Slashdot Mirror
Cremation? Burial? How about Diamonds?
travisbecker writes "From Reuters via Yahoo! comes this story. "A Chicago company (Lifegem) says it has developed a process for turning cremated human remains into diamonds that can be worn as jewelry." As for the quality... "If it's done slowly and with a great deal of care, one could have a reasonably high-quality diamond," according to a quote in the story." This should not be confused with our earlier diamond discussion.
Now I know what my wife will have done with me after she has me bumped off!
Is there a market for this product? We've seen companies' rosy estimates of their product's market potential ... who, really, would want to wear their dad in a ring? And would want to pay for the privlege?
Remove the caps and hold to a mirror.
I can just dig up bodies and make diamonds out of them? Now I can actually make MONEY from my hobby!
Are these diamonds still a girl's best friend?
you know what they say, diamonds are forever. i can think of no better ticket to immortality...
Satanists get good grades too...suspiciously good grades
That's what "Steady" Ed Headrick who recently died was doing. His ashes would be worked into memorial frisbees for his friends and family.
Could this lead to a post-marriage ring? Just don't drop it down the sink.
Talk about your heirlooms. Not just gramma's ring, but gramma herself!
Oh, this? It was my grandmother.
You mean it was your grandmother's ring?
No. It is my grandmother.
If Slashdot were chemistry it would look like this:Cadaverine
If Only Hitler would have known...
So then I guess its theogists of the world can debate wheither one's soul stays inside.
... probably a little like looking through an ice cube.
:)
I wonder what the world looks like from inside a diamond?
Okay I'll quit rambling now
The Anti-Blog
Why wait until you're dead? Just find an uptight friend willing to help out... to quote the great Ferris Bueller:
"Pardon my French, but Cameron is so tight that if you stuck a lump of
coal up his ass, in two weeks you'd have a diamond"
^nA! Creatures in my Head
Now saying "You're a real gem" is a deaththreat, then?
... I could finally sell my uncle's body on EBay...
Now your wife can keep you "wrapped around her finger" forever.
Well, at least you didn't give her grandma's sentimental diamond engagement ring...you gave her grandma!
Next thing you know they'll be molding people's ashes into frisbees...oh wait, nevermind
"Good things don't end with eum, they end with mania or teria." - H. Simpson
...is the fact that in the future they will be able to reconstruct your entire body from the diamond.
Forget the whales - save the babies.
Can 21st century women expect to hear:
?Finding God in a Dog
Remember the general guide of two months worth of bodies for an engagement ring.
What? This isn't an organic diamond? It's my grandmother you insensitive clod!
Or, for the g/f: "I love you so much, I'd gave you my right arm. And then cremate it. And make a nice 1/4 carat."
It's a good thing Hitler didn't have this technology, or we'd be worried about a whole lot more than Nazi gold. That's actually quite depressing...
Most folk'll never lose a toe, and then again some folk'll...
Guy: Please marry me...this ring was my grandmother.
Girl: Don't you mean it belonged to your grandmother?
Guy: No. It really was my grandmother.
Now wouldn't that be incredibly weird?
Most all of the options sound really terrible. A friend of mine has researched this a lot, as he wants to have his remains treated naturally. There appears to be one option. There's a group in the central Atlantic states that was doing something with conservation land where you could be naturally buried (that is, no enbalmning, no concrete, no plastic in the casket, etc).
I'll have to look up the info, but if I find it, I'll post it here.
From the episode where they travel to Africa and meet Dr. Jane Bushwell:
*picture of Dr. Bushwell with handfuls of diamonds*
"Everybody wants diamonds! Diamonds! Diamonds!"
I pledge allegiance to the flag...
of the Corporate States of America...
Gee, I guess Ted Williams died too soon. Now we have such many and varied options for carcass disposal.
I guess it's better than being turned into a lampshade.
For Hindus , our quest is to attain 'Moksha' -- freedom from the cycle of life and death and be one with the universe. Therefore , I wouldn't want my mortal remains to be hanging around your neck -- even if you have just most gorgeous set of boobies as your big boobies will block my view of the universe!
One last thought, who else thinks that this will be Anna Nicole Smith's next move with the ashes of that old guy?
I will not be trained.
How many of us have friends who are wearing their grandmother's ring as their wedding band? I know a few. And how many of us keep their ancestors in urns on a shelf in their house? I know a few. This company is just taking it to the next level.
If it weren't for the outrageous prices (which are bound to come down), and the fact that I'm only 23, I'd be interested myself. Look for this company to be big as the synthetic-diamond industry becomes mainstream.
-- Hamster
That's absolutely disgusting. Course, I've been diagnosed with a serious case of tact.
slashdot: where everyone yells sarcastic metaphors to themselves to understand the issue
Hey, at the funeral, the family heroin addict will now not only be able to steal the ring off of grandma's finger and sell it, he can steal grandma altogether and sell her!
"What'll you give me for the old lady? $200...sold!"
Bill Clinton: Pimp we can believe in. - The Shirt!!!
Having a relative on a mantel is one thing, but around your neck??? I would just be too creeped out if I knew the person I was wearing, and would they really want to be degraded to a piece of jewlery ?
and if you thought some diamonds carried curses before!
Great, not only will my wife get my life insurance and all that's in the bank when I die, she'll get a diamond too. Not good.
I thought we wernt sposed to give into the tradition. now not only do you want us to get diamonds for our fiance's to be - you want us to turn our loved ones into engagement rings!
at least these people arent using slave labor and children. just dead family members.
I for one would not wear any of these... spooky.
"I wear dead people" ... Not sure if this is a threat, or what...
I am a science fantasy fan
Where is all the carbon coming from ? I thought the remaining ash had no carbon left, you've been BURNT remember, the carbon has combined with oxygen and F%^&ed off up the chimney....
Steve
At $22,000 per carat, you could just go out and buy a 1 ct diamond for $7000 and say it's your dearly departed, and make an instant $15,000. Since you can't do DNA analysis to determine if the diamond is actually the person, what's to stop them from just doing that???
I want to be a diamond when I grow up.
It is now time to flip off your computer.
I'm freakin' rich!!!!
This puts a whole new light on waiting to get the ring from Mother.
We have a new meaning for the term "Family Jewels".
>
In a couple hundred years to see your great great great grandmother as a diamond along with a little blurb about her. You can actually touch your past. You're entire family tree could be locked away in a jewlery box.
-Nuke the moon
Maybe it only happens in the movies, but I can't imagine the horror of spilling someone's ashes. This seems to me to be a very clean way to avoid that potential problem.
I would imagine that most people would put them in extremely nice display cases, rather than having them put into rings and pendants.
A nice thought, but it would instantly make your house a target for theft. I predict the rebirth of the cat burglar.
And on a only loosely related note, how much would this service cost for a pet?
best web host ever
Hell, you could use bananas if you wanted to. Anything with made of carbon can be used for that matter. All you need is high temperature and very high pressure. Well if you could harness the heat of the sun then that would do but here on earth we need to use lots of pressure to create diamond.
A diamond is a girl's best friend.
becomes...
That diamond was the girls best friend.
You could even argue with vampire wannabes:
But a diamond is forever!
Or you could convert a "hard on" to the hardest substance known. I wonder if the nerves will be preserved.
So having a fat mother can be beneficial now.
Arent graveyard keepers running on the streets celebrating now?
What did the lady say to the diamond as she was wearing it? "up yours"
"Give orange me give eat orange me eat orange give me eat orange give me you." -Nim Chimpsky
After the body has been made into a diamond what happens when ... Is this kidnapping? .. Is this inappropriate treatment of a corpse? .. Could you be arrested and charged as a necrophiliac(sp)?
:)
You are mugged?
What if you leave your diamond lying on the bathroom floor??
What if you are wearing a diamond ring and engage in vaginal foreplay while wearing it??
On the flip side.. this gives man a whole new meaning to "Protecting the family jewels"
Never try to beat a professional at his own game!
Each day that passes, millions of cells die and millions of new cells are formed within my body; my cellular arrangement is not the same it was yesterday. They synthesize and degrade proteins, absorb and expel molecules, etc. The molecular/atomic composition of my body changes continually. Like a river never has the same water, the body and the brain are not static, they are constantly changing.
IOW, the carbon atoms in the diamond, have probably only been incorporated into the body of the diseased person, the last one or two - often miserable - months of his/her life. Do you really want to remember that?
C'mon this is ridiculous. You'd rather remember someone's face, good times, memories. Not the material the person happened to made of. You might as well turn yesterdays garbage into a diamond.
IANAL, but imagine a beowulf cluster of in Soviet Russia all your belong are base to us welcoming the new SCO overlords.
It will take money (most likely large quantities of it) to turn that person into a diamond. Therefore, you wouldn't be able to become extremely rich by, say, digging up graves and turning the bodies into jewlery.
This is great. Do you think if I collect enough of my body tissue and hair and stuff that I can get one of these made while I'm alive?
Remember to look for Cut, Clarity, Color, Carat and Corpse.
You call me a pedant? I prefer the term "correct"
Hmmm. What does that part of me do that is not carbon when a diamond is formed from my remains. Semiconductors are much more interesting than pure silicon crystals because of what the dopants do. As an impure diamond, I might be a really ass kicking processor.
Overclock me for eternity.
It is now time to flip off your computer.
Didn't Apple include some form of carbonization in Mac OS X ??
Diamonds are crystalline carbon; to turn a human body into a diamond, you'd have to get rid of all the other elements present in the ashes (calcium, sodium, iron etc.) otherwise any crystal that might be obtained is likely to be more glass than diamond.
The other point worth mentioning is that human bodies contain a large amount of water. A lot of the carbon left in the ash is from the wooden coffin, not grandma...
So if someone steals your diamond who is a cremated someone or another... could you file for robbery as well as a kidnapping?
And would it be logical to file it as murder if they attempt to destroy the gem?
And is this putting a cost to human life, that they are only worth as much as a diamond?
And damn... this is a pretty good way of hiding the body.
Why not just through them in a deep crevace, and seal the crevace!? It has been working for millions of years, and with better results than any of this "newfangeled crap".
You can't judge a book by the way it wears its hair.
the terrible conditions at diamond mines, I would say synthetic diamonds are indeed a much better option.
IANAL, but imagine a beowulf cluster of in Soviet Russia all your belong are base to us welcoming the new SCO overlords.
Real diamonds are thermodynamically unstable at ambient temperature and pressure. (Shhhh! Don't tell Zales or DeBeers!) I can't imagine having a diamond-corpse go through a second, but slow, death. Kind of gruesome if you ask me.
To-do List: Receive telemarketing call during a tornado warning. Check.
Actually, it was chrisd's final statement that spoked me:
This should not be confused with our earlier diamond discussion.
You remember, don't you? The one that went like so:
Would you buy one for the love of your life? I know my girlfriend would love a diamond, but ethically I have my doubts. Diseased-miners, child slave labour, cartel inflated prices...
I guess we have to add murders and grave robbing to that list now! Those evil diamond traders will do anything to get more raw materials for their diabolical schemes!
GMD
watch this
Diamonds are forever, now you can be, too!
---
Geoffrey
Project AKO - http://ako.sf.net
How about making yourself into a frisbee for your family and friends. :)
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
"Hey nice diamonds! They look really nice!"
"Yeeeessssss. They are made of all of my victims! MUaaaaahhhhhHHHaaahhahhhahaa!"
"But [EGL] said it is impossible to distinguish LifeGem synthetic diamonds from other synthetic diamonds."
The real question, which I imagine DeBeers makes sure never gets answered, is: Can the EGL distinguish "synthetic" diamonds from the "real thing." I'm guessing they can't, other than from the tatoo DeBeers puts on theirs.
Don't moderate flamebait as Troll. Know the difference or you will be Meta-moderated.
Why did the article make it a point not to associate itself with a related article posted a few days ago when they are both specifically about the same topic and are obviously related in so far as being about obtaining diamonds not sold by the diamond mafia can be considered "related"? (yes that was a run-on question) I cant be the only one irked by this ridiculous *hint* *hint* look at the other one too *hint* *hint* plug.
Often wrong but never in doubt.
I am Jack9.
Everyone knows me.
by shoving coal up my ass.
I suppose i could do this with corpses as well...
hmmmmmm....
Why am I suddenly thinking about that star trek episode where everyone got turned into those powdery tetrahedrons?
/* ;)
Maybe I'm just old fashioned, but the idea of being turned into a precious mineral after I die give me the willies right about now.
Thanks to this slashdot post I'm now doomed to 10 years of credit card for a wedding ring bill...
or I'll now where I'll be buried
*/
Good News: It wasn't dug out of a dangerous mine by a child.
Bad News: It used to be a dead guy.
you really have no idea how unintentionally funny that is, do you?
now it is reduced to this...(wait for it)...diamond.
and the audience goes wild!
you know why it seems like most radio/tv pundits are righty-tightys? because the left is too busy laughing at how stupid you guys sound to mount any sort of response.
challenge (and i know there's an answer): name one right wing comedian. there's got to be at least one. and dubya doesn't count.
london is drowning and i live by river
Soylent Diamonds is PEOPLE!
isn't that seriously disturbing to anyone besides me? Turning dead bodies into diamonds....*shudder*
oh wait, you mean like a funny comedian don't you?
Keep Austin Weird!
Yes! waiting... waiting... waiting... waiting... waiting... waiting... [SUBMIT]
Tournament Management Online &
So my family jewels really can become the family jewels?
If a really good hologram movie of a person could be encoded in the diamond, that would be sooooo cool.
A diode laser or the setting sun could bring back so many memories.
It is now time to flip off your computer.
Being in the minority here....(I'm non athiest/agnostic)...I'll venture a comment
A good friend of mine, age 85, died this morning. I can't imagine the disrespect it would take to cremate his remains or pressurize them to diamonds.
My personal belief? Just as Jesus was resurrected with a perfected body, that's the destiny of everybody else on earth: a physical resurrection to a perfected body. Hard to imagine for all you Vulcans out there? Well, it was for Thomas, too, until he had proof.
That being my belief, anything other than a proper and reverent burial seems to me a sacrilege.
Employee: "Just give us the ashes and we will make a diamond!"
Customer: "OK, here you go."
Employee: Alright, now turn around.
Customer: What?
Employee: Turn around. (makes circular motion with finger)
Customer: (turns around)
Employee: (puts ashes under the counter, takes premade diamond and puts in on counter)
Employee: OK, here you go.
Customer: Man, that's weak.
Has anyone priced Caskets recently or average funeral prices? This is a decent alternative price-wise.
How do you turn creamated remains into diamonds? All the carbon has been driven off as CO2. Or are the collecting the remains before that point?
Most life insurance (at least the ones I've seen advertisements for, that's the only way I'd know anything about them, much too young to seriously think about it) pays cash to the family when someone dies... but are there life insurance plans that simply cover the costs of the funeral and other ceremonies connected with the death, up to the point where the person needs it, kind of like car insurance or other damage insurance? If so, would it ever cover this? ;)
Geez, if you just camped the morgue and snapped up all the indigent corpses... why, you could build a house out of them.
A house.
Made out of dead people.
How evil-genius is that?
What we call folk wisdom is often no more than a kind of expedient stupidity.-Edward Abbey
"mom?"
"yes dear?"
"i kinda dropped grandma down the sink..."
has a picture of a kid with his grandpa - they are smiling. happy..... for now. little does that kid know. poor, poor kid. time is running out.
lifegem.... how about deathjewel
Considering that the United States has more fat people than anywhere else in the world, that still makes us the richest country, even if you compact us all into diamonds (meaning quantity of diamond per person).
"player 4 hit player 1 with 0 stroms"
Put the dog in the fuckin' basket!
Every year during my review, I just pray the words "slashdot.org" aren't mentioned.
Does that mean that everyone who dies in a factory accident, such as falling into a smelter or getting forged into a pipe by a rolling machine, loses their ticket to the Rapture?
What we call folk wisdom is often no more than a kind of expedient stupidity.-Edward Abbey
I particularly enjoy the idea that after the departed one's cremains have been converted to diamonds, the diamonds will be graded. One has to wonder:
--Will the obese deceased yield a higher number of carats?
--Will the chaste deceased score higher on clarity?
--Will the intelligent deceased get a "brilliant" cut?
And, of course...
--What affect will the race of the deceased have on the color?
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
hehe.
This feels like it's straight from a Final Fantasy game. I can be a piece of Materia someday! Now all they need to do is figure out how to summon people back out of the diamonds for a whopping good time.
The man who trades freedom for security does not deserve nor will he ever receive either. - Benjamin Franklin
The body os nothing more than a sack of meat. It's the living person that is important, not the rotting flesh left over after they die.
Even if the body is a temple, what's the difference between having it turned to diamonds or getting eaten by worms after the soul has left it?
Boobies never hurt anyone. - Sherry Glaser.
So she said to me: "I'm getting a diamond from you, one way or another."
--
$tar -xvf
That's what we need, another Neil Diamond.
And the thieves stole my wife along with all the other jewlery.
Carats, Calarity, Color, Cut...and now Cremation?
Perhaps they just mix your Grandpa up with a bunch of other folks and dump them into a big old compressor for a while, and then chop up what comes out and sell it to you.
That would be my guess, right off the bat. Isn't there not a whole lot of carbon left in ashes, anyway?
What we call folk wisdom is often no more than a kind of expedient stupidity.-Edward Abbey
It's people!!
---------
Launch all sig
Syd Barrett may someday literally shine on.
From "Wish you were Here"
Remember when you were young,
You shone like the sun.
Shine on you crazy diamond.
Now there's a look in your eyes,
Like black holes in the sky.
Shine on you crazy diamond.
You were caught on the crossfire
Of childhood and stardom,
Blown on the steel breeze.
Come on you target for faraway laughter,
Come on you stranger, you legend, you martyr, and shine!
You reached for the secret too soon,
You cried for the moon.
Shine on you crazy diamond.
Threatened by shadows at night,
And exposed in the light.
Shine on you crazy diamond.
Well you wore out your welcome
With random percision,
Rode on the steel breeze.
Come on you raver, you seer of visions,
Come on you painter, you piper, you prisoner, and shine!
If you're not living on the edge, you're taking up too much space.
president bush proclaiming that it is morally wrong to use stem cells to heal people but perfectly ok to use dead ppl's bodies to make profit. i am just waiting for that day...
BSD is for people who love UNIX. Linux is for those who hate Microsoft.
This brings a WHOLE new light to the idea of the family jewels.
Honesty may be the best policy, but apparently by elimination, dishonesty is the second best policy.
...talk about your "high-pressure" tactics...
(oh c'mon! all the other funny-but-obvious comments are said already!!)
lets hear it for fat grandparents...
bigger diamonds!
ill take grandma earrings, grandpa inlayed into my cane, and if possible i'd like sparky my dog as a necklace.
my aunt loved music, perhaps she can focus the lazer on my cd player or something to that effect.
There's nothing Intelligent about Intelligent Design.
I want to be cremated and have my ashes mixed into the plastic that will be made into women's bicycle seats.
Boobies never hurt anyone. - Sherry Glaser.
Conjugal Happiness Tip #269: "Here, darling... Happy Valentine's, my love. And the biggest one in the necklace is Mom... your very own mother-in-law..."
Ok so now we will have to rename it to a "Die"amond....... and we could also come up with a "death"stone besides a birthstone
rm -rf sig
"Pardon my French, but Cameron is so tight that if you stuck a lump of Cameron up his own ass, in two weeks you'd have a diamond."
There's nothing Intelligent about Intelligent Design.
I'm sure a fair number of people would do something tacky with the resultant stone, but that's their problem. I see no problem with mounting Grandma in a tasteful setting on the mantel, instead of a big urn that spills her all over the rug when Junior toddles by.
Your options are pretty limited when you're dead. You can be pumped full of pollutants and left to rot in a box, or burnt to a fine grey crisp. If the person requests to be made into a pretty rock, that's no more disgusting than asking to be embalmed.
One only hopes this isn't a scam.
kinda adds a whole new weight to the old "Diamonds are Forever" thing. This must be yet-another marketing ploy by DeBeers.
One man's pink plane is another man's blue plane.
So this is no use to a super villain who wishes to convert a body to diamonds.
A cynical person would say this was just another grab by the death industry to separate grieving family from their money. What is it that this company does for the $4K. A 1/4-caret cubic zirconia can be had for fifty dollars or so. The only thing that Lifegem does is to extract the base carbon from the body remains, apparently using a simple furnace. Assuming that they contract out the actual diamond production, their risk and capital equipment expense should be relatively small. I admit that the purification process is probably innovative, and development costs must be recovered, but a nearly 100 times markup. Ridiculous.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
Monday or tuesdays chicago tribune had this story as well.. very interesting.. They featured a poor guy who was going to pay $4000 to have his cremains pressurized into an artificial diamond so his family would have a keepsake to remember him by.
Will it become the next pokemon card? I am hardly waiting to see when children will trade one grandpa for two grandmas.
Also, will the newlyweds switch grandpa diamonds instead of diamonds?
This is brutal. I can't believe someone came up with such an idea.
Vilmos
in the X-Wing series, can't remember which one, it's mentioned that this is what Correllian exiles do with their, er... remains... turning them into a rather glittery monument. thought that was quite interesting.
Screw you all! I'm off to the pub
Turn me into one of these.
I love how they call them diamonds when they make them out of your loved ones ashes, but they call them cz's and sell them dirt cheap when they are made out of normal cheap carbon.
Thanks for the info.
hmmm...wouldn't that be a good thing? Would they be more brilliant/glowing? An improvement rather than a flaw?
Don't moderate flamebait as Troll. Know the difference or you will be Meta-moderated.
On the face of it, I'm still dubious.
No, "Diamonds are forever" isn't true, it's just an advertising tag line. Not only do they degrade slowly to graphite at ambient pressure, but they are also quite easily shattered.
Shattered? Even though they are the hardest substance on earth? Yes. There is a difference between strength (maximum stress before breaking) and hardness (amount of deflection for a given stress). Diamonds don't deflect very much, but if you hit them with a hammer, they will shatter as they exceed the maximum stress. This is how gems are cut.
I heard that in far ago India, some city slickers suckered the natives, telling them that a big gem wasn't a diamond. To prove it, they hit it with a hammer and watched it shatter. After the natives gave up in disgust, the city slickers picked up the (still significant shards) and make megabucks.
Fire is a pretty good way to trash diamonds too. Diamonds also are quite attracted to grease, so don't forget to wash that ring before it gets too icky.
The discussion referred in the headline is all about whether to get your girl a diamond engagement ring even though you know you're going to get gouged. There's also the issue of labour abuses when these things are taken out of the ground.
Most people didn't seem to have a problem with that stating that if a diamond is what their girl wants and will make her happy, that is what they will get her lest her friends make her feel bad for not getting one.
Well, at least now we have a great alternative. Instead of having miners who are working for a pittance dying in the mines so your girl can show a rock to her friends, you can have one made of someone who's already dead.
I hear dead people don't mind being made into diamonds.
You'll probably still get gouged, though.
K
If you don't believe me, ask that guy over there.
Instead of this belonged to your Grandmother, it iwll be...this is your grandmother.
The Chicago Police Department has announced that kidnappings in the Greater Chicago area are on the rise. Within hours of an announcement from a Chicago company claiming to be able to make diamonds out of human remains, hundreds of missing person reports have flooded the emergency response systems of Chicago.
Collect the whole family!
Is this better or worse then strip mining? :P
Evil am I? Finally a use for all those Canadians!! Eh?
Girl 1: ...*sigh* My husband died and this is all I have left of him
Girl 2: ooo It's beautiful. Was that your engagement ring?
Girl 1: No, it's his remains and the only jewelry the cheap fuck ever gave me.
Had to be said.
Read the Walt Whitman poem.
-- Terry
Funniest post of the day.
There should be a moratorium on the use of the apostrophe.
Max V.
NeXTMail/MIME Mail welcome
I would expect post-cremation ashes to contain very little carbon - the ash is what won't burn*, and carbon burns - so it is perhaps unrealistic to use ashes as a starting point.
There's also a potential trust problem - how do you know your diamond is Grandma's carbon, not chimney sweepings? (One could say something similar of ordinary cremation ashes, of course.)
* More technically, the ash is what was didn't a gas when chemically combined with air. Unless some other atom is holding onto it very tightly, the carbon will form CO or CO2.
Quattuor res in hoc mundo sanctae sunt: libri, liberi, libertas et liberalitas.
Seems they offer red, yellow and blue diamonds. Yellow diamonds are quite common from what I understand - they are usually only used as gem stones when they are very large. .... ...
Of course the sample colors are much more intense than what is typically referred to as a yellow diamond
Still they aren't exactly cheap and they are making them > ~.75 caret yet
And I got this fabulous tennis bracelet.
Instead of proposing with that passed down family diamond ring with "This was my grandmother's ring..." it would now become... "This is my grandmother..."
Since a diamond is the world hardest substance, you're guaranteed immortality. At least until the sun supernova.
Recycling: it's not just for newspapers and soda bottles anymore...
"Bring out yer dead!"
It also occurs to me that if one was drowning, yelling "Help! I'm drowning and I lost my bikini top" would probably be m
When I die, I'm going to have my body cremated, and the ashes dumped, little by little, into pepper containers, everywhere.
It's just my final message to everyone in the world: "Eat Me"
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
when you turn my cold, dead body into one.
I put on my robe and wizard hat.
...they learn to construct a perfect copy of the universe from a slice of cake.
Then I can become gold leads on an AI Server's ram and various cards.... (programmed no doubt with my attitude, personality, intelligence, memories etc) and then I can live foooorever!!!!
er um WAIT!
just as long as AMD has worked out heat issues, otherwise hell would be a whole lot cooler place to be! (pun intended, yes I'm an AMD fan too)
...until your kid pawns you for a forty-ouncer of Bud and 3 crack-rocks.
Ed R.Zahurak
You know, oblivion keeps looking better every day.
So it turns out that Ted Williams didn't want to be frozen by cryonics. After seeing the LifeGem website, he actually said "I'd like to be a piece of ice when I die".
Mordor...a magical, mythical land where women are more rare than dragons--but where every man would rather find a dragon
Now I know the answer to:
a) whether to get an expensive engagement ring or not, and
b) How to get rid of my mother in law
all in one!
So does Anonymous Coward have good karma?
It needs to be REPEATED...
...so... it would seem if these diamonds are manufactured from the "true essence" of our loved ones, the carbon, isn't it logical that they are made from any old carbon... (Crafy, aren't they?)...No need to think too much about CO2 or any other pesky details.
From their website FAQ:
Is the LifeGem made from remains or ashes? The proprietary LifeGem creation process creates diamonds from the true essence of our loved ones, the carbon. Our families receive the ashes as all others do when choosing cremation, except our families also receive a certified, high-quality LifeGem created diamond to memorialize their loved one's unique and wonderful life.
Always read the fine print. Heh.
I would have to say that explosives are the most abused technology in all of history.
A friend's father wants his ashes to put into a coffee can and given to his children so that when their cars get stuck in the snow, they can put some ashes under the tires so that he can help them out one more time. Personally, just put me in a garbage bag on garbage day :-)
I can see it now... gang leaders wearing the cremated diamondified remains of their homies on their knuckles.
"I'm a leaf on the wind. Watch how I soar."
-Hoban Washburn
Great... now I'm worth even MORE dead than alive!
Now when your grandparents die, you don't have to have a funeral; you can just leave them in the house during the estate sale.
bytesmythe
bytesmythe
Hypocrisy is the resin that holds the plywood of society together.
-- Scott Meyer
Evidently, everyone wants to be a comedian tonight.
Diamonds, non-gem grade, can be produced from the vapor phase from several carbon-based molecules. Obviously not suitable for corpse transformation.
Diamonds, of any grade, can be produced from elemental (or, perhaps, from suitably doped) elemental carbon by application of extremely high pressures and temperatures.
There is no extant process for reducing a human body so that only the carbon atoms are left.
Therefore, the very suggestion of converting a human body to diamond seems to be pure bullshit.
Anyone want to invest in the venture?
Disgusting thought, but you could also make a diamond from any carbon source after incineration. For example, blood, or for those not easily disgusted, fecal matter.
Yes, for the one you love, give the gift of yourself in an engagement ring.
Has it been over a year since you last donated to the Electronic Frontier Foundation
Despite all of the obvious jokes and the extremely creepy web site), I think the idea is kind of sweet.
God, the web site is creepy, though! Americans have no sense of digity or restraint at all! It all drowns in sacarine! Yuck! Yuck! Yuck!
Rocky J. Squirrel
I'll be arranging cremation, headstone, and a small plot, ahead of time, to save my family the trouble at a time when they don't need any extra agravation. I'll be DEAD and I won't care what happens to my ashes, but it is nice to visit a departed relative, so I will arrange for the burial of my cremated remains. I'll be DEAD, but I'll want what is left of my estate to go to my living relatives, not useless ornamation.
Its a bit off topic, but make sure you have a will if you have any dependants!
Anarchists never rule
... will you marry me?"
"Oh, it's so beautiful! Look at how it sparkles! Of course I... wait... hey... oh my God.. Aunt Lucy??? Is that you???"
"PC Load Letter? What the $@#% does that mean?!"
So you're telling me that this guy is a cannabal?
Now where's that guy who's shopping for a ring.... I got one for you cheap, buddy...
YEEEWWWWWWW!!!!!!!
The highly reduced (in the chemical, redox sense) organic carbon will be oxidised to CO2 and disappear up the chimney. But remember that bones contain already oxidised inorganic carbon as carbonate (effectively, limestone), which will remain, and which can be reduced by heat and pressure in the absence of oxygen, to pure atomic carbon. Get the conditions right and voila, diamonds. That said, wouldn't it be cooler to be turned into buckyballs?
"E pur si muove!" - attributed to Galileo Galilei, 1564-1642
The method we used was relatively simple : for some $ we bought diamond powder. Then we seeded it ona silicon waffer. Afterward we put it in a labo-micrwave oven (a half bell in glass , surrounded with a farraday cage, and an emitor at the bottom).
The waffer was put on the centrum and then with H2 and CH4 gases. Then we simply pumped power and created a nice plasma over the waffer, and tadam after a while we had a lens sized diamond , the quality depending on how the gas partial atmsophere were. The size was about 5 centimeter in diameter (2 inch?) and 3 millimeter in width (1.5 tenth of inches?).
My best guess is that they plan to do something alike, first transform the corpse in CO2, CH4 gases, then use the same microwave method or another plasma-like method to deposit it on an already made cheap diamond seeding.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
Mod parent up, very good point...
I know this is offtopic, but I love that sig.
That would be weird.
Complete de movie quotes ...
"____________ are a girl's best friends"
"I can see ____________"
Options:
"Dead People"
"Diamonds"
hard uh?
One day your head will be your box, your brain will be your client, and all energetic problems will be solved...
Bowie could claim prior art on Diamond Dogs
Excellent, now I can just wear a braclet or elegent neclace instead of walking around with the shrunken heads of my enemies tied on a string.
One can't fault the convenience factor, but
I don't know, I don't think it will have quite the same, er, impact.
http://rareformnewmedia.com/
wrapped around a woman's finger even after death? The trend continues.
Death used to be an expense now it's an investment.
How much would you say grandma will go for when her grandkid's retire?
Ben
Work Safe Porn
"The proprietary LifeGem creation process creates diamonds from the true essence of our loved ones, the carbon."
DECKER "The crews of the previous Enterprises were also carbon units. In what way is the life form in your vessel different?
ILIA "Carbon units are not true life forms".
See: here.
tee-hee.
nalfy.
-- Despair is an operating system that ANY human being can run, sort of a psychological JAVA --
I had a similar idea back in high school after reading about how petroleum is made in nature. Immediately I struck upon the idea of processing human remains into gasoline or other petro-related products, and presented the idea to my science teacher. She was scandalized. "Why would I want to put grandma in my gas tank?!?!" That ended the discussion, but not the idea. This is recycling at its finest.
I predict that we're going to see cases of husbands giving their unfaithful wives beautiful jewelry, shortly after their lovers disappear. And crimelords giving their wives and hookers jewelry made from their enemies.
And some stupid, greedy son of a famous sports player is going to be sued by his sister to stop him from turning his hall-of-famer dad into a "baseball diamond."
One baseball diamond, of course, already appears in a muppet movie.
Get off my launchpad!
Wake up idiots! Soylent diamonds are PEOPLE!
Talk about the family jewels.
--What, you ain't know about them country fried sessions?
F/IF Flawless
VVS-1 thru VVS-2 extremely small inclusions under 10x and are quite expensive
VS-1 thru VS-2 Only small inclusions, and though still expensive in larger sizes can be affordable.
SI-1 and SI-2 Diamonds have inclusions that can easily be seen under 10x, but are not visible to the naked eye. This is the most commonly sold clarity quality today.
I-2 and I-3 Diamonds possess easily seen to the naked eye inclusions that not only effect beauty, but reach a point where durability can be questioned too!!
Quoted from:
http://www.qvctc.commnet.edu/student/AnneDePaula/
Great, now DeBeers will have a monopoly on corpses too!
It is by the juice of the coffee bean that thoughts acquire speed, the teeth acquire stains. The stains become a warning
Anybody know how much carbon the human body can yield? Is it higher or lower from freshmean (not the Slashdot variety) or from already overeasy-welldone?
Why not relate this to previous discussion? Hack off your own finger (and have it converted) to put a shiner on hers. This is the added plus of not supported the De Beers inhumanity to man, and diamonds for guns programs, but you can avoid future wartime drafts without having to relocate to Canada. You can also try for the "Van Gogh" option - your new artsy look will be a hit with the chicks!