Up in Canada the diamond mines are revving up production and HRA Investments Ltd. is gearing up too, with a venture for automating the cutting of diamonds. Computer software examines a rough gem and suggests the optimum cut. A robot can then be programmed to actually perform the cutting, and it can do in an hour what would take a human cutter one day to complete. How long will it be before we have a fully automated system with a diamond making machine attached to a robotic cutting device? Is it DeBeers’ worst nightmare or their vision for a sparkly future? (via Gizmodo)

Pipes, pipes, and more pipes. Zinc pipes, silver pipes, wooden pipes, tin pipes, lead pipes, and chimes too. This is the world of Carl Dodrill, vocation: neuropsychologist, avocation: restorer of pipe organs. Dodrill has founded the Pipe Organ Foundation to help preserve and place these instruments in suitable settings. Donations of organs and their parts are accepted to further their efforts in keeping this instrument alive for future generations.

For a last cooling blast of summertime, visit the digital watergun museum. (via memepool)

A prominent attraction at this year’s Bumbershoot Festival, the “Space Harp” was formed out of 6,000 feet of wire strung from the 200 foot level of the Space Needle. Created by MASS Ensemble‘s Bill Close, the harp was originally strung onto the Field Museum in Chicago in 1999. Since then, the group has attached this “world’s largest” string instrument to buildings across the U.S., the tallest so far being the Prudential Center in Boston at 700 ft. The harp is played by pulling down the length of a string with rosined gloves. The sound is deep and resonant. I spliced together a panoramic photograph of the entire length of the instrument. In this smaller photo you can see the curved wooden structure where the strings are attached in front.

Yellow hats, overnight campers, full parking lots, and a Valkyrie greeted shoppers at the opening of the East Palo Alto Ikea.

The Seattle library’s collection of old menus was perused by a Seattle Times food writer. The food and drink trends of past decades are revealed in the pages of long gone dining selections, along with their tiny prices. (past related link: Los Angeles Public Library searchable menu index)

It took me a few weeks, but I finally had the revelation that with Amazon.com headquartered in Seattle, the local menu selection for their restaurants feature would be very thorough. And indeed I’ve been able to pull up the menus for many places that I’ve noticed and wondered about. Now I can select Thai places which have a broad range of salads and search for yummy words like “risotto.”

Fry’s in Renton is indeed open; in fact some eyewitnesses reported a Tuesday opening. We made it down on Wednesday and happily soaked in the familiarity of their usual displays, the electronic player piano, the rows of soda fridges along one wall, and pallets in the aisles stacked with merchandise. There is no clear theme, but enlarged historical photos of the area line the upper walls. From the copious stock of certain products I can take a guess at what the loss leaders (or “break evens”) may be on grand opening day. The unfamiliar aspects were the lack of boxes with “returned merchandise” stickers and the uncountable number of times we were asked if we needed assistance. But as usual there was a loss prevention specialist to check our receipt on the way out. We now have our retail therapy for homesickness.

The success of Vanilla Coke has prompted rival Pepsi to launch its own vanilla version. 90 million cases of Vanilla Coke were sold last year in a very successful introduction.
Pepsi Vanilla and Diet Pepsi Vanilla arrived in stores earlier this month. Pepsi claims a “lighter and smoother” version but their advertising campaign is emphasizing the young, fun Pepsi image. The disappointing Pepsi Blue, intended for that youthful fun-seeking market, sold only 17 million cases last year.

The NY Times continues its Steinway articles with a look at the difference between the Steinways produced in Germany and those made in the U.S. The Germany factory, opened by one of the elder Steinway’s five sons, is still making Steinways an ocean away from its New York relative. Most experts will claim that the German Steinways are different in tone and sound than their American counterparts. Over the years however, their suppliers and materials have converged (American woods, an Ohio iron foundry) and differences in the final product have more to do with the unique variations in the piano itself, not where it was made. But still musicians claim to hear consistent differences between the two production lines. At that level of quality and pricing, perhaps the hairs are worth splitting.