scientific update

[OT from cottage renovations]

thanks to Meg I have come to understand that there are two forms of matter in the universe:

1. cat toys
2. nothing else

this has interesting consequences.  the periodic table, for instance, can be condensed into two entries and represented by a single binary digit with a default value of 1 (the zero is unused).  this simplification comes at the cost of a certain amount of granularity, but there's a good chance that the lost discarded detail is meaningless.