The medals being presented at the Vancouver Winter Games have the distinction of being “first” in several ways. It’s the first time they aren’t flat. These medals are of an undulating design. Basically, that means they look wrinkled. Personally, I’m still not sure if i like that feature or not.
They also are the first medals that aren’t all the same. Each medal is etched with a randomly cropped portion of a piece of Canadian First Nation artwork representing orca whales.
However, the part that most caught my attention is the fact that the Vancouver medals have technology in them, but not in the way that you think. They don’t have chips in them. They actually have old technology items in them! Some of the metal used to mint the medals came from recycled e-waste. E-waste is a huge problem. I deal with it at work and at home. Old computer equipment and electronics build up at an astounding rate. I know that recycling a small amount of gold, silver and copper and reusing it in Olympic medals isn’t exactly going to solve the problem, but it’s nice to see an opportunity to better publicize the issue. I’m just sorry that I haven’t seen more about this in the media coverage or even on the VANOC website.
You can read more about this on Bloomberg. You can also take a look at all of the past Olympic medals at the IOC site.
It always seems that my blog gets more use when the Olympics are going on. Ironically, I’m very much not a sports fan except maybe for watching the Phillies. However, I’ve always enjoyed watching the Olympics, especially the Winter Games. I think it’s a combination of the fact that you get to see sports that you don’t see very often (many of which aren’t team sports that I find boring) and the fact that for a few weeks people from various countries actually get together and participate in something just for fun without political posturing and other such silliness.
Apparently today is 
What happens when you hvae a president who’s from Chicago? Well, the same thing that happens to the