Desert Scroll for Hope -- Scrolling Marathon for Charity

[TStodden]

I know this seems crazy & stupid... but something that might interesting, so I'm throwing it out there.

WTF is this?

This is mostly a self driven initiative / challenge as a primer for Desert Bus, where participates will be completing an actual marathon with their fingers / arms only for charity by doing something just as exciting as playing Desert Bus... scrolling a webpage for minutes / hours on end.

OK, I'm down with this... what will I need to do?

The gist here is that you visit http://scrollingmarathon.ca/ & run the "Scrolling Marathon" to completion live on Twitch & allow viewers to make donations to you while you complete the 42.2 KM (or ~26.22 miles) with your scroll wheel.

Please make it clear to viewers that all donations received during this event will be going to charity (like Child's Play via Desert Bus or whatnot).

You will likely want to get some friends / fellow community members to join you on this, possibly through a voice chat service (like Discord) so you have others to talk with for encouragement & to help alleviate the boredom you'll likely incur.

How long will this actually take?

It all depends on how fast you can actually scroll. You'll likely want to block out at least 2-3 hours for this, but you should complete this in 4 hours unless you're purposely not trying. There's a public scoreboard, it's possible to complete in as little as 1.5 hours, but that's more for bragging rights.

The main reason for using the site as it keeps track of your distance (in KM & pixels) & serves as timekeeper, so you can't lie or cheat on this.

Since the site actually measures physical scrolling, you will most likely want a mouse with a scroll wheel for this (preferably a cheap $10-$20 mouse, as you'll likely wear out the scroll wheel). I'll also mention that site doesn't seem to care for scroll direction (up or down counts the same), so do it however you want... just as long as you keep scrolling.

Do I have to use a mouse?

While recommended, you can use whatever you want for this... mouse, trackpad, trackball, touchscreen or some crazy hacked thingy you whipped up. Just as long as you're physically moving something under your own power, it's OK. I just don't want some type of automatic thing that actually does the scrolling for you, as that ruins the spirit of this challenge (being a form of cheating).

A computer mouse is something that's fairly cheap to obtain & use for this purpose, so you don't wreck something you really want to last... hence the recommendation.

When is this happening?

Pretty much the week before Desert Bus, to help generate hype (ideally)... but the actual time to do this will be up to you & your group / friends. You can go solo if you really want to, but having some moral support with others is recommended... so try to coordinate with others.


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I'm just throwing this out for discussion... but I'm going to try to do this around 10 PM CT Nov. 8th - 2 AM CT Nov. 9th (near the end of Election Day) on my days off (although I'm doing half-days at work during Desert Bus).

If you're crazy / foolish enough, discuss here.