A Step Toward the Diamond Age

An anonymous reader writes "Carnegie Institution researchers have learned to produce 10-carat, half-inch thick diamonds at rates of about 100 micrometers per hour, which in the diamond biz is blazingly fast. And these aren't cruddy, yellow diamonds either, but gem-quality stones. The goal: A 300 carat beast in whatever shape they want."

Excellent

[PeteDotNu]

Eventually they'll be so common that they'll be pretty much worthless!

Viva la fight against capitalism!

Depending on the price

[chrono13]

Some of us could finally get lucky [plus613.com].

finally

[Anonymous Coward]

We can finally end world hunger with an ampel supply of artifical carrots for everyone!

- python_kiss

Re:I guess

[Anonymous Coward]

Diamonds actually don't last forever, actually. Thermodynamically, it's in the favor of the graphite form of carbon. So all diamonds will eventually turn into graphite.

So whenever you go into a jeweler's shop, try to use that fact to bring the price down.

Re:Excellent

[Essef]

Exactly! Then I get a double-coating of diamond for my PSP, blue-coloured diamond contacts to go with my brown eyes, pimp-my-mouth with ultra-Bling, and REALLY wear diamonds on the soles of my shoes!

Yes! It's the dawning of the age of the diamondsexual male!

Wake me up when they can make proper bricks.

[mjfgates]

Gonna make me a "glass" house, and then I'm gonna throw me some STONES, oh, yeah.

Re:A good time to postulate?

[flynns]

Yeah, but who's gonna remember "Jigyasubalak's Law"?

Re:Excellent

[sakri]

I for one look forwards my kids watching old MTV videos, and laughing at 50cent's and his homeys wearing worthless rocks around their necks :)

Re:So now...

[liangzai]

No, no, no! It is way better, dude. Now you can get your girlfriend a diamond dildo! Won't get any harder!

Sure NOW that I am getting married!

[TheLoneCabbage]

It figures... 3 months after I choke on the cost of a rock for my fiancee they release a diamond the size of her head... is there anything these days that doesn't go obsolete?

Next you'll be telling me my new computer is obsolete.

There's always something biger, faster, more sparkly.

Re:Excellent

[kfg]

. . .it's an expensive thing to do because people tend to hog all gold reserves for monetary purposes.

When someone recently asked me what the current value of gold was, and I answered:

"Well, pretty much the same as always. It's got a low melting temperature, can often be found in a fairly pure state, it's highly maleable, doesn't oxidize,conducts electricity reasonably well and it's kinda pretty if that's the sort of thing you think is pretty."

They looked at me funny.

KFG

Great

[Jesus IS the Devil]

That's great, because by the time the average /. user starts looking for one, diamonds might be a dime a dozen...

Re:They'll get their grants revoked

[arose]

"All natural-carbon diamond"

Listen people...

[LittleBigLui]

if anyone tells my girlfriend, they'll die a slow and horrible death.

Re:A good time to postulate?

[Anonymous Coward]

Just shorten it to Jiglak's Law or even Jiglakslaw. Goes well with potato salad.

Re:Sure NOW that I am getting married!

[Anonymous Coward]

I choke on the cost of a rock

For a moment I was rather perturbed, then I realized I'd misread this rather severely.

HA!

[Haydn Fenton]

You call that a diamond?

This [harvard.edu] is a diamond.

Re:Not perfect

[Anonymous Coward]

I have seen it on a Discovery Channel documentary.

Whoa, I give up! Discovery Channel documentary! You had to go and pull out the big guns on us. Oh well, there goes my argument.

Re:The Irony

[Velox_SwiftFox]

Hah. What about the plaids?

Re:Blood Diamonds and de Beers

[OglinTatas]

"Slashdotters who regularly vent their anger at Micro$oft's monopoly should read about the diamond industry, monopoly and de Beers."

Exactly! I may have [shame]bought microsoft products[/shame] in the past, but I will die a virgin before I buy a (natural) diamond.

Re:Excellent (really?)

[jounihat]

As a wedding jewel, a "natural" diamond represents the long process two people go through in their relationship. Maybe these new diamonds represent the new kind of relationship between people: "Diamond Age: Get married now! It's cheap, and over before you know it!"

Re:They'll get their grants revoked

[Anonymous Coward]

Mr. Coward, I am quite interested in the services you seem to be offering...

Re:Excellent

[ikkonoishi]

They would just tap on the glass and knock it to pieces. You can break an improperly set diamond with a tap in the right (or wrong) place.

Search google for "perfect cleavage"...

Err rather search google for "perfect cleavage +diamond".

Re:Excellent

[ikkonoishi]

Nah get her a potato they last forever. [bash.org]

Re:Excellent

[harrkev]

Well, I for one, welcome any company with the work "Beer" in the name.

Re:Blood diamonds

[JWhitlock]

Natural diamonds can be blood diamonds. Cultured diamonds aren't. How does this make natural diamonds "better" than cultured diamonds?

For a cultured diamond, men just gave their time. For a blood diamond, men gave their lives. What can be more romantic than men dying for your jewelry?

</sarcasm >

Re:Blood diamonds

[Tumbleweed]

What can be more romantic than men dying for your jewelry?

</sarcasm>

Sarcasm? Clearly, you've never met a woman. :)

Re:Excellent

[Rich0]

Hmm - does this give anybody for a new processor rating system now that we're trying to get out of the MHz race.

NS - Not Slow
VVSS1-VVSS2 Very Very Slightly Slow
VSS1-VSS2 Very Slightly Slow
SS1-SS2 Slightly Slow
S1-S3 Slow

Re:A good time to postulate?

[chl]

Quote: Yeah, but who's gonna remember "Jigyasubalak's Law"?

...and spell it correctly (or at least recognisably)?

chl

Re:Excellent

[ConceptJunkie]

but she's always said she'd wear artificial diamonds just for the geek factor

If she wants geek factor, buy her a big ol' 3-carat dilithium crystal!

Re:From the source

[TerranFury]

Romance IS shallow, almost by definition. It's performance art, nothing more. I cringe every time I think about Valentine's Day.

If two people want to spend time together when doing so doesn't either:

1. Give them the socially-desirable status of being "in a relationship."
2. Give them the expectation of sex

...then they have something a little more meaningful. If they're simply expected to perform socially-mandated rituals for each other (For guys: Being a convenient boyfriend. For girls: Giving oral sex.), then it's nothing but but a two-person service-barter economy.

But I digress. Slashdot isn't the place for this. More appropriately:
In Soviet Russia, moody melancholy posts make you!

Yeah. That's the spirit.