Karl Schmidt
@karlschmidt.net
Tech Leader, author at DebugBetter, former cofounder of Gasket Games, former Relic Entertainment, DeNA, Mobify engineering leader
debugbetter.com
karlschmidt.net
debugbetter.com
karlschmidt.net
Reposted by Karl Schmidt
Pretty wild that LLMs seem to have trained on my 2019 article of "The product-minded engineer" and I now find blog posts published in 2025 that are an exact rehash of my post.
Because if you ask an LLM "write a blog about a product-minded engineer" they spit out mine!!
Because if you ask an LLM "write a blog about a product-minded engineer" they spit out mine!!
January 12, 2026 at 9:18 PM
Pretty wild that LLMs seem to have trained on my 2019 article of "The product-minded engineer" and I now find blog posts published in 2025 that are an exact rehash of my post.
Because if you ask an LLM "write a blog about a product-minded engineer" they spit out mine!!
Because if you ask an LLM "write a blog about a product-minded engineer" they spit out mine!!
My wife: "What the the BJJ belt colours, other than white?"
Me: "Blue, Purple, Brown, Black."
My wife: "Ok, so bruise colours"
Me: "Blue, Purple, Brown, Black."
My wife: "Ok, so bruise colours"
January 9, 2026 at 6:13 PM
My wife: "What the the BJJ belt colours, other than white?"
Me: "Blue, Purple, Brown, Black."
My wife: "Ok, so bruise colours"
Me: "Blue, Purple, Brown, Black."
My wife: "Ok, so bruise colours"
Happy Birthday to me!
December 24, 2025 at 6:53 PM
Happy Birthday to me!
Reposted by Karl Schmidt
ooh finally AI made me laugh.. brilliant
They really nailed the parody of commercials "produced" by genAI vm.tiktok.com/ZGdmdpKRx/
December 21, 2025 at 6:57 PM
ooh finally AI made me laugh.. brilliant
Reposted by Karl Schmidt
So, lessons:
1. As I knew already, drivers do all sorts of wacky, opaque things behind the scenes.
2. I need to be careful about maintaining a consistent GPU power state when looking at GPU timings.
/end
1. As I knew already, drivers do all sorts of wacky, opaque things behind the scenes.
2. I need to be careful about maintaining a consistent GPU power state when looking at GPU timings.
/end
December 1, 2025 at 9:24 PM
So, lessons:
1. As I knew already, drivers do all sorts of wacky, opaque things behind the scenes.
2. I need to be careful about maintaining a consistent GPU power state when looking at GPU timings.
/end
1. As I knew already, drivers do all sorts of wacky, opaque things behind the scenes.
2. I need to be careful about maintaining a consistent GPU power state when looking at GPU timings.
/end
Zootopia 2 is fantastic - amazing job by Disney Animation Studios!
November 26, 2025 at 9:25 PM
Zootopia 2 is fantastic - amazing job by Disney Animation Studios!
This week my amazing wife Olya did her first podcast interview! She talks about the dream that inspired her recent series of paintings, filmmaking, creativity and more. www.youtube.com/watch?v=QO7R...
November 21, 2025 at 7:02 PM
This week my amazing wife Olya did her first podcast interview! She talks about the dream that inspired her recent series of paintings, filmmaking, creativity and more. www.youtube.com/watch?v=QO7R...
This week Unity and Epic announced "Unity developers will be able to bring their games to Fortnite".
But there are no details about what this actually means, or how it will work.
But there are no details about what this actually means, or how it will work.
November 20, 2025 at 6:56 PM
This week Unity and Epic announced "Unity developers will be able to bring their games to Fortnite".
But there are no details about what this actually means, or how it will work.
But there are no details about what this actually means, or how it will work.
I must be missing something here, you can't even "bring Unreal games to Fortnite" right now. More likely this is "Unity Editor for Fortnite" like UEFN is today.
November 19, 2025 at 3:11 PM
I must be missing something here, you can't even "bring Unreal games to Fortnite" right now. More likely this is "Unity Editor for Fortnite" like UEFN is today.
❤️
Blender Foundation and the online developer community proudly present Blender 5.0!
ACES, Adaptive Subdivision, HDR, Storyboarding, Geometry Nodes, 588 bugs fixed, and so much more.
📖 Changelog & Download: blender.org/download/rel...
📺 Video Recap: www.youtube.com/watch?v=4wEq... #b3d
ACES, Adaptive Subdivision, HDR, Storyboarding, Geometry Nodes, 588 bugs fixed, and so much more.
📖 Changelog & Download: blender.org/download/rel...
📺 Video Recap: www.youtube.com/watch?v=4wEq... #b3d
blender.org
November 18, 2025 at 6:52 PM
❤️
Use bright colours that don’t match anything in your game (relic had a bright blue cube for this)
In gamedev, if you're using a placeholder asset, best practices involve marking it as placeholder so garishly and offensively clearly PLACEHOLDER that you can't possibly miss it. Also flagging that asset in the dev process so it can be identified quickly before the final build.
November 17, 2025 at 9:18 PM
Use bright colours that don’t match anything in your game (relic had a bright blue cube for this)
I'm so excited for the new Steam Machine, Steam Controller and Steam Frame announcements. Here is the original Steam Machine and first edition of the Steam Controller, still on my office desk all these years later.
November 14, 2025 at 10:18 PM
I'm so excited for the new Steam Machine, Steam Controller and Steam Frame announcements. Here is the original Steam Machine and first edition of the Steam Controller, still on my office desk all these years later.
Reposted by Karl Schmidt
Announcing: New @steampowered.com Hardware, coming in 2026:
Steam Controller
Steam Machine
Steam Frame.
Watch our jazzy announcement video and wishlist now: steampowered.com/hardware
Steam Controller
Steam Machine
Steam Frame.
Watch our jazzy announcement video and wishlist now: steampowered.com/hardware
Steam Hardware
The Steam Hardware family officially expands in early 2026.
steampowered.com
November 12, 2025 at 6:03 PM
Announcing: New @steampowered.com Hardware, coming in 2026:
Steam Controller
Steam Machine
Steam Frame.
Watch our jazzy announcement video and wishlist now: steampowered.com/hardware
Steam Controller
Steam Machine
Steam Frame.
Watch our jazzy announcement video and wishlist now: steampowered.com/hardware
Reposted by Karl Schmidt
"Instead of paternity leave, they ended my contract"
What's next?
1) pipestack.dev
2) Contract work to feed the family and keep our house
Over 20 years of experience, @svelte.dev since 2019, full-stack & CLIs with Typesript or Rust.
If I can help you, let me know.
mootoday.com/blog/instead...
What's next?
1) pipestack.dev
2) Contract work to feed the family and keep our house
Over 20 years of experience, @svelte.dev since 2019, full-stack & CLIs with Typesript or Rust.
If I can help you, let me know.
mootoday.com/blog/instead...
Instead of paternity leave, they ended my contract - mootoday.com
When life gives you lemons, build your own lemon stand.
mootoday.com
November 3, 2025 at 1:12 PM
"Instead of paternity leave, they ended my contract"
What's next?
1) pipestack.dev
2) Contract work to feed the family and keep our house
Over 20 years of experience, @svelte.dev since 2019, full-stack & CLIs with Typesript or Rust.
If I can help you, let me know.
mootoday.com/blog/instead...
What's next?
1) pipestack.dev
2) Contract work to feed the family and keep our house
Over 20 years of experience, @svelte.dev since 2019, full-stack & CLIs with Typesript or Rust.
If I can help you, let me know.
mootoday.com/blog/instead...
Reposted by Karl Schmidt
- An hour debugging a shader gamma loss issue that turned out to be an auto-dimmed Xbox that I didn't touch the controller on for a few minutes
- A few days debugging my GUS XM player skipping the first half a second of any tune that turned out to be my speaker wake-up latency after going standby.
- A few days debugging my GUS XM player skipping the first half a second of any tune that turned out to be my speaker wake-up latency after going standby.
- Spends 10 minutes investigating a weird highlighting issue.
- Realizes that there's a pile of stuff sitting over the rarely used game controller stashed somewhere in a drawer, but connected. A button was held pressed.
- Realizes that there's a pile of stuff sitting over the rarely used game controller stashed somewhere in a drawer, but connected. A button was held pressed.
October 29, 2025 at 3:28 PM
- An hour debugging a shader gamma loss issue that turned out to be an auto-dimmed Xbox that I didn't touch the controller on for a few minutes
- A few days debugging my GUS XM player skipping the first half a second of any tune that turned out to be my speaker wake-up latency after going standby.
- A few days debugging my GUS XM player skipping the first half a second of any tune that turned out to be my speaker wake-up latency after going standby.
Automation FTW
Still a few slots open on the Nov 18th workshop - come learn about shipping better games faster through test automation!
(If you’re indie, dm me for a discount)
(If you’re Netflix, dm me for a price increase)
(If you’re indie, dm me for a discount)
(If you’re Netflix, dm me for a price increase)
Game devs!
- want to make big changes closer to launch?
- scared of a buggy launch that might impact discoverability?
- like QA to do more exploratory testing, not repetitive checklists?
Join my virtual workshop on 1st Oct to learn about pragmatic test automation!
andrewfray.dev/workshops.html
- want to make big changes closer to launch?
- scared of a buggy launch that might impact discoverability?
- like QA to do more exploratory testing, not repetitive checklists?
Join my virtual workshop on 1st Oct to learn about pragmatic test automation!
andrewfray.dev/workshops.html
October 28, 2025 at 8:11 PM
Automation FTW
Reposted by Karl Schmidt
October 27, 2025 at 4:29 PM
Remember inworld.ai ? Website (and business) looks a lot different than a few years ago....
I guess it's hard "to push forward innovations in generative AI that elevate the entire gaming industry"
I guess it's hard "to push forward innovations in generative AI that elevate the entire gaming industry"
AI products for growing applications.
For builders of consumer applications, enabling scaled applications that grow into user needs and organically evolve through experience.
inworld.ai
October 24, 2025 at 10:37 PM
Remember inworld.ai ? Website (and business) looks a lot different than a few years ago....
I guess it's hard "to push forward innovations in generative AI that elevate the entire gaming industry"
I guess it's hard "to push forward innovations in generative AI that elevate the entire gaming industry"
Reposted by Karl Schmidt
While we're finishing up Dosa Divas, we're still shopping around two smaller new projects. We wanted to let folks know with enough time and severance. Here's a spreadsheet with info on each person and I'm happy to provide any recommendations for any of them. docs.google.com/spreadsheets...
Outerloop Alumni - PUBLIC Contact Info
docs.google.com
October 21, 2025 at 11:21 PM
While we're finishing up Dosa Divas, we're still shopping around two smaller new projects. We wanted to let folks know with enough time and severance. Here's a spreadsheet with info on each person and I'm happy to provide any recommendations for any of them. docs.google.com/spreadsheets...
Today I heard the "All models are wrong, but some are useful" quote (from George Box) for the first time.
It was referring to the world of statistics, but was mentioned on a podcast discussing mental models.
It was referring to the world of statistics, but was mentioned on a podcast discussing mental models.
October 21, 2025 at 6:13 PM
Today I heard the "All models are wrong, but some are useful" quote (from George Box) for the first time.
It was referring to the world of statistics, but was mentioned on a podcast discussing mental models.
It was referring to the world of statistics, but was mentioned on a podcast discussing mental models.
A friend of mine has some questions about the Azure US Government Marketplace - please reach out if you know about this, or if you know someone who knows! Bonus points if you know about how non-US companies can list on it.. thanks!
October 17, 2025 at 7:55 PM
A friend of mine has some questions about the Azure US Government Marketplace - please reach out if you know about this, or if you know someone who knows! Bonus points if you know about how non-US companies can list on it.. thanks!
Reposted by Karl Schmidt
New blog post:
In 2021 I found an invisible memory leak in a tool (VS Code) that I have never used. Impossible? Easy:
randomascii.wordpress.com/2025/10/09/f...
In 2021 I found an invisible memory leak in a tool (VS Code) that I have never used. Impossible? Easy:
randomascii.wordpress.com/2025/10/09/f...
Finding a VS Code Memory Leak
In 2021 I found a huge memory leak in VS code, totalling around 64 GB when I first saw it, but with no actual limit on how high it could go. I found this leak despite two obstacles that should have…
randomascii.wordpress.com
October 9, 2025 at 8:27 PM
New blog post:
In 2021 I found an invisible memory leak in a tool (VS Code) that I have never used. Impossible? Easy:
randomascii.wordpress.com/2025/10/09/f...
In 2021 I found an invisible memory leak in a tool (VS Code) that I have never used. Impossible? Easy:
randomascii.wordpress.com/2025/10/09/f...
Reposted by Karl Schmidt
I'll be at the Flink Forward in Barcelona next week. Happy to talk about all things data streaming, Flink, Arrow, DataFusion and more. You can also get these cute stickers! 🐿️
October 9, 2025 at 5:23 PM
I'll be at the Flink Forward in Barcelona next week. Happy to talk about all things data streaming, Flink, Arrow, DataFusion and more. You can also get these cute stickers! 🐿️
Surprise! My wife and I are attending #VIFF as industry for our first film festival. Why? We’re both very interested in film and TV - myself more on the production side.
October 2, 2025 at 11:57 PM
Surprise! My wife and I are attending #VIFF as industry for our first film festival. Why? We’re both very interested in film and TV - myself more on the production side.