3M has been watching me, and probably many other forgetful people, stick Post-It note reminders to all sorts of unsuitable surfaces: purses, TVs, doors, kitchen cabinets. Sometimes they stay up; often they fall off. Sensing the despair and market opportunity, 3M has introduced Post-It Super Sticky notes. These are designed to stick to more difficult surfaces and should still pull off cleanly. Now we just need special super-sticky printer paper for printing online directions to attach to your car dashboard.

The cover story of the September Wired magazine hits straight to the DeBeers diamond cartel jugular. Two U.S. startups are manufacturing diamonds. And these aren’t the ol’ tiny crystals suitable for coating drillbits and sawblads. These are gem quality, perfect diamonds. So perfect, in fact, that some jewelers look for a lack of flaws to distinguish them from natural ones. Gemesis is starting with yellow diamonds which are faster to create than white, and offering gems weighing up to three carats. Their technology comes from Russia; the same machines you may have seen on a Nova’s “Diamond Deception” episode. Apollo Diamond is growing diamonds with a process called chemical vapor deposition. While both companies are dealing with the gem market, their eyes are firmly on the real long term prize: diamond computer chips. The high thermal conductivity of a girl’s best friend means that diamond semiconductors are on the horizon.

Where’s the weather? Here in Seattle, of course. The broadcast meteorologists are in town for their convention. Part entertainer, part scientist, these weather watchers are talking shop and discussing techniques for improving their 90% accuracy rate.
The American Meteorological Society is also holding their annual meeting in Seattle in January. I’ve heard there will be even more weather then, so much so that I’ve been advised to travel to Hawaii.

The latest Blue Man Group project, The Complex, is on the second leg of its tour with three Texas performances sold out this week. It sold out in all eight cities of the first leg, including Seattle. Music videos and a tour journal are on their site.

Kiwifruit are fuzzy on the outside, green on the inside. Right? There are actually many varieties in the family of the “Chinese Gooseberry.” New Zealand farms have been producing the green variety since their import from China in the early 1900s. California began producing quantities of kiwi in the 1970s. A few years ago, the golden kiwi, a fruit with a yellow flesh, was introduced. Created from sibling plants of the green kiwi, the yellow fruit has a pointed top and a slightly sweeter flavor.

There’s gummi bear vitamins and Flintstones vitamins but apparently kids still need incentive to swallow their daily RDA. Enter Vitaball the new vitamin gumball. Chew one for 5-10 minutes and you’re all set. Blow your vitamin-rich bubbles in cherry, grape, watermelon, or bubble gum flavors.

The structure of music may have its roots in the tonal sounds of the human voice. Music theory may be a mathematical activity, but despite differences in the intervals of scales developed by different cultures, “all cultures favour certain intervals from the chromatic scale, and listeners judge these same intervals to create the most harmonious combinations of two tones.” The frequency peaks from samples of human language match the most significant invervals in the scales from many cultures. (report abstract)

When I attended college in the Boston area I was able to get $10 and $20 bills from all the ATMs (or as we called ’em “Baybanks”). There was even an ATM on campus that gave $5 bills. Upon moving to California I was faced with machines that only gave $20 bills, the denomination some refer to as the “yuppie food coupon.” I also was miffed that despite the California car culture, drive up ATMs were few and far between. So it was with some surprise when we drove up to our bank’s branch in Redmond, WA and discovered that not only was there a drive-up ATM, but we could ask it to give us amounts such as $10 and $50. How nostalgic! And adding to the quaintness, I noticed that the bank’s drive-through teller lanes were equipped with pneumatic tubes.

Canstruction, run by the Society of Design Administration, is a competition where architects and engineers design and build sculptures out of canned foods. The construction materials are then donated to charity. I spotted this on the Food Network a while ago. The complexity of the creations is amazing. (via /usr/bin/girl)

J. Michael Straczynski (Babylon 5) wrote up a suspense-filled account of the night he spent rescuing a kitten from drainpipes. Full of determination, he called in the fire department and a 24-hour plumber. He knows how to mew. It’s a real tear-jerker.