Submitted via IRC for chromas
Dead People And Pets Are Being Forged Into Pretty Blue Diamonds - Here's How It Works
When a person dies, cremation is an increasingly popular option. The practice eclipsed burials in the US in 2015 and is expected to make up more than half of all body disposals by 2020, according to the Cremation Association of North America.
[...] While at least five companies offer a "memorial diamond" service, Algordanza in Switzerland is one of the industry leaders — its services are available in 33 countries, and the company told Business Insider it sold nearly 1,000 corporeal gems in 2016.
Algordanza also claims to be the only company of its kind that operates its own diamond-growing lab for cremains — one of two in the world. (The other is in Russia.)
"It allows someone to keep their loved one with them forever," Christina Martoia, a spokesperson for Algordanza US, told Business Insider. "We're bringing joy out of something that is, for a lot of people, a lot of pain."
[...] Making a diamond from a dead person begins with cremation. The process typically leaves behind about 2.2kgs to 4.5kgs of ashes, much of which is carbon. Martoia said Algordanza requires a minimum of 500g of cremains. 'That's kind of the magic number, where our engineers can guarantee there will be enough carbon to make a memorial diamond,' she said.
[...] 'The diamonds can range from clear to very deep blue,' Martoia said. 'The more boron, the deeper the blue.' [...] Natural diamonds form out of carbon that gets stuck in lava tubes about a mile deep in the Earth's crust. To emulate that environment, Algordanza inserts the cell (now packed with graphite) into a platter and slides it into a high-temperature high-pressure (HPHT) growing machine. That machine can heat a growth cell to nearly 1,370 degrees celcius. It also squeezes the cell under 394,625kgs-per-square-inch of pressure.
[...] Depending on how big a customer wants their diamond to be, it can take six to eight weeks in an HPHT machine to coax graphite to crystallize into a gem. 'The larger the diamond, the longer it takes to grow,' Martoia said. When enough time has passed, technicians remove the puck of graphite and crack it open. Inside awaits a rough, uncut, and unpolished diamond.
Some customers take the rough gem, but many opt to have their memorial diamonds cut, faceted, and polished by a jeweller in Switzerland. Algordanza's prices start at $3,000 for a 0.3 carat diamond. Martoia said the average order is about 0.4 to 0.5 carat, though US customers usually request bigger, 0.8-carat diamonds.
(Score: 5, Informative) by c0lo on Sunday March 31 2019, @08:28PM (8 children)
Fuck me, those science journos becomes more idiotic as the time passes.
It's Celsius! The unit was named after a person, you don't write fahrenheit, do you?
And for pressure, if you want imperial, use psi. If you want metric, use Pa(scal) and/or multiples. If you want technical, use atm.
Metric per imperial? To me, it's as informative as saying "under 154.108 μfirkin/sq-furlong of pressure"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 3, Informative) by c0lo on Sunday March 31 2019, @08:58PM
Here [algordanza.com]:
The pressure is about 870000psi or 6GPa=6000MPa. That's 100 times over the compressive strength of good quality concrete (not special mixes) or about 55 times the pressure in the deepest point of the oceans (thus equiv of a water depth of about 550km).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 1) by RandomFactor on Sunday March 31 2019, @09:06PM (4 children)
Shame on you, μfirkin is a unit of volume!
Zambonis would have been more applicable.
В «Правде» нет известий, в «Известиях» нет правды
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Sunday March 31 2019, @09:12PM (3 children)
FFF system [wikipedia.org]:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 1) by RandomFactor on Sunday March 31 2019, @09:27PM
Ahhh, I should have dug deeper.
makes sense that it would be ~40.8 kg though. They just tallied up the mass, and presumably the .1kg difference is Ale vs. Water?
В «Правде» нет известий, в «Известиях» нет правды
(Score: 2) by AthanasiusKircher on Monday April 01 2019, @01:08AM (1 child)
Meh, no excuse. The fff system fails at humor because it doesn't make sense. Firkins were NEVER used as units of mass. Historically a firkin was always a unit of volume. As they became standardized, some substances that were difficult to measure by volume became standardized as units of weight (e.g. a firkin of butter). Other equivalent amounts in terms of weight were often established for standardization, but the general connotation of a firkin has always been (and still is) a measure of volume. Regardless, the firkin was NEVER used to measure mass.
Whoever designed the FFF system probably just was an ignorant person who looked for units starting with F in some conversion tables and didn't actually know what a firkin was (or had some attachment to the letter F and realized too late that there aren't really any good units of mass or weight for that matter that start with F... Well, I suppose the Russian funt, if that counts) .
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Monday April 01 2019, @02:29AM
My fault, I should gave used the μfir abbreviation.
Makes as much sense as "kg/sq inch" to my mind, either as serious or an attempt to a "tongue in cheek".
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 3, Informative) by FatPhil on Monday April 01 2019, @10:56AM (1 child)
Correct conclusion...
> The unit was named after a person,
... but the wrong logic; newtons are newtons, watts are watts, becquerels are becquerels, and they were people too.
"""
Units: The names of all units start with a lower case letter except, of course, at the beginning of the sentence. There is one exception: in "degree Celsius" (symbol °C) the unit "degree" is lower case but the modifier "Celsius" is capitalized. Thus, body temperature is written as 37 degrees Celsius.
"""
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Monday April 01 2019, @11:10AM
Fahrenheit (non-SI) too, but kelvin is not, got it
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 31 2019, @08:48PM (3 children)
Someone please tell MDC's executor there's something he wanted public:
The CD with my hearing's recording arrived the very next day. I intended to post it on my website but neglected to do so right away. The CD got buried in my storage locker.
I still have that CD. Someday I'm going to publish a transcript in a full-page Columbian ad.
Maybe I can get that recording played on the radio. Rush Limbaugh would be heavily into that sort of thing.
Per http://www.warplife.com/mdc/books/culture-of-dependency/my-take.htmldd [warplife.com]
(Score: 1) by Sulla on Sunday March 31 2019, @09:00PM (2 children)
Or you know you could do it. You can find the persons name in his last post/will and look them up in either Portland OR or Vancouver WA. When I called the Clark County Records Office on Friday the impression I got was that MDC was still in the morgue.
I would be interested if you had more details.
Also the most off-topics of off-topics because MDC requested his ashes be scattered over Idaho and this article is about turning ashes into diamonds.
Ceterum censeo Sinae esse delendam
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 01 2019, @12:39AM
Yes but can't we have his remains crushed into a diamond and used to store a backup of the SN database? [smithsonianmag.com] For bonus points, we'd trouble memelord Melon Tusk to blast the diamond into space. [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 01 2019, @04:42AM
Not everybody can make phone calls.
Some MDC admirers have reasons you might not like but those are still reasons.
In short I would if I could. As I cannot, I am reduced to begging in off-topic comments on a website, hoping against hope that the community that didn't buy him bananas or medicine might make a phone call.
I... guess you're right. How foolish of me.
(Score: 2, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 31 2019, @08:49PM (5 children)
Are US people really twice as fat as the rest of the world?
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Sunday March 31 2019, @08:55PM (3 children)
I'm pretty sure that even for really skinny people they throw away most of the remains. The smaller limit is probably to keep people from requesting that their parakeet be made into a diamond or something.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 1) by Ethanol-fueled on Sunday March 31 2019, @11:11PM (2 children)
Doubtful. If some jackass with too much money is offering you money to make a diamond out of his parakeet, then you do it even if it means sending them to the back of the line in favor of the larger and more expensive diamonds.
It's kinda like the bakers who refused to bake the homosexual cake. Those homos want to give you their money! Just squirt the fucking rainbow frosting on it and take their goddamn money.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Monday April 01 2019, @12:35AM (1 child)
But a parakeet probably doesn't have enough carbon to make a decent sized diamond. So it's a practical, not a matter of "I won't deal with ...".
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 1) by Ethanol-fueled on Monday April 01 2019, @12:43AM
Then take some of the ashes from your Weber charcoal grill and add them to the mix. Not only would they have a diamond, but one that smells good, like beer-can or BBQ chicken.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 31 2019, @09:05PM
Are US people really twice as fat as the rest of the world?
According to Twitter, they believe in deh "Win" theory of "Survival of the fattest!"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 31 2019, @09:15PM (2 children)
If a guy’s first wife died he could diamond ize her remains and use them as the wedding ring for his 2nd wife.
Which wife would dislike that more?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 31 2019, @11:50PM (1 child)
The third I would imagine.
(Score: 1) by Sulla on Monday April 01 2019, @12:32AM
Not sure what her problem is, she got two diamonds.
Ceterum censeo Sinae esse delendam
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 31 2019, @09:51PM (4 children)
Here in America, it's still March 31, not April 1.
Hold your horses.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 31 2019, @10:01PM
Ugh, that explains it. Stack Overflow's been doing April 1 bullshit all day too.
Maybe I'll just call off work tomorrow. Been feeling sad often lately, crying for no reason. April 1 garbage is about the last thing I need right now.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Sunday March 31 2019, @10:12PM (2 children)
Same thing from July 2017:
https://www.businessinsider.com/turn-human-ashes-diamonds-carbon-algordanza-2017-7 [businessinsider.com]
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 01 2019, @12:48AM (1 child)
The looks suspiciously like a soul gem from Elder Scrolls.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Monday April 01 2019, @01:21AM
I'm stealing all of your soul gems and the limeware platter. [youtube.com]
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 5, Funny) by datapharmer on Monday April 01 2019, @12:27AM
Soylent Diamonds are People.
That is all.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 01 2019, @01:47AM
Uhhh, how could this be???!!!
(Score: 2) by darkfeline on Monday April 01 2019, @02:50AM (1 child)
"It allows someone to keep their loved one with them forever."
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Yandere [tvtropes.org]
There's a character archetype in Japanese fiction, where a girl loves a boy so very much, that she will go to violent lengths to be one with him, and often quite literally be one with him.
This kind of obsession is probably not healthy long term. There is a healthy grieving process, and hopefully this doesn't enable more people to not move on. There's also a tinge of morbidity to whole "carrying a part of them" business.
Join the SDF Public Access UNIX System today!
(Score: 2) by takyon on Monday April 01 2019, @03:47AM
Some people are carrying around lockets with ashes in them.
Hopefully, the "dead lovers all cremated and turned into gemstones" concept makes it into an anime.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 01 2019, @04:25AM
"Over here we have the dazzling Jimmy Hoffa assortment..."