This Kid Will Do Whatever You Want in Antartica | Hacker News Reader

This Kid Will Do Whatever You Want in Antartica

techcrunch.com

110 pointsjasonshen49 comments

Interesting details missing: how does one run a marathon in Antarctica anyway? Firstly, how do you get down there? And secondly, where do you find a good place to run (ie somewhere where you won't slip on ice or fall into a crevasse?)

1) Set up a plane to Puntas Arenas, Chile. 2) Coordinate with group of other crazy people to fly to Antarctica 3) Bring LOTS of warm clothing. 4) To run, be very careful. Mostly shuffling. 5) Find big ice sheets to run on

- Travis (the guy running the marathons)

Have a safe trip and a safe race. :)

Thanks!

don't all ice sheets have crevices? I thought they run on permafrost in Antarctica...

Good question. I'll keep an eye out... :)

Question: I want to donate and give the do-something-in-antarctica option as a gift (preferably anonymously), is there any way to make that happen?

Yep. Just tell me who you want it to, what you want me to do, and that you want it to be anonymous and I'll do it!

Wow, I'm extremely curious how that will pan out. Going to Antarctica has been a lifelong dream of mine, and I always thought it was relatively difficult to do, but I suppose there aren't border guards.

Incidentally, I'm from North Dakota so I know we're supposed to be mortal enemies, but I do wish you the best of luck.

No border guards as far as I know... And I should double check as I'm supposed to claim some land for a couple groups of people.

North Dakota, eh? Yeah, I got over the mortal enemies thing when I realized how few of us are in Silicon Valley.

They just had a turkey trot (5k) in Antarctica...

http://blogs.nasa.gov/cm/blog/Summer%20on%20the%20Ice/posts/...

That's what I have to look forward to! It's going to be Awesome!!

One way to do it:

http://www.marathontours.com/index.cfm/page/Event-Informatio...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antarctica_Marathon

Though that's not on the continent itself. There was previously the South Pole marathon:

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/features/siadventure/14/sou...

http://www.angelfire.com/wy2/marathon/SouthPoleMarathon.html

http://www.marathonandbeyond.com/tocvol6.htm (scroll down to South Pole Marathon).

(Aside, for anyone interested in running, I highly recommend a subscription to Marathon & Beyond.)

That's great. Running a marathon (I've already done a half) and visiting Antarctica (I've already done all but one of the other continents) are both on my to do list. I probably shouldn't tick them both off in one go, though.

Awesome! If you wanted to tick them both off in one go, I totally think you could do it... ;)

Here's the company organizing my marathon: http://www.icemarathon.com/

I'm usually not a stickler for details, but Stanford is not an Ivy League school.

My apologies. I meant to say Ivy League caliber... ;)

Upvoted in agreement, although as an "Ivy Plus" Stanford is the next closest thing to an Ivy League school.

> the next closest thing to an Ivy League school.

Most people would agree that Stanford is better than many of the Ivy schools.

[No, I did not go to Stanford]

I highly doubt that, outside of people living in the Valley.

For all that the US News rankings methodology is basically crap, they often do reflect something close to conventional wisdom. Stanford is 5th, with four Ivy above and four below.

http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-colleges/...

I said it was the cloest thing to an Ivy League school, not that it was the "next best" thing.

Without debating quality, even if it was 10x better it would still remain "the closest thing to an Ivy League school".

Sigh...you said "the NEXT closest thing" referring to it's inferiority.

No, referring to its not actually being in the Ivy League.

Most people would agree that Stanford is better than many of the Ivy schools.

As a graduate of Dartmouth, I see your point. (Of course, opinions are...)

Enormous unspoken point in the article: masterful publicity scheme! Kudos to you dude.

Thank you. While I wouldn't say masterful (rather serendipitious), I'm definitely planning to write an article about it.

Travis: if you ever want to learn web development with Ruby on Rails, you've got a free PDF+screencast bundle from http://railstutorial.org/ waiting for you. :-)

Thanks for the offer but I'm a pretty big PHP guy (yeah, I know, snide comments)... ;)

I for one support your use of PHP. I'm thinking now my donation request will consist of you putting up some permanent ice monument in support of PHP in Antarctica.

Yes... That would be pretty sweet.

So was I, once upon a time...

Hmm, looked and couldn't find a "HEY YOU" link. So, here's my proposal which I will also e-mail to you:

Create an ice sculpture in honor of PHP. Bonus donation if you also include a penguin (real or fabricated)

Got the email and noted the request. I'll see what I can do about the penguin!

Why would one really does this? This does not seem reasonable what so ever. I do like the kid's idea, but its counter intuitive. The cost to get to Antarctica ranges from 5-14k. I dunno if that came out of his own pocket or what, but from what the article infers, it didn't. Also running 7 marathons in 7 continents, seems pretty expensive again. All that money wasted on travel could of gone to running the same program you already have locally. I have more questions but I'll direct those via email.

Small nitpick on my part to the original article, but this guy is not a kid, he's an adult. He's a man

Yes, I'm 23. And I'm a kid at heart.

I'm doing this because I wanted to do something so crazy that it would help raise awareness for this organization. In two hours here's what's happened:

1) We've raised $3,000 (6% of the goal), 2) 10 schools from California to Brazil want to run our program, 3) offers for in-kind help (programming, pr, news, etc), and 4) It's fun! It's spreading the word in an innovative way and I'm loving what we're doing!!

Boo for Paypal, why not use an alternative, perhaps WePay or similar?

I tried (in a couple browsers) to make a donation via the link in the TechCrunch article, but got "Sorry — your last action could not be completed".

Yeah, I know. I'd love to set up something like WePay but simply didn't have the time and we're already verified on Paypal. But I would like to talk to the WePay guys... :)

Also, the link doesn't work in TC but it does work when you visit our page - http://gumballcapital.org/7-Marathons-7-Continents/ - and click "Make a Donation"

Sorry for the difficulties!

Thanks, new link works, but how can I tell you my suggestion? I guess you could you just check the e-mail address the donation comes from?

There's a little "HEY YOU" on the second page, which you click and tell me your idea. Or you can send me an email!

Either works. Thanks for the support!

I got a "Sorry your last action could not be completed" message when I clicked the paypal!

From the Gumball Capital page or TC? If TC, please follow through to the Gumball Capital page and click "Make a Donation".

Does that help?

Congrats Travis! Long-deserved recognition for all that you do for Gumball

Thanks David!

go Travis go! you're the bomb! for 27 dollars he will go wild!

Thanks Ian! woOOOooohooOOOOooo!

Did someone tell TechCrunch that Stanford isn't Ivy League?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com