البتاني

Quiz
1. if there are slightly less than an extra 6 hours in a year, won't adding a leap day every 4 years still result in some discrepancy?

2. why wasn't Al-Biruni mentioned in the list of astronomers?

3. week 1 = Persian Uzbeki, week 5 = African Berber whose family immigrated from Spain, week 9 = Turkish Sabian. Are we ever going to get an Arab ADW?


had an incredibly difficult time trying to find a suitable picture for his Official ADW ID. There are only two pictures of him on the google images (under any and all variations of his name in English and Arabic) and both of 'em suck



suppose they are alright, but certainly not worthy of iconic status. ADW is an exclusive organization and members are expected to maintain a standard of decorum. Since the only two pictures of him in existence are a coupla bad drawings, figured I'd just go 'head and make my own picture

based on all both representations of him, the look we were going for was husky dude with a beard and a turban. First thing that comes to mind when I think of husky dudes from back in the day with beards is Guan Yu. Now, no one would ever confuse a second century Chinese general with a ninth century Arab scholar, but I needed a husky dude with beard. Everyone knows that Guan Yu looks like this: . All I needed was that with slightly more pixels. Figured I'd just cut and paste a turban on a Guan Yu head and call it a day, but to my shock and disappointment, there weren't hardy any good pictures of Guan Yu on the google images (in English, Chinese or traditional Chinese). WTF!?!?!?

best I could find are these shots of 巴森扎布 from last year's John Woo movie (apparently 狄龍 went for a more metrosexual look in the other one)


the first one is too bloody, the second too surprised, and the third has an SUV in the background. That wasn't a problem though, since I was gonna cut and paste his head anyways. Found a good background and was starting to look for clothes, but by that point it kinda stopped being fun


while he is far and away the dumpiest Awesome Dude of the Week, I don't yet feel obliged to provide posterity with a better artistic rendition of him



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answers to last week's quiz

1. wait, how was he a mestizo? Doesn't Español + Castiza = Español?
c'mon, let that one slide. One of his youtubes said it perfectly: "1/4 indio de sangre pero 100% indio de corazón". Of course he is really more like 1/32 or 1/64, but still. If these people qualify as black under our one-drop rule, then he can certainly be claimed by whoever needs him to advance their cause



2. why isn't his name spelled Tupaq Amaru?
the answer to the first question is 'bout as far as I'll allow the truth to be stretched to comply with anyone's racist political agenda