A Step Toward the Diamond Age 666
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."
From the source (Score:5, Informative)
HA! (Score:5, Funny)
This [harvard.edu] is a diamond.
Re:From the source (Score:5, Informative)
One effect is that a "pure" diamond glows in certain wavelengths of light (blacklights, I think). This is used by jewelers to quickly demonstrate to a customer the difference between a "good" natural diamond, which won't glow, and a "bad" manufactured diamond, which is "too perfect".
Remember, it isn't romantic unless it was formed underground millions of years ago and dug out by low wage third world workers.
Blood diamonds (Score:3, Insightful)
a "good" natural diamond, which won't glow, and a "bad" manufactured diamond, which is "too perfect".
Natural diamonds can be blood diamonds [wikipedia.org]. Cultured diamonds aren't. How does this make natural diamonds "better" than cultured diamonds?
Re:Blood diamonds (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Blood diamonds (Score:5, Funny)
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?
Re:Blood diamonds (Score:5, Funny)
</sarcasm>
Sarcasm? Clearly, you've never met a woman.
Re:From the source (Score:5, Informative)
Re:From the source (Score:4, Insightful)
No, it isn't romantic unless you spend the DeBeers required two months salary on the thing.
Re:From the source (Score:4, Insightful)
Excellent (Score:5, Funny)
Viva la fight against capitalism!
Re:Excellent (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Excellent (Score:5, Interesting)
Knocking off the price of diamonds is a great thing. I couldn't care less for jewelry, and without the artificially inflated price, we'll be able to use one of the best materials when it comes to hardness, certain conducting properties and so on. Similarily, you can coat connectors with a thin layer of gold to improve them, but it's an expensive thing to do because people tend to hog all gold reserves for monetary purposes.
Re:Excellent (Score:5, Insightful)
Because... They cost less?
It's certainly not because they look any different unless you're an expert in gemstones with good-enough gear to do some very specific testing. Certainly no consumer is going to be able to notice the difference.
But it's all just a big ego trip anyway - "my wallet is bigger than your wallet because I can drop (insert number here) dollars on a hunk of carbon)."
N.
Re:Excellent (Score:5, Informative)
That said, one of the reasons diamonds have a higher value now than they used to is partially due to new cutting techniques. I'm pretty sure most
I'm sorta interested to see what levels of impurities these artificials have. In the natural world, the larger the diamond is, the more likely there's a significant impurity in it. Impurities drive down the price of diamonds significantly. Also, being not-so-yellow isn't good enough, there are multiple levels of clearness when grading diamonds, so I'm also interested to see exactly HOW clear these diamonds are. Now, if they can create a 300 carat diamond with color D and clarity SI2 to IF, whoa, run for your money DeBeers!
Re:Excellent (Score:5, Informative)
for those of you not up on your diamond clarity scale it goes:
** Best at Top **
IF (Internally flawless)
VVSI1-VSI2 (Very Very Small Inclusions)
VSI1-VSI2 (Very Small Inclusions)
SI1-SI2 (Small Inclusions)
I1-I3 (inclusions)
so as can be seen a grade fo SI2 is pretty bad, I would say DeBeers need a good colour plus a good clarity, nothing less than VS1 IMHO. And just for completeness the colour scale goes from D (the best - clear or blue) to Z (yellow), so again they would not want anything less than G or H I would think, seeing as how hard it is to get a pure D diamond.
plus I don't think man made diamonds are ever going to eclipse natural ones for jewelry, there is just no cache (can't be bothered to find the accented e at the end of that word) attached to them.
Re:Excellent (Score:5, Insightful)
It's "cachet", no accent.
If you think manmade diamonds won't be as popular as natural ones, look at cultured pearls. There's very little cachet to naturally occurring pearls.
Re:Excellent (Score:4, Funny)
NS - Not Slow
VVSS1-VVSS2 Very Very Slightly Slow
VSS1-VSS2 Very Slightly Slow
SS1-SS2 Slightly Slow
S1-S3 Slow
Re:Excellent (Score:5, Insightful)
Which they have because they are created in an impure environment. Even with current technology one of the ways to identify a man made diamond is that it's "too pure" and "too perfect."
Thus DeBeers again have managed to have it both ways. Purity drives up the cost of a natural diamond, but makes a man made diamond worth less.
You're trying to apply logic to the matter.
Silly boy.
KFG
Re:Excellent (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Excellent (Score:5, Interesting)
These aren't worth much because they are small, for the most part impure, and because diamonds are only valuable on the first sale by the jewelery stores.
Re:Excellent (Score:5, Insightful)
DeBeers are the biggest bunch of capitalist fucks outside
Off topic, but why is anyone who acts greedy always denounced on Slashdot as a "Capitalist"? Capitalism is generally characterized by a free market - the DeBeers corporation is a Cartel that controls the supply of diamonds to maintain an artificially high price. This is about as far from a free market as you can get.
Same for Enron really - They're not capitalists, they're con men.
Re:Excellent (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Excellent (Score:5, Funny)
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
Re:Excellent (Score:5, Interesting)
Or, perhaps diamonds will be household items and practically everywhere? The Queen of England's jewelry collection contains aluminium pieces that were fantastically valuable when they were originally given to Queen Victoria. Today, mass-produced aluminium jewelry is so cheap it is normally described as 'imitation'.
Re:Excellent (Score:5, Funny)
Search google for "perfect cleavage"...
Err rather search google for "perfect cleavage +diamond".
Re:Excellent (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Excellent (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Excellent (Score:4, Interesting)
I can't find the source but, when the Soviet Union fell they were sitting on a large stock of high grade diamonds, the cartel paid them not to release the diamonds on the market to keep the prices up.
Also they have a history of when ever it looks like a new diamond source is being developed they increase the supply and depress the prices just enough to make it uneconomical. And then raise prices again when the attempt fails.
Diamonds are for suckers.
Wondering ... (Score:3, Interesting)
They'll get their grants revoked (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:They'll get their grants revoked (Score:5, Insightful)
I can just about guarantee you that if they were to get their funding revoked because of DeBeers, then those scientists could just as easily go to some of the major chip manufacturers and find levels of funding that they wouldn't even be able to dream of while working in academia.
Re:They'll get their grants revoked (Score:5, Informative)
Re:They'll get their grants revoked (Score:5, Interesting)
Diamond is the best heat conductor known to man, if long thin cylindrical diamonds were available, they would be in huge demand to pipe heat out of CPUs.
Diamonds are ridiculously strong when used in composites, if you thought plain old glass-fibre and carbon fire were strong, simply replace the glass or carbon with diamond, and you have a strength to weight ratio that is unheard of.
Diamonds can be amazingly transparent and durable too of course.
If diamonds become cheap enough, our laptops will have diamond as the substrate for the chips, as heat-pipes, as reinforcement in the cases, and as the top layer of the screen.
As the song (nearly) says... Diamonds are a geek's best friend!
Re:They'll get their grants revoked (Score:5, Interesting)
They buy laws and lobby like crazy, but I have yet to hear about Intel sponsoring an assassination, battery or abduction -- and there is way too much rumours about DeBeers using these techniques to dismiss them as unbased.
Plus, it's Intel and co who are the good guys here. In one corner, you have faster electronics, better tools, stronger starship armour
Not far from the truth... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:They'll get their grants revoked (Score:5, Informative)
I know a journalist who did a lot of research into DeBeers and wrote a number of articles and a book about them was attacked and systematically beaten up, which necessitated a stay in hospital for several months.
Other companies doing research into artificial diamonds have claimed that they believe that their senior employees could be targets for assasination.
Think about how much the diamond industry is worth, and the lengths that some people might be prepared to go to in order to protect it.
Re:They'll get their grants revoked (Score:3, Insightful)
And every person who buys (or proudly displays) a natural diamond (either first hand or bargain bin) helps to maintain this social order, in much the same way that the use of illicit drugs consolidates a certain kind of social order in the countries who provide those drugs.
I'd be the last person to claim that a person who buys a diamond is responsible for the crimes of those involved in the diamond production chain. Nevertheless, my personal ethics are that I'll have nothing to do with natural diamond gem
Re:They'll get their grants revoked (Score:5, Informative)
I think this [plus.com] is who he's talking about. Specifically, this excerpt [plus.com] talks a little about the assault on her. It's just a sample from the book. I haven't read the book yet. Of course I could be wrong and he's talking about someone else altogether. In the end though, I find it hard to believe that a cartel that engages in the kinds of labor practices that the diamond cartel does would have any qualms about assault, battery or even assassination. We see it all the time in the drug industry and other organized crime. The diamond cartel isn't really any better.
Re:They'll get their grants revoked (Score:3, Funny)
Yellow? (Score:5, Interesting)
e.g. http://www.yellowdiamonds.co.uk/ [yellowdiamonds.co.uk]
Re:Yellow? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Yellow? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:There's yellow, and then there's Yellow. (Score:5, Informative)
The yellow diamonds that are being referred to in this context are not the fancy and sought-after "canary" variety; they're diamonds with certain impurities in the carbon that give them a yellowish or brownish tint, instead of the clear "white" that is deemed so valuable.
Here's a page [diamondhelpers.com] with a photo about halfway down that will give you an idea. Another page [diamondhelpers.com] from the same site shows the various grades of colorless-ness.
A true fancy diamond of any color doesn't fall under these grading systems, obviously. The difference in intensity between the muted yellow-brown of a 'Z' color and a true canary-yellow is like the difference between a glowstick and a krypton-bulb flashlight. See here [jewelryexpert.com] for some examples of blue, canary, pink, and peach diamonds. (No greens, though; and they're my favorite.)
And for the record: Yes, I Am A Jeweler.
Re:Yellow? (Score:3, Informative)
It depends. Yellow tinted diamonds tend to be worth less than the whiter diamonds, but if the coloration is fairly strong then it is considetred a "fancy" diamond and can be worth more money, especially if it is of significant size. Diamonds also can be found in pink, green, blue, yellow, orange-ish, and even a "champagne" sort of variety.
Depending on the price (Score:5, Funny)
finally (Score:5, Funny)
- python_kiss
Why are diamonds precious ?.. (Score:3, Interesting)
If this will end up producing indistinguishable diamonds , then the market will collapse. IIRC, the artificial rubies made always contain a peice of metal embedded to make sure they are not sold as the real one - it's a question of business ethics for the people who make them (also good old plain advertisement).
To quote Scott Adams: if rabbits were rare and endagered, we'd be buying rabbit shit necklaces for our girlfriends.
Re:Why are diamonds precious ?.. (Score:5, Informative)
It's artificial rarity, so it may be poetic justice that "artificial" (not a completely accurate term, since they are indeed "real" diamonds) diamonds are what ultimately bring down the price on the stones.
It's paradoxically a non-paradox (Score:5, Insightful)
To Quote
Re:Why are diamonds precious ?.. (Score:5, Informative)
Generally speaking, lab-grown crystals of any material used as a gemstone -- most notably the corundum group (sapphires and rubies) -- will have fewer imperfections than mined stones. Both the growth process and the "ingredients" are controlled. There are some trade-offs, though: most lab rubies tend to look pinkish and glassy in comparison to mined rubies, because the growth process is so fast. Lab-grown emeralds usually have too much of a blue tint, and that gives them away. When the only use is in jewelry, appearance is the overriding consideration.
However, that's not the case here. Most lab-created corundum, for instance, isn't used in the jewelry trade. Since it was first "grown" in the late 1800s, various industrial and commercial applications have accounted for most of the production. One example is the "glass" plate over the laser in the grocery barcode scanner: actually made from colorless "sapphire" because it is both harder and tougher than glass. The same goes for lab-created diamonds, which can be used in all kinds of ways. A quick Google search [google.com] on technological applications turns up a whole mess of hits, and you can see for yourself [apollodiamond.com] what one of the manufacturers has to say about potential uses.
unfortunately (Score:5, Insightful)
So, be aware that the high price you pay for a "natural" diamond is a direct result of the rather unnatural destruction of the environment, together with monopolistic prices charged by the diamond cartels. There are better ways to say "I love you" to someone.
Re:unfortunately (Score:5, Insightful)
I, for one, would very much prefer a man-made diamond.
A pretty rock which somebody found in a hole is nice, but a man-made diamond is a testament to the wonders of modern engineering.
I would love it if some company were to start selling high-dollar jewelry made exclusively with man-made gems. Call them "artisan crafted" stones or something.
If DeBeers can run a few ads around Valentine's Day to create the illusion that mined stones are worth more than they really are, it seems to me somebody could do the same thing to elevate the perceived value of the man-made ones.
Play the angles just right, and you will have women refusing to consider accepting flawed, irregular, "natrual" stones (which were probably dug up using child labor) as a gift, insisting on the "real" lab-made diamonds, which are perfect.
Re:unfortunately (Score:3, Insightful)
Sorry, but it's not the diamond itself, it's the act of spending shitloads of money on them is what matters.
So, make them price higher than DeBeers crap and you've got yourself a winner.
Re:unfortunately (Score:4, Insightful)
Back in the day, the only way to get pearls was to find them in the wild. So you'd get people diving around the place, digging up oysters to get at the pearls. Then someone had the bright idea of farming pearls. Great idea! We can make as many pearls as we like, we can guarantee their quality, etc.
Now, the status quo didn't like this, tried to get it banned, etc. etc. But the point of this post (yeah, we're getting there!) is that the pearl farmers managed to find a name for their "artificial" goods that sounded appealing: cultured pearls. People liked the name and they liked the idea, and the rest is history.
Cultured diamonds, anyone?
Re:unfortunately (Score:3, Informative)
They call them "Cultured Diamonds". Available in pink, yellow and blue. There was a story [wired.com] about these guys not that long ago.
But if you want a truly "perfect" gemstone, CVD is the way to go. The article linked above talks about a company called "Apollo Diamond":
Re:unfortunately (Score:3, Interesting)
You're not alone in that, but jewelers are still resisting like mad. My fiance went around trying to get a Gemesis stone locally a while ago -- jewelers actually SCREAMED at him. We eventually decided to go with a sapphire anyway. (But I see those Gemesis blues coming out... so tempting!)
Lea
Wake me up when they can make proper bricks. (Score:5, Funny)
The many possibilities (Score:5, Interesting)
On the show, they also talked to a rep from De Beers and a diamond merchant. They basically said that the grown diamonds were almost too good. Despite being a bibt worried about it, they seemed like they would adapt to the new environment. De Beers marketing strategy against something like that would be to promote the classical beauty of natural diamonds, or something like that - basically, advertise the 'snob' value of classically mined diamonds, even if they are less perfect.
On a separate note, I am looking forward to advances in Teflon.
I remember Dr Karl Kruszelnicki (Australians would know who he is) talking at my High School during our final year. Someone posed the old favourite question, "if nothing sticks to teflon, how come it sticks to the frying pan?". Apart from his answer, he did one of his trade-mark tangential replies and said that teflon is soft and therefore scracthes easily, but if you could combine teflon with diamonds, then you'd have a surface that nothing sticks to and that wouldn't scrartch. Of course, diamonds are too expensive for that.
So, with the rise of grown diamonds, I look forward to many advances in easy to use cooking gear.
Thank you for your time.
Re:The many possibilities (Score:5, Informative)
Read the Article Here [wired.com]
In response to your comments:
(1) The artificial diamonds from some techniques were too perfect compared to regular diamonds and could be identified.
(2) DeBeers did launch a campaign called the "Gem Defensive Programme." From the Wired article:
But the sudden appearance of multicarat, gem-quality synthetics has sent De Beers scrambling. Several years ago, it set up what it calls the Gem Defensive Programme - a none too subtle campaign to warn jewelers and the public about the arrival of manufactured diamonds. At no charge, the company is supplying gem labs with sophisticated machines designed to help distinguish man-made from mined stones.
(3) Diamonds grown with another technique called Chemical Vapor Disposition are indistinguishable from naturally formed diamonds. From the wired article:
To grow single-crystal diamond using chemical vapor deposition, you must first divine the exact combination of temperature, gas composition, and pressure - a "sweet spot" that results in the formation of a single crystal. Otherwise, innumerable small diamond crystals will rain down. Hitting on the single-crystal sweet spot is like locating a single grain of sand on the beach. There's only one combination among millions. In 1996, Linares found it. This June, he finally received a US patent for the process, which already is producing flawless stones.
This was a very interesting article and has made me afraid of buying diamonds. It's like buying a car and having it depreciate faster than the stock market crash.
Re:The many possibilities (Score:5, Interesting)
This was a very interesting article and has made me afraid of buying diamonds. It's like buying a car and having it depreciate faster than the stock market crash.
Very few diamonds have any resale value. Only high profile (the Hope diamond, royal jewels, etc) or "fancy" (pink, bright yellow, black, etc) stones have any investment value. For most of those kinds of stones, you'd wind up paying more for the history of the stone than the stone itself.
Everyday people will rarely is ever see any positive return on their diamond purchase. The second-hand diamond market is nearly nonexistant. If you don't believe me, go to your local pawn shop and see how much they'll give you for a diamond ring.
If you're buying a diamond ring, you should go into it knowing that it will have very little monetary value once you've purchased it. You should purchase it for the pleasure that the recipient will have from getting it. Despite their negative reputation and horrid investment value, they're still pretty and have emotional value.
Re:The many possibilities (Score:3, Interesting)
If you're looking for advances in cooking gear, your time would be best served reading history books. Most everything used in the kitchen as we know it today was created a hundred years or more ago (fancy ergonomic handles excluded).
Teflon [tuberose.com] or most any "coated surfaced" gear is especially nasty, unhealthy and offers a false economy of convenience. It doesn't stand up to high heat, it's limited in the kinds
Re:The many possibilities (Score:3, Informative)
Re:The many possibilities (Score:3, Informative)
FWIW, getting a _real_ commercial range for your house is hard. Typically, you need to bolster the floors to handle the weight, install a tile backing to protect the wall behind and a high CFM hood t
Diamond market will not collapse (Score:4, Insightful)
Cultured Pearls (Score:4, Interesting)
So potentially, the diamond market also could be changed.
Dying Business Model (Score:3, Insightful)
Let me get this straight.. DeBeers will survive because they will adjust their business model? If they follow our favorite poster children for business model obviated by technology, they'll claim buying created diamonds is stealing, sue anyone wearing created diamonds, and legislate a ban on creating diamonds, despite a multitude of non-infringing uses, as any created diamond can be used for jewelry. Then, they'll introduce
Re:Diamond market will not collapse (Score:4, Insightful)
1) DeBeers can launch a new marketing ploy and sell their diamonds as naturally forming diamonds compared with man-made diamonds.
This will only work if they can do two things (and they need to do BOTH of them). Convince people that a man-made diamond is somehow inferrior (possible, but I have my doubts). And more importantly, tell the difference between man-made and mined diamonds. So far DeBeers has been able to do this with expensive equipment. Don't hold your breath that this can continue though. If the diamond makers can make diamonds that are indistinguishable from mined diamonds in large quantities for cheaper than mined diamonds, the game is over.
Debeers will survive, as they will adjust their business model to accomodate this.
They'll probbably survive, they'll just be a MUCH smaller company that makes far less money.
A good time to postulate? (Score:5, Interesting)
--A La Moore's Law
Re:A good time to postulate? (Score:5, Funny)
Blood Diamonds and de Beers (Score:5, Interesting)
Unlke MS, the diamond trade costs lives. Sierra Leone, Libera and other West African countries are in ruins because of conflict diamonds. A good book is Blood Diamonds [amazon.com] which tells the story of how gems destroyed Sierra Leone.
So, roll on artifical gems I say.
Re:Blood Diamonds and de Beers (Score:4, Informative)
Another Epstein piece - Atlantic Monthly 1982 (Score:4, Informative)
It's in 3 parts - here's a link - http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/82feb/8202diamo
NOTE ----- You'll either need to subscribe or chamge your useragent to Google (or whatever).
Re:Blood Diamonds and de Beers (Score:3, Funny)
Exactly! I may have [shame]bought microsoft products[/shame] in the past, but I will die a virgin before I buy a (natural) diamond.
Statistics? (Score:3, Insightful)
TWW
Re:Statistics? (Score:3, Interesting)
As to the original post, I must say, I had heard about this before too, I checked out one of the russian sites and a 5 Carat diamond was going for about $2000.
With that said, I am waiting until I can get my GF a diamond that introduces its self as Irving before she opens her mouth to show it off.
Re:Statistics? (Score:3, Interesting)
Good time to get rid of the old industry (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Good time to get rid of the old industry (Score:3, Interesting)
Sure NOW that I am getting married! (Score:5, Funny)
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.
What does 100 uM/h mean? (Score:5, Interesting)
This characterization will, no doubt, be oft-repeated. But what does it mean? I have no clue.
"Carat" is a measure of weight. Weight is proportional to volume. Volume has 3 dimensions. One of the dimensions is, presumably, 1/2 inch. One of the dimensions is growing at 100 micrometers per hour. What's the 3rd dimension?
Or are all three dimensions growing at 100 uM/h? That would make the diamond a sphere. Not a bad approximation for the shape of a crystal, I suppose. But a 1/2-inch sphere would weigh a bunch more than 10 carats. (A carat is 0.20 mg and the specific gravity of diamond is about 3).
The statement is gibberish to me.
Re:What does 100 uM/h mean? (Score:5, Informative)
Oh, and a carat is 0.2 grams. It's okay, you were only out by three orders of magnitude... I work out a half-inch sphere at about 15 carats if your density figure is right. (Checks.) Or about 18 carats based on a figure of 3.5, which is what Google coughed up.
Great (Score:3, Funny)
arthur c clarke had a vision (Score:4, Interesting)
i thought that was a fascinating thought - if diamonds were as cheap as cement, imagine how many ways you could use the hardest known substance in the world...
Listen people... (Score:5, Funny)
Social implications (Score:4, Interesting)
Sythecthic Diamond (Score:3, Interesting)
The "Kimberly Process" will hold this back (Score:4, Informative)
Read their Industry scheme for regulation [kimberleyprocess.com]. Note the phrase "Not to buy any diamonds from suspect or unknown sources of supply". That's all about market control.
Before the "Kimberly Process", diamonds were generally bought and sold, even in DeBeers showings, with no indication of origin. So introducing synthetic diamonds into the market was easier. With the "Kimberly Process" in place, it's much tougher.
The diamond industry has been lobbying countries to require that synthetic diamonds be labelled in some way. The term "cultured diamonds" is widely used, but there's litigation in Germany to require some more negative term, like "synthetic".
DeBeers has also developed identification devices, the DiamondSure [debeersgroup.com] and the DiamondView [debeersgroup.com] to try to sort out synthetic and natural diamonds. The diamonds produced in high-pressure presses [gemesis.com] can be identified without much trouble. But grown diamonds [apollodiamond.com] are tougher to identify.
Long term, diamond prices will probably crash, like sapphire did once you could buy sapphire bar, tube, and rod. [maintechsapphires.com]
Re:I guess (Score:5, Funny)
So whenever you go into a jeweler's shop, try to use that fact to bring the price down.
Re:Ugh... (Score:5, Insightful)
Of course, in a few years you wont be able to tell which is which, so long as they work out how to add in a few imperfections to make the grown crystal look as poor as the natural one.
About damn time, another artificially produced drain on the common mans pocket toppled.
Re:Ugh... (Score:5, Insightful)
Diamonds are not beautifull when you find them. It is a like a little rock, rough surface, irregular shape, until the cutting and polishing takes place. These artificially made diamonds (it is a diamond, DeBeers does it not want to have that name), are having the basic shapes and most likely will need less cutting.
When there are enough diamonds available, I guess that we will find new applications for it, more usefull applications than a show off how rich we are.
Re:Ugh... (Score:3, Insightful)
And yet theres all those silicone pumped women that men pay so much money to look at.
And certain women.
Re:Ugh... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Ugh... (Score:5, Insightful)
Nice try. Natural diamonds are hardly beautiful. Only when you carefully cut them exactly the right way, and polish them properly, do they appear so beautiful. And it's really hard to argue that diamonds are more beautiful than any other gemstone - almost all of which can be created in the lab now, by the way.
No, diamonds are just the most expensive gem. For no good reason. And thankfully, perhaps not for much longer.
DeBeer's employee!!!! (Score:4, Interesting)
Man made beer is better than natural beer.
Man made bread is better than natural bread.
Man made acid is better than ergot extract.
Man made shoes are better than tying dead possums to you feet with some mulberry bark.
Re:I can't agree to that (Score:3)
Re:So now... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:I've heard this before... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:The Irony (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Where to purchase diamonds? (Score:3, Interesting)
Never EVER buy in store!
NEVER EVER!
http://dirtcheapdiamonds.com/ [dirtcheapdiamonds.com]
Be sure to check their NBC news video who ran a feature on them. http://dirtcheapdiamonds.com/news4.cfm [dirtcheapdiamonds.com]