The making of Damien Hirst's "For The Love Of God" (previously)
posted by Blazecock Pileon on Mar 27, 2009 - 55 comments

The Untold Story of the World's Biggest Diamond Heist.
posted by chunking express on Mar 12, 2009 - 60 comments

“It is going to be rough for us Top 20 publishers. It will be epic for anyone smaller. Lots of folks will vanish due to this, even some bigger guys.” - Hard times ahead for indie comics: Diamond Distribution, which has an effective monopoly on American comics distribution, will be raising it’s wholesale benchmark, meaning many of the comiocs currently available in comics stores will soon be dropped. In a further blow to the adult comics market Diamond will be dropping that section from the print version of Previews, in favour of a PDF only available to retailers. Comics are about to get a whole lot blander.
posted by Artw on Jan 21, 2009 - 76 comments

"Many women experience a fluid sexual desire that is responsive to a person rather than a specific gender" A description of the topic for Lisa Diamond's new book, Sexual Fluidity. While waiting to get your copy of the book, why not read some of her papers? Here's one about young women who identify as lesbians or bisexuals and then change their minds. Was it a phase? (pdf) Here's one about the development of sexual orientation among adolescent and young adult women. (pdf) Here's one containing a new view of lesbian subtypes. (pdf) There are more.
posted by wittgenstein on Mar 5, 2008 - 102 comments

You talked to her father, prepared a YouTube worthy proposal, gathered all your courage.... and she said no. How will your life go on? And what are you going to do with the ring? Enter I Do... Now I Don't, an auction site that caters to broken-hearted lovers such as you. Started by a fellow who has been there. Buy if you dare. Via
posted by ThePinkSuperhero on Feb 26, 2008 - 19 comments

The Hope Diamond glows red when exposed to ultraviolet light. In itself, this is an interesting way to determine the provenance of a particular gem. [more inside]
posted by Araucaria on Jan 8, 2008 - 55 comments

The biggest diamond in the world is insignificant, compared with the biggest diamond in the galaxy. Discovered in 2004, the Center For Astrophysics suggests that you should use the galactic one "to impress your favorite lady." Here's information about how diamonds are formed, and where they are found.
posted by Kirth Gerson on Jan 1, 2008 - 22 comments

The Big-Nosed Bastard from Barking has been very, very busy. In the past month, Billy Bragg has won the Classic Songwriter Award from Q, then collaborated with Beethoven (some of the B-Man's fans mutter darkly), and taken the hand of a small, matronly admirer before kindly giving it back to her, along with an autographed copy of the score. (He's prepared for the fallout: "I'll probably get struck off Morrissey's Christmas card list." ) [more inside]
posted by maudlin on Oct 29, 2007 - 29 comments

First a goose, then Sigourney and now really old diamonds. A diamond field in Northern Ontario, Canada has turned up a 1.5 Carat diamond from what is believed to be the world's oldest diamond deposit at 2.697 billion years old. The diamonds were found, of all places, just 12 kilometers from the small town of Wawa, Ontario (www.wawa.cc) - previously famous for being home to the world's biggest goose and filming location of the 2006 film Snow Cake starring Alan Rickman and Sigourney Weaver.
posted by empatterson on Apr 20, 2007 - 37 comments

The giant spiraling hole in the ground near Mirny, Russia in Siberia is perhaps the world's largest open pit diamond mine. More giant holes.
posted by Burhanistan on Mar 12, 2007 - 48 comments

Most. Expensive. Cellphone. Evar. (It's Jaren Goh Design's $300,000USD "Black Diamond" phone.)
posted by Extopalopaketle on Jul 25, 2006 - 63 comments

Stone-aged and primitive are what you call people when you want their land. Baroness Lady Tonge of Kew told the British House of Lords that the Bushmen are "holding the government of Botswana to ransom." And how, you ask, can a bunch of hunter-gatherers hold the government that's herding them into "resettlement camps" "ransom"? Because they want to "stay in the stone age," of course. Not that this might be motivated by stones of a different sort. And you thought the Trail of Tears was just something in your history book.
posted by jefgodesky on Mar 27, 2006 - 20 comments

10 reasons not to accept a diamond. Something to think about if you are tieing the knot. I'm sure this list doesn't make these folks very happy - more reason to spread the word.
posted by Dag Maggot on Jan 9, 2006 - 250 comments

The White Diamond was one of three documentaries released in theaters this year (in the U.S.) by legendary filmmaker Werner Herzog (the others being the more widely seen Grizzly Man, about a man who studied bears in Alaska, and Wheel of Time, about the practices and rituals of devout Buddhists). In The White Diamond, Herzog introduces us to Dr. Graham Dorrington, a professor of aeronautics who is obsessed with weightless, floating flight, and who is testing the design of a new airship in a large hangar outside of London. Herzog and Dorrington travel to the rainforest of Guyana, where Dorrington hopes to fly the small dirigible over the jungle’s canopy and study the innumerable plants and animals living there with the hopes of finding new species and potentially discovering plants with pharmaceutical and healing benefits – a practice he calls “canopy prospecting”. [more inside]
posted by billysumday on Nov 10, 2005 - 14 comments

Neil Diamond on MySpace "I sang Cracklin Rosie at Kareoke last week and was then inited[sic] to a threesome. Thanks Neil. Your songs are magical." Neil Diamond has 9981 friends.
posted by srboisvert on Nov 6, 2005 - 44 comments

Jared Diamond, Racist? The anthropologists at savage minds have issues with Jared Diamond, some might say they think he is a “sham anti-racist.” Brad Delong is not impressed, neither are the folks at crooked timber. The discussion gets into cargo cults and lots of other good stuff. Here is the latest from Savage Minds, and the response from Delong and Crooked Timber. Nice compilation of links here.
posted by afu on Sep 10, 2005 - 63 comments

Harder than diamond. Compress C60 with heat, and get the hardest substance known. But will it be pretty?
posted by birdsquared on Aug 30, 2005 - 10 comments

spinning gold & diamond teeth to match your spinning hubcaps
posted by tarantula on May 23, 2005 - 50 comments

The Rapanui (of Easter Island), the Mayans, and the Norse colonists of Greenland all share one similarity: each culture was brought down by preventable, human-cause environmental catastrophe. Sure, Michael Crichton says it's all bunk, but Jared Diamond (the author of the infinitely discussable, Pulitzer prize winning Guns, Germs and Steel) recently came out with a new book that suggests that maybe we ought to be worried after all. Hear him discuss it on NPR's morning edition.
posted by absalom on Jan 10, 2005 - 22 comments

Famous Diamonds [Tripod page, but a really good one]
posted by Pseudoephedrine on Sep 7, 2004 - 9 comments

What Went Wrong in Iraq, By Larry Diamond, From Foreign Affairs, September/October 2004
posted by semmi on Aug 25, 2004 - 20 comments

Are you a diamond in the rough?
For as little as $4,000, LifeGem Memorials will turn your cremains into a diamond, allowing your loved ones to cherish you forever while admiring your sparkling brilliance.
According to the Cremation Association of North America, about 26 percent of the 2.3 million U.S. residents are cremated, and they predict that rate will jump to nearly 40 percent by 2010. Perhaps we've found an alternative to those other blood diamonds?
posted by me3dia on Aug 21, 2002 - 27 comments

Diamonds , a symbol of love for a large part of this century. Yet there is an underlying monopoly who have socially engineered the whole entire idea that a "Diamond is Forever". Does your notion of a diamond change knowing that a consortium is ensuring that their Monopoly is Forever?
posted by mutantdisco! on Aug 14, 2002 - 105 comments

Most Valuable Object in the World The Supreme Purple Star - as it is being called - is a deep purple diamond, turning to crimson when rotated in the light. Diamonds come in a rainbow of colors and are called "fancies" in the trade. Some are beautiful, others less so. This one is the only one of it's kind, and has been pronounced "priceless". The speculation, of course, is that the owner is looking to sell it.
posted by Irontom on Jun 17, 2002 - 20 comments