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Gaurav Sabnis 🇮🇳🇺🇸 Profile picture
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9 Dec, 11 tweets, 4 min read
This city I tell you! 😍😍😍🗽
Also, if a humpback whale has randomly surfaced, we can assume that the USS Enterprise NCC-1701 is hidden somewhere in orbit. #StarTrekIV #VoyageHome
Which is the cutest most fun Star Trek movie of all time and why is it #StarTrekIV? Wrath of Khan is best overall obviously. But when it comes to funny, cute moments, especially with the cast so visibly old. Time travel and whales and general goofiness. Nimoy as director.
Today is my "helping students with analytics projects" day and I can't think of a better movie to have on in the background between zoom calls than this one. They were all obviously having so much fun together. Image
It even starts with a very "awwww" inducing message. Image
Me: Okay, so does that answer all your questions about the Gephi assignment?
Student: Yup, thanks.
Me: We still have 5 minutes left. Let me tell you about Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home
Student: Ok! (My students know my tendency for pop culture tangents)

I think I sold her on it.
You need no prior Trek knowledge or even hardcore interest in sci-fi. It's basically Leonard Nimoy, well ahead of his time, telling us to take care of the environment. While having a lot of fun and doing some downright adorable things. And there's whales.
Three #StarTrek movies I've rewatched more than I can remember
The Wrath of Khan
The Voyage Home
First Contact.

The only Trek movie I really truly absolutely loathed - Into Darkness. Because it was like Abrams and Cumberbatch taking a huge stinky dump on Wrath of Khan.
I'm no purist curmudgeon opposed to reboots. But the JJA Trek reboot movies are so bad and so gimmicky and so shallow, they almost seem like his revenge on some Trekkie ex of his. Just. So. Bad.
I also love the bait & switch Nimoy did in Voyage Home. It starts off seeming like something about a big conflict with the Klingon Empire and some mysterious evil alien probe.
And then it turns on a dime into a cute environmental conservation time travel wholesomeness.
I'm always full of Trek trivia, but my most favorite one is about Nichelle Nichols not quitting the show after the first season like she had decided, because Martin Luther King Jr. himself begged her not to. Because representation. How much it meant for black people.

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More from @gauravsabnis

Gaurav Sabnis 🇮🇳🇺🇸 Profile picture
13 Dec
TIL that Bhakt whatsapp, usually busy researching archaic islamic theology, has taken a break to research Canada's agriculture laws. 😂
To attack Trudeau 😂
Never mind that Trudeau didn't criticize the laws. Just the treatment of protesters.

Modi voters are so default dishonest!
Vajpayee was no saint, but he got regularly criticized and lampooned and even officially internationally sanctioned. Not once was there "HOW DARE YOU?" pushback from his people. Shekhar Suman rebooted his career by lampooning Vajpayee.

Modi is so thin-skinned and insecure!
Hearing more about it, this isn't something to "😂" at but rather "😳". This is some well thought out sophistry from the bhakt-lite camp. The logic is, Canada has laws similar to what BJP passed. So Trudeau is out of line. Again, he only talked about protests. But let's see...
Read 4 tweets
Gaurav Sabnis 🇮🇳🇺🇸 Profile picture
13 Dec
Almost any elite Indian's dream of a "developed" India will have Nordic type infrastructure and safety and low crime. But still daily domestic help that is paid in Indian wage terms, cheap autos and cabs, cheap food delivery etc.
And therein lies the disconnect between the urban elites (especially Modi lovers) and the protesting farmers. They seem almost outraged that these farmers look better off than the emaciated ones in old newsreels, but are still protesting. Bhakts consider them "uppity".
The subtext of the lofty sounding "Jai jawaan, jai kisaan" is that it is the duty of soldiers and farmers to be overworked and underpaid. And now that farmers don't look emaciated, they are suddenly thought of as fat cats. By people sitting in westernized apartment complexes.
Read 13 tweets
Gaurav Sabnis 🇮🇳🇺🇸 Profile picture
10 Dec
A very underrated and underknown figure. Centuries ahead of his time. And he got exactly the kind of pushback that Defund Police activists do today. To temper his "radical" positions towards the center. But without him, the center would have been considered radical.
This is a point I've been trying to make since the election to well meaning liberals who are going after the progressive wing and especially the squad, saying defund or GND or M4A are unrealistic pipe dreams. They might end up being. But those positions are ideological anchors.
Many like Lincoln himself (who until the war was kinda centrist if not conservative on race by today's standards) lectured Garrison, saying dude, be realistic. But he stuck to his positions and advocacy. And the center slowly moved towards him.
Read 8 tweets
Gaurav Sabnis 🇮🇳🇺🇸 Profile picture
9 Dec
Oh wow, this is huge! This is a bipartisan challenge to Facebook, if it involves the federal government AND 48 states. No republican democrat differentiation here. This is the United States declaring war on Facebook!
It'll take a while for everyone to realize what a huge deal this is. Like earth shattering historic huge. In these ultra polarized times when the 2 parties can't even agree on an election outcome, they are united in wanting to dismantle Facebook!

Anti-trust actions in the past against IBM, Microsoft etc haven't really gone anywhere. Mostly because by the time the lawsuits played out, the companies had stopped being monopolies, so prosecutors lost interest.

But this Facebook suit is WAY more all encompassing!
Read 7 tweets
Gaurav Sabnis 🇮🇳🇺🇸 Profile picture
9 Dec
मी संयुक्त बहुग्रहीक संघराज्याच्या अंतरिक्ष यान उ. स. स. एंटरप्राइझ चा कर्णधार झीन-लुच पिकॉर्ड बोलत आहे!
अरे जिम्या, मेलाय हा! @11ty1
ती लक्ष्मणरेखा इथेच ओढली पाहिजे! फक्त इथपर्यन्त! त्यपुढे एक तिसु देखील नाही! 😠😠😠😠
Read 4 tweets
Gaurav Sabnis 🇮🇳🇺🇸 Profile picture
9 Dec
This chapter in the Obama book kinda depressed me. Because it reminded me that on carbon emissions, US and China are in a kind of a Nash Equilibrium in not changing their respective positions. They can each justifiably blame the other to their domestic audiences. Image
When this happened, Democrats had 60 seats in the senate. But climate change has gotten so politicized in America that Obama couldn't even think of convincing 7 Republican senators to go along and ratify a binding climate treaty. That was our last dance. Under pressure.
It didn't used to be like this. Nixon set up the EPA and passed the Clear Air and Water Acts. Until then, US skies were as smoggy and heavy as Indian and Chinese cities.
Remember acid rain? Bush Sr was the one who changed policies to make it a distant memory. Republicans both.
Read 5 tweets

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