Grim's Hall

Diamonds, Made to Order:

Blog Junky has a link to an interesting story out of Wired, which argues that we will soon be able to mass-produce gem quality diamonds.

"This is very rare stone," he says, almost to himself, in thickly accented English. "Yellow diamonds of this color are very hard to find. It is probably worth 10, maybe 15 thousand dollars."

"I have two more exactly like it in my pocket," I tell him.

He puts the diamond down and looks at me seriously for the first time. I place the other two stones on the table. They are all the same color and size. To find three nearly identical yellow diamonds is like flipping a coin 10,000 times and never seeing tails.

"These are cubic zirconium?" Weingarten says without much hope.

"No, they're real," I tell him. "But they were made by a machine in Florida for less than a hundred dollars."

Weingarten shifts uncomfortably in his chair and stares at the glittering gems on his dining room table. "Unless they can be detected," he says, "these stones will bankrupt the industry."

Outstanding. Fashion predition for 2019: Women will be wearing long skirts, long because they will be sewn entirely with glittery diamonds. Since diamonds have always been about showing your wealth, our celebrities will wear longer and less revealing garments until "showing ankle" is just as scandalous as it was in the 19th century.