Hacker News: regisb

New comment by regisb in "Ask HN: What was your "oh shit" moment with GenAI?"

regisb — Mon, 08 Jun 2026 05:44:18 +0000

I assume you mean car commute, right?

I don't know about the US but in France (or Europe) the environmental impact of air conditioning, car driving and meat consumption is well understood by most educated people.

New comment by regisb in "Ask HN: What was your "oh shit" moment with GenAI?"

regisb — Mon, 08 Jun 2026 05:39:16 +0000

I'm not sure I understand. You realise that our token consumption in coming on top of our other energy/water consumption right?

Also, the environmental impact might be small if we run a small number of inference queries every day, but that impact will grow linearly with the number of queries and agents we run.

New comment by regisb in "Ask HN: What was your "oh shit" moment with GenAI?"

regisb — Sun, 07 Jun 2026 15:16:31 +0000

Yes and I'd like to talk about the environmental impact as well please.

New comment by regisb in "Deno Sandbox"

regisb — Thu, 05 Feb 2026 06:39:20 +0000

Is this Extism, but running as a service? https://extism.org/ It seems to me that a key feature of Extism is host functions (which can be called from the sandbox). But maybe I'm not comparing apples to apples?

Kill the Kitten

regisb — Tue, 03 Feb 2026 18:18:41 +0000

Article URL: https://killthekitten.minutebutterfly.com/

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46874857

Points: 2

# Comments: 0

Visualising RAG

regisb — Sat, 10 Jan 2026 20:26:15 +0000

Article URL: https://old.reddit.com/r/LocalLLaMA/comments/1q998is/visualizing_rag_part_2_visualizing_retrieval/

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46569592

Points: 1

# Comments: 1

New comment by regisb in "The Triple Failure of 2U, EdX, and Axim"

regisb — Mon, 02 Sep 2024 07:18:52 +0000

The presentation we made in July at the Open edX 2024 conference with my colleague Faqir Bilal should be available on youtube soon-ish. The tl;dw is that we should focus on a different market vertical, which is residential/blended/hybrid learning.

New comment by regisb in "The Triple Failure of 2U, EdX, and Axim"

regisb — Fri, 30 Aug 2024 04:56:51 +0000

(Copy-pasting here my post comment)

As a member of the Open edX technical oversight committee, and a long time core contributor, I’d like to comment on the future of Open edX — the open source project. I’m not an employee of Axim or 2U though, so I can’t say anything about their plans.

As OP explained, Axim is the only “cash-rich entity” to have emerged after the edX acquisition. They retained control of the open source Open edX project, and are now in charge of its maintenance and improvement. That is with the support of many open source contributors, of course.

For those who don’t know, Open edX is the piece of software on which runs edX.org, but also MITx and many other open online learning platforms around the world. It’s a big software project that has managed to carve a niche in a complex ecosystem.

The analysis that Axim is mostly a grant-giving organisation is very far from the reality. Yes, Axim is allocating part of its endowment to grants, though I don’t have much insight into this aspect of their mission. What I do know, is that Axim is also investing a very substantial amount of time and money in the development of the open source project, and that is no trivial feat. You can make your own opinion by checking the project activity on GitHub and the Open edX forum.

To put things simply, the open source project is undergoing an important transition where we have fewer dedicated engineers (because of the layoffs at 2U) but much better project management and focus (because the project roadmap is no longer dictated by edX). There’s also a lot of internal debate of where the project should be headed, strategically speaking (I have my own opinion, which you can find elsewhere). None of this would be possible without Axim and its financial independence.

This transition is long and complicated, and it’s not one we can accelerate just by throwing money at it. Also, I like to think of education as a complex ecosystem that improves in incremental steps. AI and personalised learning might play a role in that process, but they are most certainly not a panacea. It would be meaningless to invest these $735 million in such a narrow scope. Instead, it makes much more sense to to build a stable foundation for the future of open online learning.

In a nutshell: don’t give up on Open edX just yet, the best things are yet to come :)

Programming: The Good Parts [video]

regisb — Tue, 25 Jun 2024 11:58:16 +0000

Article URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-9syPIrrIuY

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40787403

Points: 3

# Comments: 0

New comment by regisb in "Ask HN: Part-time, remote jobs?"

regisb — Mon, 31 Aug 2015 07:59:32 +0000

I work 4 days/week writing open source software for the French government (http://france-universite-numerique-mooc.fr/ http://github.com/openfun/). Last week I was in Barcelona; today I'm in Bordeaux. All 4 members of the development team work remotely.

Keep faith! It took me ~5 years to find the right position and a boss willing to accept remote, part-time work. Such positions exist, but you need to search hard.

How to Port a 9M Code Line Project to 64 Bits?

regisb — Thu, 27 Aug 2015 15:42:37 +0000

Article URL: http://www.viva64.com/en/b/0342/

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10130074

Points: 1

# Comments: 0

New comment by regisb in "Ask HN: How do I get my first contracting client?"

regisb — Tue, 19 May 2015 15:21:27 +0000

I can't believe no one has mentioned LinkedIn yet. I have received virtually all my inbound contacts through my LinkedIn profile. Explicitely mention your new status ("consultant"/"freelancer" + your specialty) as your main activity and I can assure you you will get contract offers. They will not be the best in the world, but that will improve with time (and new connections).