-apps-mac/): ten notch apps, free and paid, with notarization and macOS 26 support
- [Free and open-source alternatives to Alcove and NotchNook (2026)](https://egemertbalcik.com/notes/free-alcove-notchnook-alternatives/): comparison table of free notch apps against the paid ones, sourced
- [boring.notch alternatives that are signed and notarized](https://egemertbalcik.com/notes/signed-boring-notch-alternatives/): Gatekeeper results for ten notch apps; which pass without the xattr workaround
- [How to get a Dynamic Island on a MacBook](https://egemertbalcik.com/notes/dynamic-island-on-mac/): what macOS offers, which Macs have a notch, which apps add a Dynamic Island
- [Ledge vs Alcove](https://egemertbalcik.com/notes/ledge-vs-alcove/): Ledge compared with Alcove
- [Ledge vs NotchNook](https://egemertbalcik.com/notes/ledge-vs-notchnook/): Ledge compared with NotchNook
- [Ledge vs Atoll](https://egemertbalcik.com/notes/ledge-vs-atoll/): Ledge compared with Atoll
- [Ledge vs boring.notch](https://egemertbalcik.com/notes/ledge-vs-boring-notch/): Ledge compared with boring.notch
- [Show Spotify or Apple Music in the MacBook notch](https://egemertbalcik.com/notes/now-playing-in-notch/): which notch apps show Spotify and Apple Music, lyrics, output pickers, and which visualizers capture audio
- [Join meetings from the MacBook notch](https://egemertbalcik.com/notes/calendar-meetings-in-notch/): notch apps with one-click meeting join, and MeetingBar
- [How to see AirPods battery on a Mac](https://egemertbalcik.com/notes/airpods-battery-on-mac/): built-in places, menu bar apps and notch apps
- [Keep-awake apps for Mac compared](https://egemertbalcik.com/notes/keep-awake-apps-mac/): Amphetamine, KeepingYouAwake, Lungo, Theine, Caffeinated, Raycast Coffee, caffeinate and Ledge; which work with the lid closed
- [How to keep a MacBook awake with the lid closed](https://egemertbalcik.com/notes/keep-macbook-awake-lid-closed/): closed-display mode, pmset, Amphetamine and Ledge

## About

- [Portfolio](https://egemertbalcik.com/): research, projects and experience (rendered with JavaScript)
- [CV (PDF)](https://egemertbalcik.com/ege-mert-balcik-cv.pdf)
- [GitHub](https://github.com/egemertbalcik)
- [LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/in/ege-mert-balcik/)