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Buy John Romero's Ferrari On EBay
TheMightyZog writes: "John Romero is selling his Ferrari Testarossa: eBay and his own site. Is anyone else distrubed by the graphic on the top of his home page?" At last check, the reserve was not yet met.
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The car comes with 50 free copies of daikatana. That together with 20 dollars of petrol, adds a combined total of 15 dollars to the price of the car! *BARGAIN*
Is anyone else distrubed by the graphic on the top of his home page?
Quite frankly, I am disturbed by all the graphics.
--Metrollica
Did anyone else notice a comment under user feedback at ebay, claiming that Romero won an auction and didn't pay for the item? Kind of what I felt after buying Daikatana.
Is anyone else distrubed by the graphic on the top of his home page?
Well, look at the face on the far right of the graphic. I see someone how's definitely not fit to drive. Maybe that explains why he's selling his Ferrari on EBay?
I'm vastly amused by the fact that this Italian supercar is humbled by the same annoying automatic seatbelts that I, to this day, cannot stand. It was DOT regulation at the time, so all US-market cars in 1991 had them, but ... you just don't think about that when you think about Ferraris.
Incidentally, "testa rossa" is Italian for "redhead" -- I believe it was a reference to the fact that at least some of these had red valve covers (or something like that -- anyone know?) in the engine. Most are red to go with the meaning of the name.
Don't care much for the wheels. I'd think a good set of BBS wheels, like the ones on this car, would be nicer. But if you have that much money to spend on a car, you have the money to drop $1500 on a good set of wheels and tires.
i am a soviet space shuttle
Sure, it's all shiney an' purty, but...
I'd rather bid on a lock of his hair.
So I could secretly make... A JOHN ROMERO CLONE WHO IS 10 TIMES SEXIER THAN THE ORIGINAL JOHN ROMERO!
I mean, just look at the man! Look at the mans hair! Does it not totally scream out how utterly and completely sexy he is, it is?
it's hard to try to make a joke when yer abs are cramping up from coughing.
I am a big, fluffy, cute, cuddly bunny. fear me.
"Is anyone else distrubed by the graphic on the top of his home page?"
Yes, very much so, as it makes my mozilla segfault.
---
"The chances of a demonic possession spreading are remote -- relax."
I would be most grateful if someone could send me the advertising rates for these kind of adverts.
TIA
I'd bid for it as long as it didn't include any annoying sidekicks that got in the way of your driving and always died at inopportune moments.
It probably has lots of his long, silky hair in it.
Is /.'ing his server revenge for Daikatana?
I can see it now. While driving along peacefully at 65mph, obeying the speed limit, your 14 year old script-kiddie son sitting next to you remaps the fuel injector to inject the fuel at full capacity regardless of throttle position. Since he was running Windows, his computer crashes shortly afterwards and you find yourself cruising down the highway at 200mph. You put her in neutral, in a vain attempt to lose speed, but the engine over-revs and blows up. As you finally coast to a stop (about 10 minutes later), you teach your son a lesson.
Never remap fuel settings in Windows!
(Ok, so the above story wouldn't actually work because the butterfly valves would prevent any air intake to the engine, but who cares..)
--- At my sig, unleash hell.
Could someone post some background on this story, like who is John Romero and why would one care that he is selling his car?
The real problem is entropy.
Although this goes well beyond what should be discussed on /. and has practically no significance at all, I have to say that 'Heavily Modified' bothers me when it comes to cars like this.
;o)
I always find it a bit sad. Like the original creators didn't do a good job. If you spend that much money, why buy a car that you don't agree with?
And if you (apparently) plan to sell it, it's pretty silly. Almost no-one will agree your mods are so kewl. By now they are out-dated, start to fail (believe me, I had a 911 Turbo and the one mod caused me a major headache) and it's practically impossible to bring the car back to it's original condition.
When a car like this is modified it usually means that it was just a rich kids toy. Not someone that bought it because they loved the car. For the true lover, there's nothing but the original.
In any case, the $100K Buy It Now is horribly over-priced. You get an original Testarossa from the same year for a little more than half of that. And it will still be worth something 10 years from now. (for example, not that I anything about this car, so this is not a recommendation)
I'm waiting for him to get rid of his girlfriend
Will /. be running adverts for QVC next?
So... care to point me to an article in which you read that the Testarossa is the worst car Ferrari has made?
some arrogant fuck who you know is going to have cared for the car very badly.
If you read his page, you'd see that was not the case. He's got a turbo (625HP!!!!), a new clutch/trans., computer controlled EFI, and a new engine (500 miles), among other things.
python -c "x='python -c %sx=%s; print x%%(chr(34),repr(x),chr(34))%s'; print x%(chr(34),repr(x),chr(34))"
Selling his car..
Stooping to doing commander keen clones for pocket pc for a living..
He even recently cut his hair short (expect it on ebay soon?)
A few years ago he wrote a little computer game with John Carmack. You may have heard of it... it was called Doom. He went on to do Quake before falling out with Carmack, and leaving id software to start his own company, Ion Storm. They released the moderately successful Deus Ex, and the, erm..., not so successful Daikatana.
"The invisible and the non-existent look very much alike." -- Delos B. McKown
theRomero was on the Quake team. Deus Ex, however, was done by the awesome, ever-so-talented Warren Specter. Deus Ex was also done at the ION Storm Dallas (or wherever it was -- not Austin, where theRomero was) office, which was not closed. Instead, it went for some name change, I don't remember what. That same studio is now working on Thief 3, as well as Deus Ex 2. ION Storm Austin is gone. Dead. Finito. Tom Hall (also an ex-id guy, sucked into ION Storm by theRomero, made the moderately successful yet still fun Anachronox) and theRomero started Monkeystone Games, where they make games for various handhelds. They already have one game out for the PocketPC, something about a delivery boy. Maybe theRomero is learning, since this game was done in a matter of months, rather than years.
And remember, "Design is Law!" Oh, yeah, and theRomero has cut his hair. He's no longer sexy.
Adrian Carmack: That's it? If you had a million dollars, you'd do two chicks at the same time?
John Romero: Damn straight. I always wanted to do that, man. And I think with my rippin' Ferarri and my wad I could hook that up, cause chicks dig a dude with money.
Carmack: Well, not all chicks.
John Romero: Well the kind of chicks that'd double up on a dude like me do.
More data, damnit!
Even though Ion Storm did release the quite successful Deus Ex, I think it needs to be made clear that Romero was not involved in the project. Executive producer was Warren Spector, lead designer was Harvey Smith. Check the Deus Ex Team list for more details.
So, we're basically agreeing that he talked a good game about how amazing and genre redefining it was going to be when it finally matched his supreme vision, turned on the money hose, gave vague instructions to some minions to "make it cool" without any consideration for the usability, then when it eventually matched his bonkers specification, he gave it a token test drive then lost interest and wandered off to rave about another project-of-the-nanosecond? Sounds about right.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
Why is it they never give me moderation points when good stories come along?
/. to stop linking them, and that HomeLAN is considering cancelling there sponsorship, isn't that a hoot?
:p
I'm a funny guy, I prefer to moderate when things are funny. Instead they give it to me when some company is fined millions involving thinks I don't know or care about.
Or when something scientific has happened over my head. I don't have a clue what's going on.
But this story, I see lots of moderation needing to be done here. "Who the fuck is John Remero?" +1 Interesting.
"Daikatana sucked!" +1 Insightfull
"I can't believe it's not butter" +1 Funny.
But for once, I find my self joining those usually modded down. This is news for nerds? Stuff that matters? Please.
I don't care if bill gates sells his wifes vibrator. I don't want to hear about it. We might as well start posting submissions for Penny Arcade.
"It's Monday, and PA is back at it!"
Posted by Whomever: Todays, 2:45AM
Timmy_l33t was first in line this morning, with important news about penny arcade! Amazingly they've posted yet another comic, this one apperently asking
Flame, troll, funny, I don't really care.
Computational Madness in a round package.
bla
The lack of muffler and cat makes this car illegal for use on normal roads. But nowhere in the ad does JR mention that. Yet another undocumented feature.
1) The picture on top is scary. :-)
2) Fuck Romero's site, I'm more interested in his girlfriend's server. She's got some nice pics there and she's quite the looker.
Humorless sig goes here.
I'm actually suprised he got that kind of milage out of a Ferrari engine (not at ALL known for reliability) running turbocharged (which is absolute HELL of an engine not designed for it), and that kind of power level. That is absolutely fantastic that he got that kind of lifespan out of his engine. I know people who have burned out $15k engines with $10k of mods on them in a couple thousand miles!
As someone who has spent way too much money modifying cars, I can say for certain that reliability is entirely dependant on how well done the entire collection of modifications is. At that price level, even on a Ferrari, he didn't just slap a turbo on the engine and call it there. I'm sure there was a lot of fabricated parts that went to ensuring the whole package ran reliably, and clearly whoever did it did a fantastic job.
Hmmm, sounds rather like that last game attempt of his, doesn't it?
-- "Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge." (Charles Darwin)
The Motec ECU is a pretty serious system. It gets used in LeMans LMP cars, WRC cars, and the like.
http://www.motec.com to see. You can download evaluation copies of the programs to play with, if you like.
I have a similar system in my race car, made by GEMS (http://www.gems.co.uk) and it's awesome. Computerized fuel injection has revolutionized racing. You wouldn't believe the crap that thing can do.
Of course, the downside to having complete and total control over the engine is that you have to do all the calibration yourself. After having programmed the idle control/antistall stepper motor, and the accursed warmup maps, I have a huge amount of resepct for the OEM calibration guys.
Getting a car to idle smoothly under all weather conditions is tough work.
In any case, if Romero's Ferrari has a Motec system in it, then that ain't your garden variety Ferarri.
DG
Want to learn about race cars? Read my Book
From John's description of the car:
The stereo is in a hideaway spot in the center of the car so when someone looks in, it's not there.
Yeah, people often break the window of a $100,000 car just to steal the stereo. I'm glad whoever buys this car won't have to worry about that. He better also make sure he doesn't leave a $20 bill lying out in the open on the dashboard.
Why do you all feel the need to insult John Romero?
Why do you think he's "full of himself", and "egotistical"? Just because of some overzealous marketing department? On what basis do you make this statement?
To you, he is only words on a screen. But he's a real person. When he reads all this, he will most likely feel insulted, hurt, or pissed off. Is there something wrong with treating your fellow man with respect?
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Apache/1.3.20 Server at rome.ro Port 80
Yeah, that is slightly disturbing. You would think he would have a real ISP.
*Not a Sermon, Just a Thought
*/
Forget that. Why woud you want a Ferrari when you can have a 10-second K-car?
.
:).
.he did it with a 2.2L 4-cylinder, lots of boost and no nitrous).
Check out this video
The cheer from the crowd is much cooler then the looks one gets for driving a Ferrari
(BTW check out this guys site. .
Nope... wouldn't happen. Her vibrator was licensed, not sold. But don't blame Bill... it's those damn vibrator manufacturers and their "per-vagina" licensing model.
--Rob
He's got a real hosting service, I suspect that he didn't expect the page views that he just got today and didn't pay for the larger service agreement from them.
He's obviously not being extravagant like he was with Ion Storm these days. The core Ion Storm crowd seems to have formed a new company called MonkeyStone and they're producing games for handhelds (Something less ambitious than Daikatana and more easily done on a garage style development budget). The official offices are in Quinlan, TX (A small town some 15 or so miles to the south of Greenville, TX, a town 45 minutes drive time to the east on I-30 from the Dallas side of the DFW metro area...)- office space is dirt cheap there in Quinlan (it's not exactly "pricey" in Greenville, either...).
Looks like he's going for the garage games route of develoment, etc.- something sustainable with reasonable resources. Your guess is as good as mine as to why he's selling it. Could be he's trying to capitalize the GBA version of his game (they DO have to pay a license fee to produce the game for GBA) or he just decided it was an expensive toy (read: penis extention) that he just couldn't justify anymore and is trying to shift it for that reason.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas