Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Diamonds Suck (2006)

diamondssuck.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

511–520 of 618 posts

Re: Diamonds Suck (2006)

#511

Post by stephencanon »

paganel wrote: post #462
stephencanon wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> having to explain to friends and acquaintances why she does not have a diamond. I don't think this is a universal "in America" thing. Maybe in some parts of the country, but here in the northeast it seems like it's none of their business; I can't imagine asking someone to explain it, and I would think someone who did ask was being awfully nosy. FWIW my wife has a diamond ring which she almost never wears, and I can…

> WIW my wife has a diamond ring which she almost never wears, and I can't remember anyone ever asking about it Interesting, I'm from Europe and I'd be curious to know at which point exactly did diamond rings replace gold wedding bands as the "official marriage signs" in the States. Wedding bands are still quite popular over here in Europe, hopefully they don't get replaced any time soon (for one thing, gold actually…

> at which point exactly did diamond rings replace gold wedding bands as the "official marriage signs" in the States.

They didn't. Wedding bands are still the "official marriage sign". Diamond engagement rings are extremely common, however, and it's very common for American women to continue wearing their engagement ring alongside their wedding band.

(As with my wife and my mother, it's definitely not unheard of for women to wear just the wedding band either).

Re: Diamonds Suck (2006)

#512

Post by alphazero_hn »

stouset wrote: post #301
eyko wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Horse meat is quite normal in western culture, unless if by western culture you mean anglophone countries.

And not eating it is for non-taste/texture/allergy reasons is just as absurd as wanting to have a "real" diamond. It's all nonsense. None of it makes sense.

OT aside: I sometimes like to play automatic reading (ala dada) with google. So at this moment a google search for "It's all nonsense. None of it makes sense." brings up your comment at the top of the page and a few items below this link [1] which has a section entitled "Making sense of nonsense. Conant and Diamond read Wittgenstein's Tractacus".

Now I wonder if that Diamond is a chance event ("nonsense") or correlation artifact from the search algorithm ("sense").

[1]: http://philosophy.uchicago.edu/faculty/files/conant/costello...

Re: Diamonds Suck (2006)

#513

Post by tjic »

When we got engaged I put the money I would have spent on a ring towards buying a farm (as someone said in a thread on news.yc "oh, you're The Farm Guy!").

My wife thanks me almost literally every day for the farm. I don't think she'd appreciate a diamond ring nearly as much.

When it came time to actually get married I dropped around $2 or $2.5k on gold casting grain, carving wax, a small burn out kiln, a crucible, etc., and made wax blanks for our rings on my Sherline lathe, then cast them in gold using the burn out kiln and my blacksmithing forge.

Meanwhile, she sewed her own dress from scratch.

After the small church ceremony we had everyone back to our house for BLTs and tomato soup, using home made bacon and home made bread, etc.

Our complete wedding cost maybe $3,000 or $3,500 and the cost was dominated by the burn out kiln and the gold.

The good news is that the kiln and accessories still get used: a few weeks ago she carved a belt buckle from wax and I cast it in bronze.

My advice: eschew consumerism. A DIY lifestyle is a lot more fun.

[ edit ] here's a pix of my first practice rings in silver, and then one of the rough cast gold rings before cleanup. https://goo.gl/photos/tdLEjxQipMS2ZtQh8

Re: Diamonds Suck (2006)

#514

Post by coldpie »

liquidcool wrote: post #473
occamrazor wrote: post #439

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is this really a thing in the US? In Italy (and AFAIK in most of Europe) wedding rings are normally plain gold (rarely white or red gold, or platinum) bands. Engagement rings do have a stone, but they are not worn every day.

It was that way in the US for a very long time. Sometime in the last couple decades a new trend arose to wear both the engagement ring and a wedding band together. The logic being you spent 4-5 figures on beautiful jewelry, so it's silly to only wear it during the engagement. (Whether it's silly to spend that much in the first place is another argument.) I don't know if they are in fashion currently, but many jeweler…

> The logic being you spent 4-5 figures on beautiful jewelry

Good lord, people do this? People spend ten thousand dollars on a ring? Fuck. When we got engaged, we shopped together and I bought her a black opal ring. Diamond was never on the menu, so I never even looked at their prices. I knew diamonds were expensive, but I had no idea the extent to which people were getting suckered.

Re: Diamonds Suck (2006)

#516

Post by sangnoir »

mirimir wrote: post #508
sangnoir wrote: post #502

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You know, you don't need an engagement ring to get married You also need a partner who wants to get married to you. Where does HN get it's perfectly compatible partners from? A difference in opinion is not unexpected - not everyone is equally pragmatic. Also,things that are considered "deal-breakers" are far from universal.

So why does only one partner get a ring? Why, typically, the female one? In same-sex marriages, how do partners determine who gets the ring? Flip a coin? Damn.

The answer to all your questions is: it depends on the partners and what they agree to. But on the most part, it is driven by cultural momentum - the same reason men's formal clothing includes a tie. One could equally argue "One does not need to wear a tie to go to work", but there are people who love ties and how they look wearing them.

Re: Diamonds Suck (2006)

#517

Post by coldpie »

chii wrote: post #304
Nullabillity wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

$500 is still an insane price for a glorified lump of coal.

Compared to the wedding, 500 dollars is nothing.

That would be a significant fraction of our wedding costs. We held ours in our back yard, ordered some catering, served buffet-style, about 50 guests. No DJ, just set up some playlists on Google Music. There's no requirement to blow five figures on a one-day party, just some bizarre social expectation.

Re: Diamonds Suck (2006)

#518

Post by brianbreslin »

chucky_z wrote: post #143
Roritharr wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for writing this. My problem is only that you consider mosanite inexpensive, which is relative to Diamonds true, but from a ring search i could only find nice looking ones for >1000€ which is still expensive/hardly affordable to me.

Try the second-hand market, and buy the stone you like, and the ring you like (sperate). It's extremely in-expensive (usually included in the cost of the ring if you buy it at a store) to have your stone set into the ring of your choice. I spent a total of $500 to have a .75ct diamond set in a ring this way.

where does one search the 2nd hand market for these things? I'd be worried I'd be ripped off (granted I worry about that in a jewelry store too).

Re: Diamonds Suck (2006)

#519

Post by cmdrfred »

sangnoir wrote: post #502
aianus wrote: post #348

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There was no alternative before this article. You know, you don't need an engagement ring to get married. Much less one with a shiny stone of any kind.

> You know, you don't need an engagement ring to get married You also need a partner who wants to get married to you. Where does HN get it's perfectly compatible partners from? A difference in opinion is not unexpected - not everyone is equally pragmatic. Also,things that are considered "deal-breakers" are far from universal.

"Where does HN get it's perfectly compatible partners from?"

Truth is women in our culture are still somewhat of a status symbol. My wife is essentially perfectly compatible with me that was achieved by not simply selecting the most physically attractive person who would marry me but instead finding someone who actually is a decent human being. Her ring cost under 50 dollars. She wants me to spend the short time we all have on earth with her, not working to buy her shiny rocks, a overvalued house or an expensive car so she can impress her friends. I wouldn't have it any other way.

Re: Diamonds Suck (2006)

#520

Post by cmdrfred »

woodman wrote: post #388
cmdrfred wrote: post #381

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Dogs are genetically predisposed to be man's best friend - friends don't get eaten." I take it you've never met a cow, horse, pig, chicken or tame deer. Most animals will befriend humans if you are patient enough.

All those animals were domesticated for very different reasons. I've spent a lot of time with horses, my family had three, and they're great animals - but they don't come anywhere close to dogs when it comes to trust and the ability to read people. I've seen dogs trained with nothing more than praise - the desire to please is that strong for them. That doesn't work for horses.

I've owned horses too. It depends on what you want them to do. If you want to jump on their back and ride them around, sure. I don't do that personally, and while they don't read you like a dog can I've taken unsocialized "mean" horses and turned them into friendly companion horses with nothing but patience and the occasional cookie or carrot.
Post reply on HN