What would you do if you were a multi-millionaire?

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Cyclohexane
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What would you do if you were a multi-millionaire?

Post by Cyclohexane »

Some of you may have noticed I have not been online much lately. The main reason for this is the holidays, putting up the tree, lights, traveling for Thanksgiving, etc. But I have also been swamped at work working long hours.

Last weekend I traveled to Dallas TX to meet with a small company called Armadillo Aerospace. I have to say I was completely impressed and its times like these I love my job.

I got to met John Carmack in person. For those of you who do not know, he made his millions developing games like Wolfenstein, Doom, Quake, and selling the game engine to other great games like Half-Life and many others. The fact that he loves and develops video games that I grew up playing is one thing. Combine that with practicing Jujitsu and using his own money to build rockets on the side makes him one of the most influencing people of our day in my book. I did feel compelled to tell him my preference was RTS games but don’t count on him leaving the FPS genre.

I went down there to watch a test fire of their rocket and it is like nothing I have ever seen before. I got to watch this rocket, about the size of a car, launch from about 500 feet away. The noise it made was amazing and you could feel the vibration in your chest. None of the information I am giving is proprietary and it is all public information so I encourage you to visit the links above.

For a multi-millionaire, you could not tell it and I say that as a good thing. I have met a few millionaires from the oil industry and I can honestly say that all of them with the exception of one of my professors as an undergraduate was a jerk. John dressed in a T-shirt and jeans and grabbed a wrench and was turning screws with his employees. He had no arrogance what so ever and I found it very interesting that most of his employees were volunteers with day jobs. They worked in the day, played with rockets at night and on the weekends.

If I had a multimillionaire friend that wanted to make space travel available to everyone, I’d be there every night as well. If anyone can privatize the space industry, it will be this man. He now has a very powerful partner (NASA) that will help him take it to the next level and NASA will benefit from inexpensive testing. I cannot go into more details of the partnership but here are a few pictures:

The Logo
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Me in the front, John is in the back scratching his head
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One from the launch (only 3 attachments allowed per thread?):
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So to answer the initial question in the thread, there is no way I would retire becoming a fat lazy slob paying to have my butt wiped for me (although my attitude of the bureaucratic system would change). I would continue to work my butt off on my hobbies but I have to say, I would be doing the same thing as John.
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blayzer13
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Re: What would you do if you were a multi-millionaire?

Post by blayzer13 »

Thats amazing dude,GL with then new partnership. I would become a multi-millionare just to spend on my hobbies...whats the point in spending it on anything else sides family and what not
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Re: What would you do if you were a multi-millionaire?

Post by RascalJones »

Your rocketry story reminded me to say this...
My 4 year old son just had a birthday party where the theme was space and the planets, he got a model rocket, plus a "moon in my room" (it's a night-light essentially that has all the moon phases), he got fisher-price "Planet Heroes" action figures. He knows more about the planets at 4 than I did at 10....and that's a fact. He can identify them by photograph, tell you what's unique about each one, their order in the solar system, and more.

And when he's done, he'll kick your butt at checkers.....while standing on his head, both of which he can...and does....do.
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Re: What would you do if you were a multi-millionaire?

Post by I__CHAOS__I »

your 4 year old son is totally OP rasc :D

I think I'm already a multi-millionaire... in yen :twisted:

anyway, if i had some euro (or even dollars would be ok) millions, I'd buy an old irish farmhouse and turn it into a nice bed & breakfast. (discount for NEO members ;) )
Next to it I'd have my martial arts school with some great teachers.

for now it looks like I'll have just a small B&B and maybe a school some day
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Re: What would you do if you were a multi-millionaire?

Post by Blackadderthe4th »

If I had millions to spare then I would buy up all the news media in the world and get them to run a story that our very own Al is officially the worlds first confirmed fen-monkey. I would also run a second story that Dr Evil exists and is in hiding as a roofer named Jim.

Apart from that I would get Coventry City FC out of debt , buy a Bugatti Veyron, Suzuki Hayabusa and a multitude of Harleys and Triumphs. Also learn to fly and get working replicas of Spitfires and Messerschmidts.
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Re: What would you do if you were a multi-millionaire?

Post by MNBob »

If I won the lottery and became a multi-millionaire, I would quit my job. But I would then start a company and build a MMORPG. In 1997 I played Ultima Online and I liked it despite its many flaws. Unfortunately the game never fixed those flaws so I gave up on it after 1 year (which is when I started playing AoK). My playing UO actually resulted in my wife and I being flown down to Austin, TX where I had a job interview with Origin. In the end I turned down their offer ending my dream of getting into the gaming industry (but at least it was my decision).

I bought EQ, played it for 3 months mostly because I had friends playing it. But I hated it. The same happened with DAoC and I played it for only 1 month. I have not touched a MMORPG since then which includes the current WoW juggernaut. I know what I want to see in one of these games and there is not a game out there that provides it nor is there any game that would dare risk it IMHO. So I won't go near them anymore.
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Re: What would you do if you were a multi-millionaire?

Post by ZoRPrimE »

First I'd hire a full time assistant for my life in general.

I'd pretty much go about life the same way but with a few more amenities. Withall the extra cash I'd try to invest in the best of businesses. I wouldn't spend a dime on anything I had not fully researched the implications of. I'd probably be on some hatelist for not giving enough of my riches to charity. I've learned more about money and economies in the past few years than I had in the past 20 and I've got plenty more to learn.

I'd spend a lot on education and making my own self education easier. My personal quest has always been to understand a little about as much as I can in the World and attempt to integrate it cohesively into the whole of everything else I have learned about the World with emphasis on human nature. So I'd try to use my money to make that easier.

Or I could get married and have kids and blow that all to hell for a few years while I reared kiddo's.


Yep I'm blabberkeyboard today with a bunch of time on my hands.

OHYEAH that spacecraft testing looks really really cool I'd definately waste some time and effort on that if the opportunity became available.
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Re: What would you do if you were a multi-millionaire?

Post by RascalJones »

Trust me zorp, you can learn as much, if not more, from your kids than you ever teach them yourself.


You learn a LOT more ABOUT yourself too. Right now, I'm not too happy with what I've learned about myself over the past 6 months. I got some work to do on me.
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Re: What would you do if you were a multi-millionaire?

Post by ZoRPrimE »

Sorry man I did kind of make it sound like you had to stop learning because you have kids. Kids are like a treasure trove on learning about human nature. A lot of things I've learned have been from friends that have families that are close enough and open about how their lives are going.

Kiddo's definately require a sacrafice especially in those early years. I've watched one of the most multitasking capble friends I've ever known become a space cadet!! He's either coming or going but he's only certain that he is in motion.
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Re: What would you do if you were a multi-millionaire?

Post by RascalJones »

and, I wasn't offended.
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Re: What would you do if you were a multi-millionaire?

Post by severebeating »

Cyclo, is that funny looking double sphere the engine/fuel tanks? or is that the rocket?

REALLY COOL!!!
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Re: What would you do if you were a multi-millionaire?

Post by emperoral »

If I won the lottery I would travel the world and see which part I would set up home in. Prob leave the UK for good well they tax me enough already and with their stealth taxes it just get crazy. Have to be a place by water as I would get a boat / yacht though not a big one and enjoy sailing. Dont ask me why never done it but I would love to must be feeling nautical.
Oh and I would build a fence around Boston England to keep the Fen monkeys undercontrol also I would find the ones that escaped think their is one in Coventry called Chris! lol
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Re: What would you do if you were a multi-millionaire?

Post by Cyclohexane »

[quote=""I__CHAOS__I""]your 4 year old son is totally OP rasc :D

I think I'm already a multi-millionaire... in yen :twisted:

[/quote]

Not me, not even in pesos…

[quote=""Blackadderthe4th""]
Also learn to fly and get working replicas of Spitfires and Messerschmidts.[/quote]

You can learn to fly amazingly cheaply. Microsoft’s flight simulator X is a great tool and with a giant screen TV and working yoke and pedal, very lifelike. Getting your actual license will take some cash though. I have a few hours of flight accumulated but decided to stop due to funding. I can get 1 month of martial arts for the same price as 1 hour of flight…

[quote=""severebeating""]Cyclo, is that funny looking double sphere the engine/fuel tanks? or is that the rocket?

REALLY COOL!!![/quote]

Well, the whole thing is one module of a rocket. The idea is to connect many of these together with a capsule on the top. This is just a test vehicle for the engine, the actual vehicle would look much different. The funny looking double spheres is currently liquid oxygen and ethanol. Yea ethanol is the fuel, the same thing you drink and makes your stronger, sexier, and a better dancer.
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Re: What would you do if you were a multi-millionaire?

Post by ZoRPrimE »

[quote=""emperoral""]If I won the lottery I would travel the world and see which part I would set up home in. Prob leave the UK for good well they tax me enough already and with their stealth taxes it just get crazy. Have to be a place by water as I would get a boat / yacht though not a big one and enjoy sailing. Dont ask me why never done it but I would love to must be feeling nautical.
Oh and I would build a fence around Boston England to keep the Fen monkeys undercontrol also I would find the ones that escaped think their is one in Coventry called Chris! lol[/quote]

I like the Nautical idea emperoal! I've never even imagined that a nautical life might be fun until I was invited to go sail boating out in Galveston Bay, it is quite serene out there. It's amazing the seperation from any problem/stress in normal life that you get. Maybe its something about losing sight of the coast line and the otherworldlyness of the ocean.

Well the sail boating was 6-7 years ago but a few weeks ago I was fishing off a dock in Galveston and sure enough the boat tied to the pier started to move, the guy lived off his boat and was switching piers because the weather looked like it might slap his boat pretty roughly. What an intersting life he must lead I thought!
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Re: What would you do if you were a multi-millionaire?

Post by Lord_Asward »

Well im not millionare but i have good live cause my granfather is Its normal you just have your own airplane,nice cars(MERCEDES BENZ,BMW),Your own yatcht,you have nice thing,POLO T-Shirts,Nice watches,wutever but is all crap.And your parents travel all day.
Its nice but has consecuenses
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