<rss version="2.0" xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/" xmlns:atom="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom"><channel><title>Hacker News: pvaldes</title><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=pvaldes</link><description>Hacker News RSS</description><docs>https://hnrss.org/</docs><generator>hnrss v2.1.1</generator><lastBuildDate>Mon, 15 Jun 2026 17:11:54 +0000</lastBuildDate><atom:link href="https://hnrss.org/user?id=pvaldes" rel="self" type="application/rss+xml"></atom:link><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by pvaldes in "A clear fishing wire is tied around the island of Manhattan"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Christians: the symbol of the fish represents Jesus<p>Jews: Hold my beer, guys. We need to do something.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Sun, 14 Jun 2026 18:46:17 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48531062</link><dc:creator>pvaldes</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48531062</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48531062</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by pvaldes in "New pancreatic cancer drug might open the door to much longer survival times"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>> Kindly share more details (about your claim that science is under attack in the United States)<p>Is of public knowledge that the National Science Foundation and funds for thousands of scientific projects were gutted by DOGE in 2025.<p>Each one of the research lines cut needed typically 10 years to grow, so Trump and GOP had destroyed an incredible amount of years of research just on 2025, with consequences probably extending into 2035 or so. Without any visible benefit for Americans, that had still seen their debt sky-rocketing while their taxes are spent in pools and sinks.<p>Trump has also assured to engrave into the brains of the whole scientific community that US is now an hostile place for students and researchers. The whole planet had seen the main universities attacked by Trump (with Harvard resisting, and Columbia losing their pride), the foreign students targeted by ICE and the department of Education eviscerated<p>Also the thousands of workers in USAID and Health and Human Services fired for fun. Without mentioning the DOGE mess done at the national nuclear safety administration with 400 essential workers fired and then asked to return to the job ASAP, please, please.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Sun, 14 Jun 2026 18:03:01 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48530505</link><dc:creator>pvaldes</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48530505</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48530505</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by pvaldes in "A 'cold blob' in the Atlantic could be a sign of AMOC shutdown"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Your faith stopped the climate change, congratulations! And all that we needed was a pure soul to wake up the princess of snow!<p>Ehm... nope. Another yearly record of heat, directly to the sink. Damned real world.<p>At this moment trolling people that for some reason still keeps playing the "virtuous climate denial" card is not even funny.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Sun, 14 Jun 2026 17:18:14 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48529871</link><dc:creator>pvaldes</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48529871</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48529871</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by pvaldes in "Pentagon raised threat of Israeli spying on U.S. to highest level, sources say"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>s/must be approved/must have approved/</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Sun, 07 Jun 2026 15:21:22 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48435711</link><dc:creator>pvaldes</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48435711</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48435711</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by pvaldes in "Pentagon raised threat of Israeli spying on U.S. to highest level, sources say"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>> Trump was yelling expletives<p>We can assume that the conversation didn't went the way that Trump wants us to think.<p>When somebody annoys Trump, even slightly, he assures to appear on video broadcasted to the whole planet calling infantile expletives to that "ugly" and "incompetent" person. It does not matter if he called "beautiful" and "expert" that same person on the previous hour. As a good narcissist, he will force himself in the middle of the picture <i>every-single-time</i> (and push off the road anybody that would dare to speak for him). Trump is 120% predictable in that sense. Is known to have one of the thinnest skins in the planet and to be easily triggered.<p>But with Netanyahu curiously we enter in a totally different game, a plausible deniability game of: he-said-that-she-said-that-somebody-has-seen-trump-yelling-on-phone.<p>Trump must be approved the message but is afraid to emit it personally. Otherwise we should accept the nonsense that such freak of control, the most videotaped man in the planet, became so out-of character that is now allowing leaks, forgiving the whistleblowers, and hiding a video that he personally would absolutely love, LOVE, to show to his fans. A video of him showing dominion assertion over Bibi. The only logical explanation for this save facing move, is that this dominion does not exist and that Israel do what they want.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Sun, 07 Jun 2026 10:32:14 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48433504</link><dc:creator>pvaldes</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48433504</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48433504</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by pvaldes in "Ask HN: How did you discover Hacker News?"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Hum... don't remember. The oldest HN post that I can positively remember right now is the Wash my Ferrari problem from 2012 so it should be via Debian forums</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Sat, 06 Jun 2026 10:19:15 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48423399</link><dc:creator>pvaldes</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48423399</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48423399</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by pvaldes in "French-Iranian author Marjane Satrapi, author of 'Persepolis', dies at 56"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Don't know the details, didn't read the comic, and don't really have a personal interest on the history so what follows is just general speculation. She looked depressed enough to commit suicide. Is a fact also that people that orbit around drugs, tend to die younger, by suicide or by the effects of the drugs.<p>In any case if two relatively young people die in a short interval of time would be wise to look for environmental effects. Oil pigments have chemicals, and some colors were removed for being notoriously unsafe. Going further, slow poisoning to eliminate opponents with the benefits of plausible deniability is trendy among some criminals unfortunately. If somebody "dies of grief", research for  discarding a hidden toxic should be started, just to be safe.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Fri, 05 Jun 2026 08:10:55 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48409485</link><dc:creator>pvaldes</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48409485</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48409485</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by pvaldes in "I found a seashell in the middle of the desert"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Good candidate</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Sun, 31 May 2026 19:39:20 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48348997</link><dc:creator>pvaldes</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48348997</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48348997</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by pvaldes in "I found a seashell in the middle of the desert"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>And to end this, 6) the model ignores all knowledge about the species and its habitat<p>Sphincterochila candidissima is a western Mediterranean species. It lives from Spain to Libia. The fossil is from Saudi Arabia.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Sun, 31 May 2026 09:45:57 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48344328</link><dc:creator>pvaldes</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48344328</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48344328</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by pvaldes in "I found a seashell in the middle of the desert"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>More points for though<p>1) The model use incomplete data. The data used to train the model is based in 7800 species alive. After wikipedia, Gastropoda have more than 75000 species alive, plus 15000 fossil species known. (We can assume safely that this is a snail, but remember that some cephalopods also have coiled shells).<p>2) The model use spurious data. All clams and Tusk shells must be removed (because we want to classify a snail). This means that the number of snails available to train the model is much lower than 7800. Including non-snails just gives us a false confidence in the strength of our model.<p>3) The model covers only one couple traits in this species, but this particular traits can vary within members of the same species. Taxonomy uses thousands of traits to classify a mollusc and some are particularly fastididious. Dozens of items only to describe the shell. Often the soft parts are needed (Is the penis shaped like a club? this genus, shaped like a whip? this other one; the penis in your sample is contracted because you didn't put to sleep the animal first with mint crystals, though luck, we'll never know).<p>4) The model is based in extant alive species, but we want to identify a fossil. Alive species have non-distorted shells. Fossils often lose their shape by the weight of sediments and compression. Only the thickest shells would keep its real height/wide proportions.<p>5) The model ignores important details. The species found in the desert has a very evident shell groove at the top of the spire, that the targeted species does not have. This alone, tells a newbie taxonomist that the result is wrong.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Sun, 31 May 2026 09:15:03 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48344189</link><dc:creator>pvaldes</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48344189</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48344189</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by pvaldes in "I found a seashell in the middle of the desert"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>The analysis is nice, flashy, and wrong. Several weak assumptions here leading to hallucinate an obviously wrong result.<p>Taxonomy IS a science. Just use the wide corpse of knowledge that has been built for the last 229 years, where the class Gastropoda was created.<p>First wrong assumption. This is a seashell.<p>This <i>probably</i> is a seashell, yes.<p>But fresh water snails have also shells; and savannas can have a lot of lagoons before eventually turning into deserts. If you train your model only using zebras, your model will happily conclude than an hippo is a sort of non stripped obese zebra.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Sun, 31 May 2026 08:54:23 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48344096</link><dc:creator>pvaldes</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48344096</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48344096</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by pvaldes in "Underwater robot tracks sperm whale conversations in real time"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Logistics here are extra interesting. Sperm whale clicks are basically a sonic weapon. This is maybe the loudest animal known in the history of the evolution, known to be capable to kill an human just with sound if they get alarmed. I wonder if we would be able to watch the destruction of the robot with a extra loud sound wave at any given point or how they designed to avoid it.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Mon, 04 May 2026 16:33:02 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48010982</link><dc:creator>pvaldes</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48010982</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48010982</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by pvaldes in "New statue in London, attributed to Banksy, of a suited man, blinded by a flag"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>The only thing that we know about the flag is that it a fiberglass flag, so he must be obviously criticising the allegedly benefits of fiber in the diet.<p>As seen by the raised fist, the man is angry because the operation Epic Fiber has caused a blockage just in the strait of Trump, so is a metaphor about the dangers of having too much nuts in the world. Banski has planned also that the flag ends totally white by seagull activity; so this, always evolving and deceivingly simple piece of art, gives us hope for a future restoration of the blockage soon before we end nuking everybody on the process.<p>Denouncing the raise to nuttionalism while providing hope for the future. A powerful message.<p>See?, this is art, everybody can sell anything with a little practice. If they can sell a banana taped in a wall, so you can too.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Mon, 04 May 2026 06:52:10 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48005459</link><dc:creator>pvaldes</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48005459</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48005459</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by pvaldes in "The feed doesn't know you, and YouTube refuses to let you browse"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>shorts can be removed using the filters icon at the top right</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Sat, 02 May 2026 20:31:15 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47990188</link><dc:creator>pvaldes</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47990188</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47990188</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by pvaldes in "US to Withdraw Troops from Germany"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>I bet that we will see another TACO in a few hours or days. EU will just shrug and replace the soldiers with their own people.<p>The fact that Trump is building a bunker to dance (while watching the rest of America burn?) should be much more concerning. At the best outcome, it suggests that he don't plan to quit the WH ever. At the worse scenery, the idea of a major remodeling in the WH paid by private sponsors is a problem. Those sponsors can have hidden motives. How they can be sure (after surgically purging anybody competent from the place), that at this moment nobody is placing dozens of microphones or small explosives inside the columns of the ballroom? The next president will need to scan and tear off everything.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Sat, 02 May 2026 16:44:40 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47987979</link><dc:creator>pvaldes</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47987979</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47987979</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by pvaldes in "Belgium stops decommissioning nuclear power plants"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Lets try to speak as adults about this.<p>1) There are at least 403 cases registered of Fukushima residents developing Thyroid cancers after 2011 and the study is still ongoing. This is five times the expected cancer ratio.<p>Of those at least 155 cases of malignant cancers happened in children (Sokawa 2024). We know that thyroid cancers are rare among young people... except in one special place were a sudden increase in similar cases was registered since the 80's. This place is called Chernobyl. Children that lived in towns around Fukushima daichi where the accident happened have three times more probability of suffering thyroid cancer than children that lived in towns farther from the plant.<p>2) Not the strong excuse that it seems, after the company was warned by scientists about the possibility of such earthquake and the urgency to improve their safety measures. They had a lot of time to fix it, and did absolutely nothing</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Thu, 30 Apr 2026 15:26:32 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47963957</link><dc:creator>pvaldes</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47963957</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47963957</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by pvaldes in "Spanish archaeologists discover trove of ancient shipwrecks in Bay of Gibraltar"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Somebody investing a zillion to hire people to train and feed dolphins most probably:<p>1) have enough money to buy robots instead and get rid of the legal and logistic trouble<p>2) would want to use the dolphins for activities that grant a better return of the investment like marine engineering or war (mining/demining).<p>Every major of a coastal city in California, or South-Africa (with a big beach visited by thousands of swimmers a day), would pay solid money for bay-watching and shark deterrent services that really work without the need of eyesore nets. People love to swim with dolphins too so would be another tourism resource in itself.<p>The time of your dolphins would be just too valuable and expensive to do Archaeology.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Tue, 28 Apr 2026 08:45:09 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47931932</link><dc:creator>pvaldes</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47931932</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47931932</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by pvaldes in "Isopods of the world"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Or they know how this animals look in the real life.<p>Take in mind that the first page cover different morphs of the same genus. Maybe even the same species. They all look variations generated by computer, because they all are Cubaris sp and have exactly the same cephalon shape.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Mon, 27 Apr 2026 17:15:13 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47924403</link><dc:creator>pvaldes</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47924403</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47924403</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by pvaldes in "Isopods of the world"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Most of the species (terrestrial and marine) less than 2cm.<p>The biggest terrestrial can reach 3cm or so, while the largest marine can reach 30-50cm.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Mon, 27 Apr 2026 16:56:43 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47924170</link><dc:creator>pvaldes</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47924170</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47924170</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by pvaldes in "Isopods of the world"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Only the terrestrial ones. Sea isopods are a different planet (see Bathynomus).<p>The kangaroos from the invertebrate world. This group contains one infamous taxonomic troll move, when an English decided to name several different genus with anagrams. So everybody now needs to remember the differences between Nerocila, Cirolana, Conilera, Rocinela, Anilocra and Olencira. All because he wanted to impress a woman called Caroline. To add insult to the crime he created also Livoneca, that everybody was (wrongly) calling Lironeca, just because exceptions are annoying to remember. The joke was expanded by a second taxonomist later with Renocila and in 1990 a third author created Creniola and Norileca. I would wish to strangle all of then with my own hands. Slowly.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Thu, 23 Apr 2026 22:44:53 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47883200</link><dc:creator>pvaldes</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47883200</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47883200</guid></item></channel></rss>