ब्रह्मगुप्त

only one question this week, but promise I'll get y'all an answer several paragraphs long

1. wait, wasn't Issac Newton the first guy to tell everyone 'bout gravity?
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the google images didn't have any pictures, but the Hindi wikipedia came through. Might be the most sensual mathematician portrait ever. I didn't include his perfectly sculpted muscles in his official ADW ID, but if anyone wants to fantasize 'bout a 7th century underwear model with an IQ of 257, can't do much better than this guy. I don't think anyone will be able to compete with SRK as Ashoka, but ब्रह्मगुप्त overtakes بن خلدون as the sexiest ADW to date

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not sure if all the Schoolhouse Rock cartoons sucked, but I would not recommend that you click here to watch the youtube of My Hero, Zero. Better to remain nostalgic and disagree with me based on your memories. Perhaps this clip was just a particularly uninspired one, but I can think of far better ways to waste 3 minutes of time. Like watching this followed by this. That there is a WAY more entertaining use of 3 minutes


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questions from last week regarding issues I avoided
1. wait, who was his father? Sure his mama didn't get knocked up by someone else?
oh, who cares. Just more proof that bastards and adoptees can grow up to do anything their lil' illegitimate hearts desire

2. why didn't you mention anything 'bout his ironic death? He had doctors making him immortality pills and wound up dying from mercury poisoning
get outta here. Stuff like 蓬莱山 has nothing to do with anything. Pretty much every megalomaniac dictator goes through a cheating death phase. Punchline here was that the folks he sent to get the elixir of life from 安期生 never returned because they knew they'd be killed

3. didn't he basically spend the last years of his life trying to find the elixir of life?
I already covered this in the answer to the previous question. Plus his empire continues to grow and expand and increase in awesomeness more than 2,000 years later. Let's not underestimate his legacy. HE MADE CHINA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

秦始皇

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questions regarding issues I avoided
1. wait, who was his father? Sure his mama didn't get knocked up by someone else?

2. why didn't you mention anything 'bout his ironic death? He had doctors making him immortality pills and wound up dying from mercury posioning

3. didn't he basically spend the last years of his life trying to find the elixer of life?
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some things said he was born in Hendan, but couldn't confirm it to my satisfaction so I chose to err on the side of caution rather than error. Chose to err on the side of sloppy sound editing when I rerecording the last lil' bit because I didn't much care for the punchline I had in the original. ADW2.0 is all 'bout being a week late because you spent an excessive amout of time not publishing so you can tweak some minute detail. Someone needs some interns, STAT!!! Redid the ruloph pic. Made his nose redder and the names of the other deer a lil' clearer. Also had some burned alive pictures, but decided not to include them. Featured dead hookers in a previous one, but those were more comedic due to the pictures being of actresses pretending to be dead hookers and not actual dead hookers. These were actual people getting burned alive. Reckoned that while people don't mind hearing tales of death and destruction, some might be squimish at witnessing it in action. Didn't want the shock value to distract from the education, so I opted to leave out. Plenty of folks get burned alive though. We had a pretty famous one a few years back in Texas, and several hundred women have been burned alive in US occupied Iraq. North Korean military and South African mob violence and drug dealers in Rio too, but those tend to be isolated events, whereas more chicks have been burned alive under our watch in Iraq than were scholars under 秦始皇's reign


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answers to last week's angry questions from people whom I offended:

1. what do you mean he didn't convert people? He converted the King of Georgia at swordpoint
not like ბაგრატ V really converted to Islam, that was just a farce so he could get himself released
2. why didn't you say anything 'bout kurash 'rassling? It's not an Olympic event, but is kinda a big deal in the Asian games. He was a proponent, you shoulda shown this oft-overlooked sport some love
you're right. The video was running a bit long though, and I opted to emphasis his contributions to chess over 'rassling. Don't regret flashing a picture and telling a joke at the moment, but I might a few months from now. In which case I'll issue you an apology and promise to do a remix just like for ਗੁਰੂ ਨਾਨਕ ਦੇਵ

تیمور

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angry questions from people whom I offended:
1. what do you mean he didn't convert people? He converted the King of Georgia at swordpoint

2. why didn't you say anything 'bout kurash 'rassling? It's not an Olympic event, but is kinda a big deal in the Asian games. He was a proponent, you shoulda shown this oft-overlooked sport some love
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the original youtube of this clocked in at just under 5 minutes, making it by far the longest one yet. There were some parts I coulda cut, but I like one take and done. Been having major drama with my youtube thumbnails though, and after 5 uploadings (editing the length of the video to change the random images that youtube allows me to use as the thumbnail) I still couldn't get a resonable image. Certainly annoying, especially since such a high percentage of the video is his ADW ID

never re-edited or done a second take before, but reckoned it was time for that streak to come to an end. Been slacking on the ADWs as of late; couldn't finish 墨子 in Miami or Boston, and did Βελισάριος drunk, which turned out less than ideal. Figured since this was the first of the promised ones that came to fruition, it was high time to class the operation up a bit. Turns out that I had his dates wrong when I flashed him as a future ADW too. 1370 was when he founded his dynasty, not when he was born. I'm sure I've made lots of mistakes (mispronuncing the Kushan empire was on purpose), but this is the first embarassing one across which I've come

flawlessly spliced a few bits from the original recording into version 2.0. The camels versus elephants bit was more emotional and comedic the first time around, as were his warnings from beyond the grave so I used those. Reworded a few passages as well. Basically just tightened the whole thing up a bit. Still couldn't get the correct thumbnail picture though, even after a record-setting 17 edits and uploads. That is just ridiculous. The youtube proved even more stubborn than me though, so after 6 days of failure decided to settle for the chess board. Losing a week of productivity ain't really worth the satisfaction of having the correct thumbnail image appear when the video is embedded

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the standard go to picture of wheel-chair dudes being hard-core is prolly a still from that movie Murderball, but I opted for something a lil' more personal. Other than me and Matthew McConehey, pretty much the only people who play on the myspace are aspiring rappers. I like the myspace infinitely better than I do the facebook, and in a futile attempt to prolong its relevance I approve of all friend requests from aspiring rappers. I get 'bout a half-dozen of 'em every week, and rarely do I bother clicking on their profile page as increasing their friends count fulfills the extent of my giving back to the virtual community. This one dude intrigued me though. In his thumbnail picture it appeared that he was smoking a blunt. You can't smoke blunts in myspace profile pictures. That is so bad-ass. I clicked on his profile to view the picture in a larger size, and in addition to his numerous tattoos (including facial) and ubiquitous shots of him posing with his boyz throwing up signs, he is proudly smoking a blunt. What a thug. He's also in a wheelchair. Needless to say, MAJE$TY DA $TREETKING has been my #1 friend on the myspace for a few weeks now

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since this turned out to be the first ADW 2.0, appropriate that I old schooled it and used a picture from the very fist video . Also recycled a camel from a previous one. Emassing quite the collection of stock photos

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obviously the poisoned tusked elephants were Elephas maximus and not Loxodonta africana, but the only raging Asian elephants I could find didn't have tusks. The ones that محمود الدین ناصر‎ had were also wearing chain mail. While my intention is to diseminate knowledge rather than ignroance, hopefully an unarmed stampede of the incorrect genus nonetheless served to illistrate the improvosational skills of تیمور

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zingers for the militants:
1. dropped tha ball on not big upping Thracian people. Sparticus, both emperors in your youtube, son of Ares, the Illiad, Herodotus ranking 'em #2 behind India in population, from Skudra to conquering Persia with Alex the Great, shoulda kinda mentioned some of that
less you got some kinda proof, I'ma say he was Illyrian. Born in Illyria = Illyrian 'til you gimme something better

2. um . . . Persians owned the Byzantines. What are you talking 'bout?
I totally mentioned that his military achievements came with lil' support. He was completely outmanned. No way he coulda won. Victory + stalemate = them settling for extracting tribute. If Palau played Brasil in futebol and beat 'em 1-0 in the home game and tied 'em 0-0 in São Paulo, that for sure counts as something their coach can put on his resume

Βελισάριος

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militant people who will get zingered in next week's mailbag responses:
1. dropped the ball on not big upping Thracian people. Spartacus, both emperors in your youtube, son of Ares, the Iliad, Herodotus ranking 'em #2 behind India in population, from Skudra to conquering Persia with Alex the Great, shoulda kinda mentioned some of that

2. um . . . Persians owned the Byzantines. What are you talking 'bout?


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I actually don't think they were chanting "Εν Τουτω Νικα" during the riots, but still. Can't nobody be mad at me for setting the Nika riots to this guy's soundtrack. Off by a dozen emperors and a coupla hundred years, but I doubt anyone else is gonna find a more appropriate heavy metal song and set it to rioting Simpsons

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last week's proverbial peanut gallery that wouldn't let me off the hook for avoiding these pressing issues in last week's video:
1) why didn't you mention something 'bout his father being from the शूद्र caste?
shut up
2) why didn't you mention something 'bout his father being from the ক্ষত্রিয় caste?
shut up
3) wait, why did you spell क्षत्रिय in Bengali?
shut up
4) weren't they Punjabi?
shut up
5) or descendants of sun-worship Persians?
shut up
6) enough with the ethnicity, I wanna know where you got your languages of the world rankings. Or did you just kinda make 'em up?
there are no accurate numbers on this, so any ranking is subjective. Since I am smarter than most of the people who make the rankings, I have no problem coming up with my own. Chinese is still #1, and while English is increasing (mostly amongst those who do not speak it as their primary language), most of the hundreds of millions who speak English as a second language are less fluent than are the hundreds of millions who speak Chinese as a first. The Spanish numbers are some of the most predictable, whereas the Hindi/Urdu ones are anybody's guess. Way more people in India/Pakistan that anyone wants to admit though, so they get the nod there. Russian below French and Portuguese since it is declining in population. France below Portuguese for the same reason. Folks in Africa, but no one else needs or cares 'bout it as a Lingua Franca. Still more relevant than German though, so Deutsch got bumped from the list
7) I appreciate your overview of Bengali highlights, but why didn't you mention something 'bout all the smoking hot women?
sounds like you need to get yourself on the mailing list
GOL Bengali people!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
8) wait, how is he responsible for mongroves and tigers?
the word is spelled mangroves

ধর্মপাল

the proverbial peanut gallery demands answers. I avoided these issues in the video, but some folks just love themselves some controversy:
1) why didn't you say something 'bout his father being from the शूद्र caste?
2) why didn't you say something 'bout his father being from the ক্ষত্রিয় caste?
3) wait, why did you spell क्षत्रिय in Bengali?
4) weren't they Punjabi?
5) or descendants of sun-worship Persians?
6) enough with the ethnicity, I wanna know where you got your languages of the world rankings. Or did you just kinda make 'em up?
7) I appreciate your overview of Bengali highlights, but why didn't you mention something 'bout all the smoking hot women?
8) wait, how is he responsible for mangroves and tigers?
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the wikipedia mentioned that after conquering the Pratiharas he boasted he was "Uttarapathasvamin or Lord of Northern India." I wanted to color in the map and write that bad-assed title on the new oval of purple Pala Empire that he conquered



getting that name in Bengali was a lil' difficult though. Had to Noah Webster it up a bit and learn me some Sanskrit and Hindi, but I got it. None of that easy clicking on hyperlinks or asking the google or the wiktionary. Old school internet and searching on sites of questionable legitimacy to get some answers. Plenty of bad/useless information out there, but after some thugged out brainstorming I got it. Then a few days later I got some of my people in India to confirm it. That's how I roll

Here go my winning sources:
1
2
3
4

much thanks to the Majumdar family as well

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Answers to last week's quiz
Shandong is the undisputed #1 source of Awesome Dudes of the Week, with twice the number of ADWs born there than anywhere else in the world. There is however, another state than can lay claim to birthing even more if future ADWs are taken into account. From whence comest a triumvirate of dudes?
Uzbekistan, which in addition to having the most Awesome Dudes, also has a ridiculously high ADW per capita (1 per 9 million current denizens)

墨子

quiz
Shandong is the undisputed #1 source of Awesome Dudes of the Week, with twice the number of ADWs born there than anywhere else in the world. There is however, another state than can lay claim to birthing even more if future ADWs are taken into account. From whence comest a triumvirate of dudes?


gotta admit that I was proud of myself for instantly relating Mohism's stance against fatalism to one of the main tenets of Terminatorism[1]. Most folks prolly wouldn't associate the works of James Cameron with any of the Hundred Schools of Thought from the Warring States Period, but fortunately for y'all I am way smarter than pretty much everyone on the planet. That I got John Connor telling Ahnold "There is no fate but what we make for ourselves" with Chinese subtitles is beyond even my own lofty expectations though. That is just insane. All hail the king of fusing ancient Chinese philosophy with early 90's pop culture. In your face Family Guy manatee jokes



notes

this guy made a Terminator monster ballad. Pure genius. The lyrics are all there if you click on the (more info) thing

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Answers to last week's quiz

1. with a picture shout-out this week, who ties بیرونی as the most referenced person in ADW history?
Κλαύδιος Πτολεμαίος. Reckon once you get your second recognition in another dude's video that qualifies you for future ADW status. The threshold for inclusion will likely increase in the future, but since two mentions at this points means you've appeared in over 15% the youtube bios, that is pretty darn impressive. Course, بیرونی caught his 2nd after only 5 vids, giving him an insane 40% appearance rate. Still though, congrats to Egypt for having a son rank amongst the most mentioned

بو علي، الحسن بن الحسن بن الهيثم

quiz
1. with a picture shout-out this week, who ties بیرونی as the most referenced person in ADW history?
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y'all almost caught jokes this week, but I punked out at the last minute and opted for the typical medieval Muslim scholar. Lots of interesting non-academics, but that whole racist propaganda of "The Dark Ages" followed by "The Scientific Revolution" just pisses me off. How you think things just magically jumped from Aristotle to 1543? Attila the Hun, the bubonic plague, and then the Renaissance? No one thinks there might be something missing there?

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I wanted to see if I could find a pro 'rasslin'esque picture that would do the name "The Physicist" justice. Most people don't think of physicists as bringers of pain, but if there were a pro 'rassler named "The Physicist" I guarantee you he would be a bad guy who would just punish people. He'd be a really big nasty ogre who would pummel little guys using torque and centripetal force and all sorts of cool finishing moves. The google images gave me plenty of pictures of scientists, a bikini chick, some jokes, and finally an album cover for what looked like a heavy metal band. It was exactly the picture for which I was looking. The band's name was Devin Townsend, so I typed that into the google images. I don't know anything 'bout Devin Townsend, but I hope when I tell my 14-year-old son to turn down that music, he will be rocking something similar. What parent wouldn't be proud of their pimply lil' virgin for blasting this guy

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answer to last week's question

Mongols = "the most powerful empire in the history of the world" Really? Sure 'bout that one?

who you got? No one inspired fear like the Mongols. No one had a bigger empire. No one wrecked shop as quickly. No one cared less 'bout governing or converting people. They just straight thugged out and conquered. Plus they introduced the plague to Europe. Pax Mongoliana = the spread of the bubonic plague across the Eurasian landmass. What other empire spread disease like that? Spain smallpoxed the mess outta 'Merica, but they can't touch the Mongols. Alexander might be #1 of all time, but he was just a one hit wonder. Romans had some longevity, but they needed lots of campaigns and centuries to establish themselves. Plus they did sissy things like build aqueducts and have parades. The early days of Islam were pretty phenomenal, with Muhammad and them controlling Portugal to India, but they have that whole no booze and no swine thing working against them. You can't claim to be the baddest-asses ever if when offered a bacon double cheeseburger and a beer and you say "yeah, that sound delicious, but my religion kinda forbids those things"

Mongols win. How many Romans were in Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure? You think there is an action figure of Julius Caesarplaying drums for the Wyld Stallyns?