For explaining the lithium's disappearance, maybe, but we do need something to explain the relative proportions.

My default assumption was as a light element Li would be one of the top numbers. If, say (and these numbers are way off), you were expecting the universe to be 50% hydrogen, 25% helium, 12% lithium, 13% other, and you only had 4% lithium, then that missing 8% would have to be reflected somewhere, and you'd be seeing 54% hydrogen in the universe, for instance.

Except as I look it up, lithium is very rare to begin with, so maybe two thirds of a very small number isn't enough to throw off the calculations for the other elements. In reality it's 74% hydrogen, 24% helium, and less than 2% for everything else. Li is some exceptionally tiny fraction of a percent, so even if it is off, that's not going to shift the relative percentages of other elements enough to be noticeable, I don't think.

There are two things that confuse me with this news.

1. With a BA in physics (mid-90's), I was taught about the Big Bang and elements calculation multiple times. In every single instance I was shown the calculated and observed percentages, and they were always given as a good match, as part of the proof. I'm really confused that now it's been known for decades that they *don't* match. Were my books lying to me? Was this observation adjusted the year I graduated college, and I just missed the controversy?

2. I'm also really curious to hear which elements have a *higher* concentration, to make up for the missing lithium. If we were just short a bunch of lithium, all of the other elements would be higher, percentage wise, and thus all of them would be off. Since the others are spot-on, I've got to think there's at least one element out there that's disproportionately high to balance it out.

Oh, I wasn't even actively trying to sell. I just had some art on my web site that I'd done for fun and wanted to show off. I only got a small handful of contacts, but all of them were looking for free. One of them was even a "conference," which seemed like it ought to have *some* funds. Though it was also South Korea in the early 2000's, so I'm not sure what things were like then.

I appreciate your taking the time to make the suggestion, though.

Heh, I wish just once someone who contacted me about using my images had any money at all. The only requests I've ever gotten were from people looking for entirely free use. I would have gladly taken $20 just to be able to say I'd once sold something.

Sadly, ternary doesn't actually start with "tri."

I think it comes from old Norwegian, based on a decision-making process akin to flipping a coin, except it was throwing rocks at birds, and the decision was determined by which arctic tern was hit first.

I think we had the same physics book, because this article brought back memories of the story. In my memory he cracked one rear molar and not *all* of his teeth, but it's otherwise similar.

I'm not "proud" of adblocking any more than I'm proud of locking my door at night. It's just basic personal security. It's a shame that my security needs conflict with the site's business model. But frankly, I'm not going to click on any ads anyway. I've clicked on maybe two in the past decade, and both were by accident. Mostly I'm not interested. Even if I *am* interested, I'm going go to the source web site directly, because I can't trust some random ad to be genuine.

One version of PHPBB had a bug where it trimmed the special characters (or at least the @) from a password when you *created* it, but not later on when you tried logging in. I had to reinstall a couple of times before I somehow figured out what was going on. Not sure if this bug still exists, as it was many years ago.

I still miss the speed with which Mac OS 9 opened windows. (I don't still use it, mind you, I just miss it.) When they came out with OS X there was a tremendous, noticeable drag on the window-opening animation/process. I think they did slowly improve things over subsequent versions and with improving hardware, but I'm pretty sure I could still drill down through 8 folders faster on OS 9 using 90's-era hardware than I could through the same folders on a modern Mac.

I know, I'm probably not supposed to keep things in folders and drill down like that anymore, but instead throw it all in one big pot and search or something, but that's not how I learned to think about my computer files, and I still haven't really adjusted to it.

Yes, rock is handy, but keep in mind it's useless against paper.

Sure, that's why no individual bothers to do it, but if the world at large wanted to demonstrate if there was any merit at all to dowsing, that's the kind of thing they ought to test.

You'd think somewhere there'd be one wealthy investor willing to spend a few tens of thousands to scientifically analyze this.

As a start, I'd say: pick 3 spots that feel right, pick 3 spots that feel wrong, and pick 3 spots via some randomization method. Then drill all 9. Repeat over a few thousand plots of land. Compare results.

Bah, the pithier version of this is, "Two wrongs won't make a right, but three lefts do."

Hey, look, you just ended a sentence with "a preposition."

Those who cannot remember the aphorism are doomed to, er, how does that go again?