3.14Happy Pi day for all!
I am a few hours late for posting on the Pi Minutes (1:59PM) but I am sure it will be 1:59PM somewhere, sometime. I may have a chance to reach Hawaii.
March 14 has a lot of fanfare, even to the point of cult status. There is a religion based on Pi (not as cool as the Jedi religion) or a tutorial on how to get get groovy on this magical day.
Some may know this day for other reasons but the scientific one is a little more G-rated. Regardless of what you celebrate today, enjoy 3.14 to two complete decimal points.
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Olympic, Rings, 2000 Sydney, 2002 Utah, 2004 Athens, Torino 2006, 2008 Beijing, 2010 Vancouver and 2012 London.
See what I did there? I just broke the Olympic and Paralympic Bill several times.
This came to my attention after finding out that our Olympic Qualifier curling page on CurlTV.com was in violation and were exposed for a lawsuit. I quickly removed any Olympic phrase and image from the page to make it a little more ambiguous.
The Canadian Curling Association, who is a sponsor of the curling event in Vancouver, was unsure of our use of the word Olympic in our page and passed it up to someone in the International Olympic Committee.
Forbidden TextThe IOC contacted us and told us of the infraction and possible legal action that could be taken.
Curious, I began to do some research on the restrictions enforced and discovered the Olympic and Paralympic Bill. From there I found a few pages that discussed this bill.
Apparently this bill was only passed twelve days ago in Canada, but is not uncommon for host committees to pass this bill leading up to their big event.
…Minister of Industry, announced today the introduction in Parliament of a bill that will provide special, time-limited intellectual property protection for Olympic and Paralympic words and symbols in the lead up to the Vancouver 2010 Winter Games. The Olympic and Paralympic Marks Act will strengthen the exclusive rights of the Vancouver Organizing Committee for the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games (VANOC) over these words and symbols and improve its ability to negotiate sponsorship agreements with businesses interested in associating themselves with the 2010 Winter Games.
I was pretty amazed at the power this bill has and how serious the IOC is about enforcing their image. We are a site that promotes curling and have nothing but good intentions but were still under the radar of the IOC’s legal system. I realize they wish to protect their image but it almost feels like they are limiting themselves by enforcing this.
The IOC has their reasons, as does the host committees for implementing this bill but it seems counterproductive.
In other news, this is also post number 300. Sadly, there were a few along the way that got deleted so while this technically may not be an epic occasion, I will count it as one as 304 or 305 is not as glamorous.
PS: Happy birthday Nora – you make 3.14 that much more special.
