The Pool-Ball Break — the packing energy priced, the creep found real, and the refusal that matters

The author's next sentence after Paper 99: it's like hitting an arrangement of pool balls — the energy comes off differently depending on how many are packed — add or subtract it and make the MeV almost perfect. This paper prices that sentence under full D8 discipline: one coefficient on the credited packing count (energy per packed pair, ·), fitted, scored out-of-sample, billed by AIC/BIC, tested on the 514 alpha signs — and shipped as an interactive page (03_ALL_THE_PAGES/the_site/The_Pool_Ball_Break.html) where the reader moves the knob themselves. The result is two honest findings that point the same way: the creep is real inside every nest, and the one-knob repair is a null — "almost perfect" is not for sale at one coefficient. This record holds one paper on its own and is refreshed every couple of months. The complete deposit, 10.5281/zenodo.21788037, holds every paper with its code and data and is updated first; for the newest version of this paper, go there.