if you want to consider *all* spiral galaxies (or individual stars, or whatever), just figure out if the angle is closer to 0 or 90. If every orientation of galaxies is equally represented in the universe, then the number in each category (edge- and axis-on) will be the same, no matter what angle you deem "good enough".
If I understand your argument, you are incorrect.
For sake of example and clear terminology, picture a disc galaxy as being a disc in the earth, the edge aligned with the equator, and observers are equally spaced throughout the sky. It is then "face-on" for observers near the celestial poles (+90 and -90 declination), and "edge-on" for observers near the galactic equator (0 declination). This is exactly analogous to a single observer watching multiple randomly oriented discs.
If we simply chose which an observer is closer to (pole or equator), we will divide observers into two sets, those within 45 degrees of the equator ("edge on"), and those within 45 degrees of the poles ("face on").
It should be very clear, just by looking at a globe, that the angular area of the former is much greater than that of the latter. In fact, without doing any spherical geometry, I can tell that it is more than twice as large.
Let's call the area within 45 degrees of one pole 1 unit, which gives us 2 units of "face on" observers. For "edge on" observers, we have 1 unit at 0 degrees longitude, and other, non-overlapping areas centered at 90, 180, and 270. That gives us twice as many "edge on" observers as "face on" observers, and there are still unaccounted areas within 45 degrees of the equator.
You claim that from our vantage point in the universe, here on earth in the Milky Way in The Place The Milky Way Inhabits, there are more galaxies pointing away from us (edge-on) than toward us.
The OP is correct, depending upon how "face/edge-edness" is defined. If one takes a simple but incorrect approach, as you have ("everything within 15 degrees of 0 (face on) and 90 (edge-on)", the conclusions can be subject to significant error. I believe that was his point.
...We know that dark matter can't be accounted for by large mass objects (like planets, asteroids, dust, etc) because CMB measurements tell us that the total amount of baryonic matter ('normal' matter made up of protons and neutrons) is a small fraction of the total matter
What you mean to say is that the theory of life, the universe and everything which you subscribe to breaks if there is no exotic dark matter. There is no proven "upper limit on the amount of baryonic mass in the universe," there are only theories and hypothesis which make that claim as part of their model. I won't try and prove a negative by saying that theory is necessarily wrong, but the onus is on you to prove that portion of it correct by finding some of this imaginary non-baryonic mass. Myself, I'll claim that the Flying Spaghetti Monster plays with the gravitational "constant" to fool with us. Prove me wrong.
Your circular logic fails to prove that dark matter exists.
since the article was concluded more light dimming for "edge on" galaxies, then there should be a futher test: current distance measuring objects and metrics (Cepheid Variables, etc.) should show that "edge" galaxies are further away than "face" galaxies, on average. (this wouldn't affect galaxies measured by red shift, which would equally off).
Surely, there's a database somewhere with distances and galaxy types which could be easily looked at to see if that's true.
It would also be interesting to know how much this affects the Hubbel constant.
Finally, the conclusions seem to only recognize the effect within other galaxies, but there would be no reason to think similar dimming doesn't occur from interstellar dust within the Milky Way. If so, then extragalactic objects should be dimmer (and more distant based on flawed calculations) on average when they lie in certain directions. (e.g. most dimming when looking through the galactic center near Sagittarius).
You ignored the HUGE ASSUMPTION, unsupported by any facts (except gravitational effects), that any exotic black matter exists, in any quantity. THE ONLY REASON it is theorized is because nothing else had been identified which could cause those gravitational effects. Now there is evidence of previously unknown mass.
You obviously don't know how to apply Occam if you prefer an unproven hypothetical to something which is observably evident.
The "20% more mass in stars" may just be the tip of the iceburg. The article doesn't mention the amount of mass in the dust itself.
Since there is no evidence for exotic black matter (other than observed gravitational effects), doesn't Occam force us to assume that the gravitational effects which we do observe are likely due to what we know about?
Why would it be incorrect to say this newly discovered dust has mass x (equal to the necessary dark matter mass), which scientists can determine from it's gravitational effects?
according to the Wikipedia article you cited, is calculated from observations of the cosmic microwave background radiation.
But, this newly found dust, which blocks light, must do something with that energy - either gain mass or re-radiate it, right? Could not that re-radiation be a part of the CMB, which would in turn have an affect on the calculated amount of baryonic dark matter. If it's not part of the CMB, where is this lost energy accounted for?
According to the Wikipedia article, dark matter "does not emit or reflect enough electromagnetic radiation to be observed directly." Why does that exclude this dust, which at the time that statement was made was unobserved, and therefore fit into the definition?
Furthermore, the definition says nothing about "non interacting," and it seems to me that the real definition is more like "matter we know must exist because of its gravitational effects, but for which we can't account." (i.e. either we can't see it, or we're not looking correctly because we dont' know what we're looking for) Just as with the dust at hand, how do we know it is "non interacting," or that it "doesn't emit or reflect" radiation, if we don't know what it is?
If this newly found dust blocks light, what does it do with the visible light it absorbs? Seems to me, it must re-radiate it (at a lower frequency, like a black object in the sun?) So, if it re-radiates the energy it absorbs, then why hasn't that been noticed before? Is all this re-radiated energy just part of the cosmic microwave background radiation?
As you've found, an automated system can be tuned, but you'll always have false positives/negatives.
I like the way spamassassin works - it can provide a rating for each message, which provides a mechanism for users to set the bar to their own preference, instead of having a single setting for the entire organization.
I'm not talking about using individual configurations for spamassassin, it's not realistic to expect most users to be able to deal with all the gory detail of spam filters.
Rather, spamassassin can set a header to indicate its confidence that a message is spam:
X-Spam-Level: ****
It adds an asterisk for each "point" of spam score. Users should be able to create an email filter which picks off suspected spam and puts it into a separate folder based on a header like that. Maybe drop all 10+ messages centrally, and let users tweak a local filter to their liking, depending on whether they prefer false positives or negatives.
I use spamassassin as an example only because that's what I use. There are no doubt others which can provide something similar which users could filter on.
"open source has saved businesses over $60 billion in expense compared to traditional software, and created a new multi-billion dollar support industry."
If, instead of saying "open source has taken out $60 billion of traditional software revenues," the article said "open source has saved businesses over $60 billion in expense compared to traditional software," don't you think people might view it differently?
it was an anarcho-syndicalist commune, where they take it in turns to act as a sort of executive officer for the week, but all the decisions of that officer have to be ratified at a special biweekly meeting.
An IP address may not conclusively identify the ultimate location from which communications are originating, but it does identify a logical location though which the communication has passed. To identify a physical locaton might require subpoena over the ISP and/or telco providing the link.
In any case, showing two way communicatons to a particular IP is sufficient to show an association of some sort. In the case at hand, Mediasentry, owner of the IP block, can't deny they have something to do with the packets. As someone has pointed out, they _could_ be providing VPN access to a licensed MA PI. If that's the case, I'm sure they'll tell the court exactly that.
Unlike the copyright infringement cases at hand, where an individual and not an IP address must be identified to sue (a family or set of roommates is not a legal entity), Mediasentry, as a company, _can_ be associated with a range of IP addresses.
To paraphrase Ricky Ricardo: "Mediasentry, you got some 'splainin' to do."
they both pay (consumer and content owner). They even pay according to the bandwidth they're provided, in most cases. Exactly who does the writer think is getting free service?
Slashdot Mirror
Marx was from London.
If you don't understand what it's good for, well, you're just a prole.
Hello? Hello?
Is that you, Airstrip One?
How can pointing to a picture which claims to observe the unobservable not be funny?
And here's your CMB, predicted long before Big Bang cosmology, and more accurately, too.
For sake of example and clear terminology, picture a disc galaxy as being a disc in the earth, the edge aligned with the equator, and observers are equally spaced throughout the sky. It is then "face-on" for observers near the celestial poles (+90 and -90 declination), and "edge-on" for observers near the galactic equator (0 declination). This is exactly analogous to a single observer watching multiple randomly oriented discs.
If we simply chose which an observer is closer to (pole or equator), we will divide observers into two sets, those within 45 degrees of the equator ("edge on"), and those within 45 degrees of the poles ("face on").
It should be very clear, just by looking at a globe, that the angular area of the former is much greater than that of the latter. In fact, without doing any spherical geometry, I can tell that it is more than twice as large.
Let's call the area within 45 degrees of one pole 1 unit, which gives us 2 units of "face on" observers. For "edge on" observers, we have 1 unit at 0 degrees longitude, and other, non-overlapping areas centered at 90, 180, and 270. That gives us twice as many "edge on" observers as "face on" observers, and there are still unaccounted areas within 45 degrees of the equator.The OP is correct, depending upon how "face/edge-edness" is defined. If one takes a simple but incorrect approach, as you have ("everything within 15 degrees of 0 (face on) and 90 (edge-on)", the conclusions can be subject to significant error. I believe that was his point.
Your circular logic fails to prove that dark matter exists.
since the article was concluded more light dimming for "edge on" galaxies, then there should be a futher test: current distance measuring objects and metrics (Cepheid Variables, etc.) should show that "edge" galaxies are further away than "face" galaxies, on average. (this wouldn't affect galaxies measured by red shift, which would equally off).
Surely, there's a database somewhere with distances and galaxy types which could be easily looked at to see if that's true.
It would also be interesting to know how much this affects the Hubbel constant.
Finally, the conclusions seem to only recognize the effect within other galaxies, but there would be no reason to think similar dimming doesn't occur from interstellar dust within the Milky Way. If so, then extragalactic objects should be dimmer (and more distant based on flawed calculations) on average when they lie in certain directions. (e.g. most dimming when looking through the galactic center near Sagittarius).
Science is about explaining observations (evidence) with testable theory, not claiming a theory to be evidence.
The emperor has no clothes.
You ignored the HUGE ASSUMPTION, unsupported by any facts (except gravitational effects), that any exotic black matter exists, in any quantity. THE ONLY REASON it is theorized is because nothing else had been identified which could cause those gravitational effects. Now there is evidence of previously unknown mass.
You obviously don't know how to apply Occam if you prefer an unproven hypothetical to something which is observably evident.
Aren't all astronomical distance measurements, which are fundamentally based on brightness (except for parallax), now subject to revision?
The "20% more mass in stars" may just be the tip of the iceburg. The article doesn't mention the amount of mass in the dust itself.
Since there is no evidence for exotic black matter (other than observed gravitational effects), doesn't Occam force us to assume that the gravitational effects which we do observe are likely due to what we know about?
Why would it be incorrect to say this newly discovered dust has mass x (equal to the necessary dark matter mass), which scientists can determine from it's gravitational effects?
according to the Wikipedia article you cited, is calculated from observations of the cosmic microwave background radiation.
But, this newly found dust, which blocks light, must do something with that energy - either gain mass or re-radiate it, right? Could not that re-radiation be a part of the CMB, which would in turn have an affect on the calculated amount of baryonic dark matter. If it's not part of the CMB, where is this lost energy accounted for?
According to the Wikipedia article, dark matter "does not emit or reflect enough electromagnetic radiation to be observed directly." Why does that exclude this dust, which at the time that statement was made was unobserved, and therefore fit into the definition?
Furthermore, the definition says nothing about "non interacting," and it seems to me that the real definition is more like "matter we know must exist because of its gravitational effects, but for which we can't account." (i.e. either we can't see it, or we're not looking correctly because we dont' know what we're looking for) Just as with the dust at hand, how do we know it is "non interacting," or that it "doesn't emit or reflect" radiation, if we don't know what it is?
If this newly found dust blocks light, what does it do with the visible light it absorbs? Seems to me, it must re-radiate it (at a lower frequency, like a black object in the sun?) So, if it re-radiates the energy it absorbs, then why hasn't that been noticed before? Is all this re-radiated energy just part of the cosmic microwave background radiation?
is there any reason this can't be the unaccounted "dark matter" astronomers are always talking about?
I like the way spamassassin works - it can provide a rating for each message, which provides a mechanism for users to set the bar to their own preference, instead of having a single setting for the entire organization.
I'm not talking about using individual configurations for spamassassin, it's not realistic to expect most users to be able to deal with all the gory detail of spam filters.
Rather, spamassassin can set a header to indicate its confidence that a message is spam:It adds an asterisk for each "point" of spam score. Users should be able to create an email filter which picks off suspected spam and puts it into a separate folder based on a header like that. Maybe drop all 10+ messages centrally, and let users tweak a local filter to their liking, depending on whether they prefer false positives or negatives.
I use spamassassin as an example only because that's what I use. There are no doubt others which can provide something similar which users could filter on.
HAW! HAW! You misspelled "lookout."
"open source has saved businesses over $60 billion in expense compared to traditional software, and created a new multi-billion dollar support industry."
That wasn't hard, was it?
If, instead of saying "open source has taken out $60 billion of traditional software revenues," the article said "open source has saved businesses over $60 billion in expense compared to traditional software," don't you think people might view it differently?
it was an anarcho-syndicalist commune, where they take it in turns to act as a sort of executive officer for the week, but all the decisions of that officer have to be ratified at a special biweekly meeting.
what do you get when you bind a lot of fibers together - Community Linked Optical To the Home.
An IP address may not conclusively identify the ultimate location from which communications are originating, but it does identify a logical location though which the communication has passed. To identify a physical locaton might require subpoena over the ISP and/or telco providing the link.
In any case, showing two way communicatons to a particular IP is sufficient to show an association of some sort. In the case at hand, Mediasentry, owner of the IP block, can't deny they have something to do with the packets. As someone has pointed out, they _could_ be providing VPN access to a licensed MA PI. If that's the case, I'm sure they'll tell the court exactly that.
Unlike the copyright infringement cases at hand, where an individual and not an IP address must be identified to sue (a family or set of roommates is not a legal entity), Mediasentry, as a company, _can_ be associated with a range of IP addresses.
To paraphrase Ricky Ricardo: "Mediasentry, you got some 'splainin' to do."
they both pay (consumer and content owner). They even pay according to the bandwidth they're provided, in most cases. Exactly who does the writer think is getting free service?
Damn clueless noobs. Just because they hired Vint Cerf, doesn't mean they know what they're doing. Oh, and they'll send bounces repeatedly, too.
Do no evil, my ass.
I propose calling them "jumbo shrimp black holes."
in the path of other well respected and used ISO IT standards, like OSI and CMIP.
"I'm not sure I can name a legitimate religion"
Reality is a religion. We might be in the Matrix.