Berkeley CSUA MOTD:Entry 29332
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2025/04/04 [General] UID:1000 Activity:popular
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2003/8/13 [Industry/Startup] UID:29332 Activity:insanely high
8/12    http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/11.09/diamond.html
        My question is, how come USA let De Beer get away with
        100 years of absolute monopoly?
        \_ Nothing says you love her like a blood diamond.
        \_  "Unless they can be detected," he says, "these stones will
            bankrupt the industry."  Yes!  Fuck De Beers!
            \_ Diamonds are forever.
        \_ Couldn't happen to a nicer bunch of people.  Now let's legalize
           drugs and kill another international cartel of murderers.
        \_ too bad the General is too old and lost 2 wars
           \- helo i have not read your link although i will later you know
              that debeer officials dont come to the US to avoid capture by
              the usgovt, right. debeer > msft on the evil metric ... they
              actually kill people. you can grep the wall history for some
              good articles from the atlantic on the diamond business.
              if you regexp foo is weak i can dig up the links for you.
              there is also an interesting article by mathew hart on diamond:
              history of a cold blooded love affair. it is also interesting to
              see how the indians are driving out the jews. debeers may be
              able to more exploit american men due to a deal with LVMH.
              ok tnx. --psb
              \_ regexp foo?  jesus fucking christ.  if you want to know about
                 the evils of the debeers, or anything else for that matter,
                 there's a tool called  a "library" and another called the
                 "world wide web" that will tell you whatever you want to know.
                 \_ Is that you kinney?
                 \_ Is that the new fangled interweb you're talking about?
                    I heard about that!
              \_ so where is this wall history stored?
        \_ DeBeers proper have no operations in the US.  They own (legally)
           subsidiaries through various stakeholder arrangements, which take
           care of their dealings in countries with strong anticompetition
           laws.  Regarding manufactured diamonds, until now they have been
           kept out of the high-end jewellery market by being detectable.
           When someone comes up with a method of creating perfect diamonds,
           an 'artificial' as opposed to 'technical' two-class system will
           be created;  you may have noticed that most diamond companies already
           subscribe to a certificate system, ostensibly to help identify
           diamonds with dirty provenances (like blood diamonds from Sierra
           Leone.)  That same system will be used to market the 'genuine' item
           to people--if you doubt that this will work, consider that people
           have been buying what are essentially glorified rocks just for their
           artificially created prestige value for a long time.  -John
           \- the mkt for artificial diamonds will be suppressed through
              (women) mind control -> (men) ball capture. why isnt there
              a market for used diamonds? do you know how large the stock
              of "idle diamonds" is? that's partly through dealer control
              and partly mind control. they will clearly suggest "real/debeers
              diamond -> true love", artifical diamond -> artificial love.
                                                             --psb
2025/04/04 [General] UID:1000 Activity:popular
4/4     

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Cache (5323 bytes)
www.wired.com/wired/archive/11.09/diamond.html
The New Diamond Age Armed with inexpensive, mass-produced gems, two startups are launching an assault on the De Beers cartel. By Joshua Davis Aron Weingarten brings the yellow diamond up to the stainless steel jeweler's loupe he holds against his eye. We are in Antwerp, Belgium, in Weingarten's marbled and gilded living room on the edge of the city's gem district, the center of the diamond universe. Nearly 80 percent of the world's rough and polished diamonds move through the hands of Belgian gem traders like Weingarten, a dealer who wears the thick beard and black suit of the Hasidim. David Clugston David Clugston Yellow diamonds manufactured by Gemesis, the first company to market gem-quality synthetic stones. He puts the diamond down and looks at me seriously for the first time. To find three nearly identical yellow diamonds is like flipping a coin 10,000 times and never seeing tails. Weingarten shifts uncomfortably in his chair and stares at the glittering gems on his dining room table. Replicating that environment in a lab isn't easy, but that hasn't kept dreamers from trying. Since the mid-19th century, dozens of these modern alchemists have been injured in accidents and explosions while attempting to manufacture diamonds. Starting in the 1950s, engineers managed to produce tiny crystals for industrial purposes - to coat saws, drill bits, and grinding wheels. But this summer, the first wave of gem-quality manufactured diamonds began to hit the market. They are grown in a warehouse in Florida by a roomful of Russian-designed machines spitting out 3-carat roughs 24 hours a day, seven days a week. A second company, in Boston, has perfected a completely different process for making near-flawless diamonds and plans to begin marketing them by year's end. This sudden arrival of mass-produced gems threatens to alter the public's perception of diamonds - and to transform the $7 billion industry. More intriguing, it opens the door to the development of diamond-based semiconductors. Not only is it the hardest substance known, it also has the highest thermal conductivity - tremendous heat can pass through it without causing damage. Today's speedy microprocessors run hot - at upwards of 200 degrees Fahrenheit. Diamond microchips, on the other hand, could handle much higher temperatures, allowing them to run at speeds that would liquefy ordinary silicon. But manufacturers have been loath even to consider using the precious material, because it has never been possible to produce large diamond wafers affordably. With the arrival of Gemesis, the Florida-based company, and Apollo Diamond, in Boston, that is changing. Both startups plan to use the diamond jewelry business to finance their attempt to reshape the semiconducting world. Before anyone reinvents the chip industry, they'll have to prove they can produce large volumes of cheap diamonds. Beyond Gemesis and Apollo, one company is convinced there's something real here: De Beers Diamond Trading Company. The London-based cartel has monopolized the diamond business for 115 years, forcing out rivals by ruthlessly controlling supply. 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. You better believe that I can handle the diamond business," says Gemesis founder Carter Clarke, center. His lieutenants have 27 diamond-making machines up and running -- with 250 planned -- at this factory outside Sarasota, Florida In its long history, De Beers has survived African insurrection, shrugged off American antitrust litigation, sidestepped criticism that it exploits third world workers, and contended with Australian, Siberian, and Canadian diamond discoveries. The firm has a huge advertising budget and a stranglehold on diamond distribution channels. But there's one thing De Beers doesn't have: retired brigadier general Carter Clarke. Carter Clarke, 75, has been retired from the Army for nearly 30 years, but he never lost the air of command. When he walks into Gemesis - the company he founded in 1996 to make diamonds - the staff stands at attention to greet him. Particularly since "the General," as he's known, continually salutes them as if they were troops heading into battle. The building is slated to house diamond-growing machines, which look like metallic medicine balls on life support. Gemesis expects to add eight more every month, eventually installing 250 in this warehouse. In other words, the General is preparing a first strike on the diamond business. His company at the time - Security Tag Systems - had pioneered those clunky antitheft devices attached to clothes at retail stores. Following up on a report about a Russian antitheft technology, Clarke came across Yuriy Semenov, who was in charge of the High Tech Bureau, a government initiative to sell Soviet-era military research to Western investors. Wired 39 Feedback | 40 Advertising | 41 Subscriptions | 42 Reprints | 43 Customer Service 44 Copyright 1993-2003 The Cond Nast Publications Inc.