Maybe you'd want to know how it's pronounced. The 'oo' part in 'Voorwerp' is pronounced like the one in 'door'. In fact, if you replace the 'd' with a 'v' it's just right. The 'e' is like the 'e' in 'help'. The 'r' should be a bit more rolling as the English 'r', but here in the Netherlands are plenty people using the (in my ears incredibly annoying when used in Dutch) English 'r', so when you take the first two hints it'll be good enough. (En laat die Gooise kakkers eens een fatsoenlijke 'r' leren, in plaats van die irritante 'ewr':-) ) -- (off topic Duch snear to users of the English 'r' in Dutch)
There are tags that can be tracked with satellites, and afaik these are used for tracking animals. Or do you expect all wasteland to be littered with rfid-readers? It is also easy to couple tags to GPS. So far for 'short range'.
As said in a reply to another answer, 'climate does not change' was ill-formulated and should have been 'climate does not change 4 times a year'. So, indeed, climate is the total of all weather in the long run. And IPCC is NOT a fraud, the guys paid bij Big Oil to hack mails, pull some selected bits out of thousands of mails totally out of context and publish them are.
I must admit that my remark that 'climate does not change' was ill-formulated. It should have been 'climate does not change four times a year'. I think human caused global warming is true, so IMHO global climate does change. And I also believe sustainability should be an important factor in everything we do, so I think all in all we both agree.
Calling it "Climate Change" does nothing to increase clarity.
The climate changes at least four times per year for much of the world. The climate changes twice a day for much more of the world.
Wrong! The climate does not change, the weather does. Climate is the long term average of the weather in a certain area. Weather is what is happening at defined moment in a certain area. My trust in your ability to judge the issues in Global Warming is not really helped by the fact you can't distinguish between these two.
On the other hand, I agree with your statement that not everything should be measured only in economics and we should put human values in more often.
Sigh...let's just agree to disagree. I can believe that a guy named Jesus walked around at the time thinking he was the son of god and preaching stuff and things. I don't believe in miracles though, not now and surely not 2000 years ago. Even 90 years is a long time to forward stories, and much can be changed/adapted and exaggerated before someone finds it worth putting a story on paper. I do not disrespect your beliefs, but if things were now as they were then I think even Michael Jackson would have been 'observed' doing 'miracles' or would have been 'observed' doing them 90 years from now. I respect most of the general message of the bible, because it is common human sense, but I will not go any further than that.
... The Gospel story is claimed to have been written down by eyewitnesses to the events they wrote of. They claimed that what they heard and saw to be the truth.
Whether you choose to believe these eyewitnesses or not is your business. It is however incumbent upon you, as the opposition, to give some good reasons why you think that they were either liars or deceived.
Well, since scientific research has proven that the NT was written 300 years ac, I don't value 'evidence' that has been passed around and adapted to fit into a view of some 'superhuman doing miracles and stuff' by to our current measures totally uneducated people before solidifying and being written down very high. Maybe you do, but I think they were at best deceived. And I do not think it is very plausible that any 'eye-witness' survived 300 years after the 'facts'.
As to the raising from the dead, I agree there is no proof that it happened other than the Bible. Really how could we prove anything about Alexander or Constantine or anyone else from history other than King Tut? (we have his body)
Uhhh....maybe the fact there are *more* scriptures mentioning them?
I do remember that a card carrying scientist (I remember not who) on npr said to 'resurrect' someone, all you would need is their dna and a really good MRI... (or some kind of 'brain backup') Scientifically theoretically possible.
Oh yeah, they had plenty of that stuff 2000 years ago, that is common knowledge!
Here is something interesting though, Pretty much every "Messiah" back at that time was thoroughly excoriated by the Jews. But they mention nothing at all about Jesus. Even if he was made up, surely they would point out that fact seeing as Jesus had followers that history does talk about. See the burning of Rome 64 CE. Tacitus talks about it here: Great Fire of Rome
Maybe there was some guy called Jesus, thinking he was 'The Son Of God' and some believing that. But the NT was written about 300 years after his death. If I fall and scratch my pinky, after it has been forwarded five times I will have broken my neck and after ten times I will be in loose pieces and to be glued together again. Leave alone if something has to be forwarded for threehundred years. A guy will start with sweaty feet and end up walking on water.
As to the prophecies that are fulfilled, Here's just one, Matthew 7:21-23. There would be 'Christians' they would do 'funny' stuff and would be working lawlessness. I'll let you find those fulfillments. Also, not words of Jesus but in the Bible, is 2 Peter 2:1-3 Sects? Check! Hypocrisy? Check! That is pretty much why many people don't like "Christians"
Pretty easy to predict, knowing human nature.
And I'll throw in one you might be interested in for free. History and the Bible both are clear that the first century Christians (and Christ) didn't involve themselves with politics. See John 18:36 or John 6:15
AFAIK the historical correctness of the bible is, at least, questionable. I agree most of the stories will be allegorical, and I can agree with the general tendency (love thy neighbor, do not kill etc.). But the bible is no proof of someone standing up from death or anything like it. It tells the / a story at most, and saying this book is the best that is left of the 2000 year old literature does not make it proof either. If for some reason at 2000 year from now the only book left would be the story of Hans and Gretel (or whatever they are called in your country), it would not be proof of the existence of houses built of gingerbread.
...However, it is the person who makes the claim that should prove it....
Jesus Christ did prove it by rising from the dead and accurately predicting the future.
Proof please? (And not anything based on a fairytale book from 2000 years ago). Elvis Presley was seen many times after his death too, but that is no proof he did not die.
I am just repeating what the guys at the factory told me, I did not make it up.
The plausibility issue was with the traffic control system where, on one side I can imagine that timings have to be very precise, but on the other hand I can hardly imagine that is should be millisecond precise. But indeed, it is pretty important to know what the timings should be in the first place.
As far as I understood the timings in the factory had been pragmatically tweaked and refined during the years, so I think is would be hard to reproduce them on another system. And maybe the same is true for the traffic control system.
I once visited a factory for cattle feed where all silos were controlled by an ancient PDP computer. This was a few years ago. When I asked why it was not replaced by a more modern machine the answer was that all timings for the diverse outlets of the silos (and thus the mixture of the products) were so precise that it would be nearly impossible to reproduce on another platform, taking into account things like the speed of commands executed in programming languages, processing times of cpu etc. I think it is possible for a complex system like a huge traffic control system might have similar issues, where a fraction of a second can make the difference between a free flow of traffic and congestion. (Although, while typing this it starts to sound less plausible...). Anyway, my €0,02 are in now.
From when I was very young (6 or 7) until a few years ago (I am almost 50 now) my parents used to buy milk straight from the farm. Often the milk was put in the bucket we used to transport it right after the cow was milked (by hand) and only sifted. Later the farmer had to tap it from the milk tank, but it was still raw milk. None of us have ever suffered from any bad effects. All members of our family (5) were and are rarely ill. Last time I had (3) sick days was (I think) about 5 years ago and the time before I can't even remember. The milk was not only cheaper, it also tasted a lot better than the supermarket stuff. When I went to live on my own I had to "learn" to drink the 'milk' sold in the supermarkets. Now I have no problems with it anymore, but I still can't drink things like skimmed milk. The only reason my parents and my siblings don't drink real milk anymore is the fact that 'Europe' forbade farmers to tap from their milk tanks a few years ago because it was deemed 'unhygienic'.
(I do realize this is anecdotal, but afaik this goes for all people we know who bought their milk straight from the farm (and did not cook it before consumption).
It is a weird thing that people are so used to everything being pasteurized or sterilized and being so overprotected to everything that they can not imagine that a lot of it is not really necessary. And they wonder why their resistance to illnesses decreases...
This is not to say that 'every advancement made by man is bad', shelf life of most stuff improves vastly when pasteurized/sterilized and I guess there will be two or three cases of food poisoning less per year. And you can settle for getting 'fresh' milk / whatever stuff once in two or three weeks instead of twice per week. That the taste of most processed stuff is horrible if you know how real food is supposed to taste is something that goes past most people, used as they are to (over-)processed food. Not every advancement is in all aspects an improvement.
They could hold it back as long as they have another cash-cow to milk empty first. But maybe you are right and they would become really big and filthy rich selling the machines. On the other hand, they could also use the machines themselves (no-one else could, they have the rights) to make energy for free and sell it to you and me for the prices we pay now and stay in business forever. It could go in all directions, but in the end, we will pay for our free energy. Upside is, of course, that this way of generating it is a lot more environment-friendly. And that IS nice, no matter who does it.:-)
Well, if BP (or any other firm) would pick this up and make it successfull, I will be the first to celebrate! As I said in a previous answer in this thread, I really hope it succeeds. I'm just afraid the vested interests will (want to) make it fail.
And I said it in my original posting and will say it again: I don't mean to troll or flamebait, it's just me being (hopefully too) pessimistic.
Of course free-energy machines would sell, bigtime even! But *what i am afraid will happen* (that is NOT the same as 'I tell you this will happen!') is that other, bigger businesses which would loss energy sales and thus profit, will buy (things like) this and hold it back to protect their interests. Try to win from $Big_Business as a small startup company! I HOPE I am too pessimistic here, I really, really want things like this to succeed, but if the vested interests want to stop it, they will try with all their might. (Just like, imagine, there would be a free Operating System that might form a threat to a Big Software Company).
Sorry guys, dream on. As soon as Big Oil cs gets its sticky little hands on it, it'll be over for as long as there is still one cent of profit to get out of oil. Free energy will stay a dream as long as there is are powerful firms who can force you to buy it from them and who can buy everything that threatens their profits (including politicians). This is not meant as flamebait or trolling, I'm just afraid this is the sad truth.
No, being dumb and rude is going into a shop with which you've had no prior business dealings and demand a refund on something they didn't sell to you, making a huge scene and then claiming it as some kind of exceptionally retarded protest. In the circumstances, I think they'd be quite justified in explaining to you it's none of their business.
(But it still would be fun to have a bunch of people pulling this off a few times a day, just to piss off MS!)
"A few times a day"? You grossly overestimate the number of idiots in the world who want to evangelise Linux in what is quite possibly the stupidest, most infantile way ever. It wouldn't even piss off Microsoft - it'd piss off the store clerks, Microsoft the corporation wouldn't know or care.
Uhhh...who is talking about 'making a huge scene'? I most certainly am not. You can go in with your windozed laptop (box unopened so no licence-terms to speak of yet), and ask *politely* something like: "Excuse me sir, I have bought this machine and it seems not to be possible to buy it without your OS on it. Would it be possible to get back the money I payed for it if you take back the software I do not plan to use?" Not exactly what I would call making a scene. Maybe *you* would make a scene out of it (if I have to judge from your posts you would), but not me. If the store clercs would start calling me an idiot instead of *politely* telling me that what I want is not possible and why, still keeping a polite discussion possible, they are not fit for their jobs. (If they *think* I'm an idiot I don't care. Thoughts are free.) I know MS the corporation would not care, but if you work in a MS-shop you (at least almost) deserve to be pissed off a little bit from time to time:-).
And then they would ask you "What business is it of ours? We didn't sell it to you, [OEM name] did", followed by people calling you an idiot.
(Check the EULA - the refund has to be got from the OEM, not Microsoft directly.)
Maybe, but: - You have publicly shown there ARE people who don't like MS or take it for granted - Shown the other people in the shop there ARE alternatives (maybe even given them an idea, though I am not too optimistic about that), and - If those shop-monkeys (sp?) used the language you mention they are exposed as dumb, rude shitheads and hopefully prevent some sales to customers not wanting to buy anything in a shop where the employees are rude and dumb:-) .
(But it still would be fun to have a bunch of people pulling this off a few times a day, just to piss off MS!)
Plus, having real people to talk to is a step towards making it easier to use a valid, purchased product than a pirated product, which is step 1 in fighting piracy (the real way).
And maybe you can even get your 'Microsoft Tax' back when you have bought a new laptop with Windoze and are planning to use Linux/BSD or anything but Windoze. Imagine getting in with your unopened box and telling the guys there you want to return the Windows-licence and stuff and you want your money back! (Of course you pick a time when the shop is crowded and have a Ubuntu-cd clearly visible with you). I would love to pull a stunt like that!
I can imagine someone getting a patent for an apparatus or an invented method of testing something, if that method involves the need for an patentable apparatus. But to patent the testing for anything in itself is totally ridiculous. That would be like a patent of measuring temperatures if I happened to be the first one to discover a way to do that and deny everyone else the right to measure the temperature of anything unless they used *my* method. I hope those patents will be blown out of the water and Prometheus will be sued back for damage done to patients.
Slashdot Mirror
Maybe you'd want to know how it's pronounced. The 'oo' part in 'Voorwerp' is pronounced like the one in 'door'. In fact, if you replace the 'd' with a 'v' it's just right. The 'e' is like the 'e' in 'help'. The 'r' should be a bit more rolling as the English 'r', but here in the Netherlands are plenty people using the (in my ears incredibly annoying when used in Dutch) English 'r', so when you take the first two hints it'll be good enough. :-) ) -- (off topic Duch snear to users of the English 'r' in Dutch)
(En laat die Gooise kakkers eens een fatsoenlijke 'r' leren, in plaats van die irritante 'ewr'
Well..Opera goes to 11!
It seems the 'Trainwreck'-movie has been removed by user from YouTube. Gosh, I wonder why!!
There are tags that can be tracked with satellites, and afaik these are used for tracking animals. Or do you expect all wasteland to be littered with rfid-readers?
It is also easy to couple tags to GPS. So far for 'short range'.
'Creation Science' is a total oxymoron. 'nough said!
As said in a reply to another answer, 'climate does not change' was ill-formulated and should have been 'climate does not change 4 times a year'. So, indeed, climate is the total of all weather in the long run.
And IPCC is NOT a fraud, the guys paid bij Big Oil to hack mails, pull some selected bits out of thousands of mails totally out of context and publish them are.
I must admit that my remark that 'climate does not change' was ill-formulated. It should have been 'climate does not change four times a year'. I think human caused global warming is true, so IMHO global climate does change. And I also believe sustainability should be an important factor in everything we do, so I think all in all we both agree.
Calling it "Climate Change" does nothing to increase clarity.
The climate changes at least four times per year for much of the world. The climate changes twice a day for much more of the world.
Wrong! The climate does not change, the weather does. Climate is the long term average of the weather in a certain area. Weather is what is happening at defined moment in a certain area.
My trust in your ability to judge the issues in Global Warming is not really helped by the fact you can't distinguish between these two.
On the other hand, I agree with your statement that not everything should be measured only in economics and we should put human values in more often.
Sigh...let's just agree to disagree. I can believe that a guy named Jesus walked around at the time thinking he was the son of god and preaching stuff and things. I don't believe in miracles though, not now and surely not 2000 years ago. Even 90 years is a long time to forward stories, and much can be changed/adapted and exaggerated before someone finds it worth putting a story on paper.
I do not disrespect your beliefs, but if things were now as they were then I think even Michael Jackson would have been 'observed' doing 'miracles' or would have been 'observed' doing them 90 years from now.
I respect most of the general message of the bible, because it is common human sense, but I will not go any further than that.
...But the bible is no proof....
... The Gospel story is claimed to have been written down by eyewitnesses to the events they wrote of. They claimed that what they heard and saw to be the truth.
Whether you choose to believe these eyewitnesses or not is your business. It is however incumbent upon you, as the opposition, to give some good reasons why you think that they were either liars or deceived.
Well, since scientific research has proven that the NT was written 300 years ac, I don't value 'evidence' that has been passed around and adapted to fit into a view of some 'superhuman doing miracles and stuff' by to our current measures totally uneducated people before solidifying and being written down very high. Maybe you do, but I think they were at best deceived. And I do not think it is very plausible that any 'eye-witness' survived 300 years after the 'facts'.
As to the raising from the dead, I agree there is no proof that it happened other than the Bible. Really how could we prove anything about Alexander or Constantine or anyone else from history other than King Tut? (we have his body)
Uhhh....maybe the fact there are *more* scriptures mentioning them?
I do remember that a card carrying scientist (I remember not who) on npr said to 'resurrect' someone, all you would need is their dna and a really good MRI... (or some kind of 'brain backup') Scientifically theoretically possible.
Oh yeah, they had plenty of that stuff 2000 years ago, that is common knowledge!
Here is something interesting though, Pretty much every "Messiah" back at that time was thoroughly excoriated by the Jews. But they mention nothing at all about Jesus. Even if he was made up, surely they would point out that fact seeing as Jesus had followers that history does talk about. See the burning of Rome 64 CE. Tacitus talks about it here: Great Fire of Rome
Maybe there was some guy called Jesus, thinking he was 'The Son Of God' and some believing that. But the NT was written about 300 years after his death. If I fall and scratch my pinky, after it has been forwarded five times I will have broken my neck and after ten times I will be in loose pieces and to be glued together again. Leave alone if something has to be forwarded for threehundred years. A guy will start with sweaty feet and end up walking on water.
As to the prophecies that are fulfilled, Here's just one, Matthew 7:21-23. There would be 'Christians' they would do 'funny' stuff and would be working lawlessness. I'll let you find those fulfillments. Also, not words of Jesus but in the Bible, is 2 Peter 2:1-3 Sects? Check! Hypocrisy? Check! That is pretty much why many people don't like "Christians"
Pretty easy to predict, knowing human nature.
And I'll throw in one you might be interested in for free. History and the Bible both are clear that the first century Christians (and Christ) didn't involve themselves with politics. See John 18:36 or John 6:15
...So???
AFAIK the historical correctness of the bible is, at least, questionable. I agree most of the stories will be allegorical, and I can agree with the general tendency (love thy neighbor, do not kill etc.).
But the bible is no proof of someone standing up from death or anything like it. It tells the / a story at most, and saying this book is the best that is left of the 2000 year old literature does not make it proof either.
If for some reason at 2000 year from now the only book left would be the story of Hans and Gretel (or whatever they are called in your country), it would not be proof of the existence of houses built of gingerbread.
...However, it is the person who makes the claim that should prove it....
Jesus Christ did prove it by rising from the dead and accurately predicting the future.
Proof please? (And not anything based on a fairytale book from 2000 years ago).
Elvis Presley was seen many times after his death too, but that is no proof he did not die.
I am just repeating what the guys at the factory told me, I did not make it up.
The plausibility issue was with the traffic control system where, on one side I can imagine that timings have to be very precise, but on the other hand I can hardly imagine that is should be millisecond precise.
But indeed, it is pretty important to know what the timings should be in the first place.
As far as I understood the timings in the factory had been pragmatically tweaked and refined during the years, so I think is would be hard to reproduce them on another system. And maybe the same is true for the traffic control system.
I once visited a factory for cattle feed where all silos were controlled by an ancient PDP computer. This was a few years ago. When I asked why it was not replaced by a more modern machine the answer was that all timings for the diverse outlets of the silos (and thus the mixture of the products) were so precise that it would be nearly impossible to reproduce on another platform, taking into account things like the speed of commands executed in programming languages, processing times of cpu etc.
I think it is possible for a complex system like a huge traffic control system might have similar issues, where a fraction of a second can make the difference between a free flow of traffic and congestion. (Although, while typing this it starts to sound less plausible...).
Anyway, my €0,02 are in now.
From when I was very young (6 or 7) until a few years ago (I am almost 50 now) my parents used to buy milk straight from the farm. Often the milk was put in the bucket we used to transport it right after the cow was milked (by hand) and only sifted. Later the farmer had to tap it from the milk tank, but it was still raw milk. None of us have ever suffered from any bad effects. All members of our family (5) were and are rarely ill. Last time I had (3) sick days was (I think) about 5 years ago and the time before I can't even remember. The milk was not only cheaper, it also tasted a lot better than the supermarket stuff. When I went to live on my own I had to "learn" to drink the 'milk' sold in the supermarkets. Now I have no problems with it anymore, but I still can't drink things like skimmed milk. The only reason my parents and my siblings don't drink real milk anymore is the fact that 'Europe' forbade farmers to tap from their milk tanks a few years ago because it was deemed 'unhygienic'.
(I do realize this is anecdotal, but afaik this goes for all people we know who bought their milk straight from the farm (and did not cook it before consumption).
It is a weird thing that people are so used to everything being pasteurized or sterilized and being so overprotected to everything that they can not imagine that a lot of it is not really necessary. And they wonder why their resistance to illnesses decreases...
This is not to say that 'every advancement made by man is bad', shelf life of most stuff improves vastly when pasteurized/sterilized and I guess there will be two or three cases of food poisoning less per year. And you can settle for getting 'fresh' milk / whatever stuff once in two or three weeks instead of twice per week. That the taste of most processed stuff is horrible if you know how real food is supposed to taste is something that goes past most people, used as they are to (over-)processed food. Not every advancement is in all aspects an improvement.
They could hold it back as long as they have another cash-cow to milk empty first. But maybe you are right and they would become really big and filthy rich selling the machines. On the other hand, they could also use the machines themselves (no-one else could, they have the rights) to make energy for free and sell it to you and me for the prices we pay now and stay in business forever. :-)
It could go in all directions, but in the end, we will pay for our free energy. Upside is, of course, that this way of generating it is a lot more environment-friendly. And that IS nice, no matter who does it.
Well, if BP (or any other firm) would pick this up and make it successfull, I will be the first to celebrate!
As I said in a previous answer in this thread, I really hope it succeeds. I'm just afraid the vested interests will (want to) make it fail.
And I said it in my original posting and will say it again: I don't mean to troll or flamebait, it's just me being (hopefully too) pessimistic.
Of course free-energy machines would sell, bigtime even! But *what i am afraid will happen* (that is NOT the same as 'I tell you this will happen!') is that other, bigger businesses which would loss energy sales and thus profit, will buy (things like) this and hold it back to protect their interests. Try to win from $Big_Business as a small startup company!
I HOPE I am too pessimistic here, I really, really want things like this to succeed, but if the vested interests want to stop it, they will try with all their might.
(Just like, imagine, there would be a free Operating System that might form a threat to a Big Software Company).
Sorry guys, dream on. As soon as Big Oil cs gets its sticky little hands on it, it'll be over for as long as there is still one cent of profit to get out of oil. Free energy will stay a dream as long as there is are powerful firms who can force you to buy it from them and who can buy everything that threatens their profits (including politicians).
This is not meant as flamebait or trolling, I'm just afraid this is the sad truth.
No, being dumb and rude is going into a shop with which you've had no prior business dealings and demand a refund on something they didn't sell to you, making a huge scene and then claiming it as some kind of exceptionally retarded protest. In the circumstances, I think they'd be quite justified in explaining to you it's none of their business.
(But it still would be fun to have a bunch of people pulling this off a few times a day, just to piss off MS!)
"A few times a day"? You grossly overestimate the number of idiots in the world who want to evangelise Linux in what is quite possibly the stupidest, most infantile way ever. It wouldn't even piss off Microsoft - it'd piss off the store clerks, Microsoft the corporation wouldn't know or care.
Uhhh...who is talking about 'making a huge scene'? I most certainly am not. You can go in with your windozed laptop (box unopened so no licence-terms to speak of yet), and ask *politely* something like: "Excuse me sir, I have bought this machine and it seems not to be possible to buy it without your OS on it. Would it be possible to get back the money I payed for it if you take back the software I do not plan to use?" :-).
Not exactly what I would call making a scene. Maybe *you* would make a scene out of it (if I have to judge from your posts you would), but not me.
If the store clercs would start calling me an idiot instead of *politely* telling me that what I want is not possible and why, still keeping a polite discussion possible, they are not fit for their jobs. (If they *think* I'm an idiot I don't care. Thoughts are free.)
I know MS the corporation would not care, but if you work in a MS-shop you (at least almost) deserve to be pissed off a little bit from time to time
And then they would ask you "What business is it of ours? We didn't sell it to you, [OEM name] did", followed by people calling you an idiot.
(Check the EULA - the refund has to be got from the OEM, not Microsoft directly.)
Maybe, but: :-) .
- You have publicly shown there ARE people who don't like MS or take it for granted
- Shown the other people in the shop there ARE alternatives (maybe even given them an idea, though I am not too optimistic about that), and
- If those shop-monkeys (sp?) used the language you mention they are exposed as dumb, rude shitheads and hopefully prevent some sales to customers not wanting to buy anything in a shop where the employees are rude and dumb
(But it still would be fun to have a bunch of people pulling this off a few times a day, just to piss off MS!)
And if you are really lucky they will let you leave in your birthday suit!
Plus, having real people to talk to is a step towards making it easier to use a valid, purchased product than a pirated product, which is step 1 in fighting piracy (the real way).
And maybe you can even get your 'Microsoft Tax' back when you have bought a new laptop with Windoze and are planning to use Linux/BSD or anything but Windoze. Imagine getting in with your unopened box and telling the guys there you want to return the Windows-licence and stuff and you want your money back!
(Of course you pick a time when the shop is crowded and have a Ubuntu-cd clearly visible with you). I would love to pull a stunt like that!
I can imagine someone getting a patent for an apparatus or an invented method of testing something, if that method involves the need for an patentable apparatus. But to patent the testing for anything in itself is totally ridiculous. That would be like a patent of measuring temperatures if I happened to be the first one to discover a way to do that and deny everyone else the right to measure the temperature of anything unless they used *my* method.
I hope those patents will be blown out of the water and Prometheus will be sued back for damage done to patients.