Deane Barker

Code Name: Emperor

Tue, 8 Sep 2026 00:00:00 -0500

I watched Code Name: Emperor on Netflix. (That’s the English title, anyway — it’s a Spanish film. I watched it with English subtitles.)

It stars Luis Tosar, who is apparently one of the most popular actors in Spain (the only other thing I’ve seen him in is as the Big Boss in the Miami Vice movie). He plays Juan, some kind of intelligence agent — only once does someone refer to “The Agency.”

There’s are two plot threads, which confused me. A German couple is smuggling radioactive material, and Juan has been asked to find kompromat on a young politician. Those are two separate things, it turned out, but both of them play into a crisis of conscience that Juan is struggling with, which culminates in a monologue by a General about how military control and blackmail helps maintain the political order.

In retrospect, it was a little confusing. But it was compelling while I was watching it. There’s a romantic subplot which is genuinely touching, and Tosar does a great job embodying a weary agent who is questioning what side of the fence he’s actually on.

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Tue, 8 Sep 2026 00:00:00 -0500

The Drunken Witness

Mon, 7 Sep 2026 00:00:00 -0500

I was reminded of the bit player from three consecutive James Bond movies who witnesses something surreal and subsequently questions his sobriety. He was uncredited, but IMDb lists him as “Man with Bottle” twice and “Man with Wine Glass” once.

The official YouTube channel compiled all three clips into this short video.

One hopes that he’s stopped drinking by now.

Masquerade

Mon, 7 Sep 2026 00:00:00 -0500

Masquerade was an attempt to bring the Love Boat/Fantasy Island format to espionage. It didn’t even last a full season back in 1983.

Rod Taylor, Greg Evigan, and Kirstie Alley were the three constants. Taylor was the head of “Operation Masquerade,” which was a program to use civilians in spy operations, ostensibly because the Soviets knew all about the “real” spies. Evigan and Alley played his lieutenants.

Then, in each episode, there were a crew of guest stars recruited for that episode only (you can see the Love Boat angle, right?). For example, the pilot movie has Earnest Borgnine, Cybil Shepard, Richard Roundtree, Rue McClanahan, and others. Each of them bring their own little subplots and conflicts, as well as some special skill that was critical to that week’s antics.

The plot of the pilot was a far-fetched plan to discredit a Soviet spy stationed in Paris so that he wouldn’t be selected as the new head of the KGB. The entire thing was absurd and more played for laughs than drama. (For example, at one point, Borgnine’s plumber replaces the water in the Soviet’s shower with gin, to make him appear to be an alcoholic. That’s why they needed a plumber on the team, naturally.)

Someone has posted the entire pilot movie on YouTube. It’s just over an hour, which means it must have been 90-minutes with commercials. The quality is horrible, but you can get the idea.

As a bonus, here’s a 30-second bumper promo for the next episode which shows Walter Gotell (General Gogol from the Bond films) doing his best Soviet accent (he was actually German).

Also, check out the opening credits and theme song. It’s an orgy of espionage cliches.

Red Sparrow

Sat, 5 Sep 2026 00:00:00 -0500

I got stuck in Boston due to weather, so I asked AI to recommend a spy novel. It came up with Red Sparrow, which was the 2013 basis for the movie starring Jennifer Lawrence.

I tore through the book in about 24 hours. It was spectacular, and I’m currently nursing a “narrative hangover” from it.

Here is my full review.

Minox Camera Book

Fri, 4 Sep 2026 00:00:00 -0500

I spent some time with an book devoted to the history and specification of the Minox camera. This is the tiny camera that you activate by squeezing it together. It’s a staple of Cold War spy movies.

It was a quirky book — one of those things that I’m glad exists, but that I don’t quite understand.

Here’s my review.

Book Review: The Red Sparrow

Thu, 3 Sep 2026 00:00:00 -0500

TLDR: “Fantasticly addictive”

This is a very, very good novel. I had a flight delay, so I asked AI, “Recommended a spy novel that I can read in three hours.” This was one of the results. I remember the movie (though I haven’t seen it) – I didn’t even know it had been a novel first.

To be clear, you’re not going to read in this in three hours. But you will read it compulsively, because it’s incredibly well-paced and tough to put down. It’s a “hangover” book – one that you can’t quite get out of your head, and your mind lingers in it, long after you’ve finished it.

Dominicka is an aspiring Russian dancer. When her career hopes are destroyed, she directs her rage towards becoming an intelligence agent in the Russian SVR and is eventually sent to become a “sparrow” – a honey-trap; a woman who seduces her target.

In this role, she ends up in Helsinki trying to compromise a CIA agent named Nate. This starts a whole sequence of events that pits the United States against Russia in wild chess game.

What’s interesting about the book is its lack of flashy action. There are a few scenes of violence, but they’re quick, realistic, and not at all cinematic. The core of the book is a strategic game between intelligence agencies. There are moles on both sides, and people are crossed and double-crossed to the point where sometimes you have to stop and concentrate on who knows what and when. There are a lot of scenes – and an entire plot thread – where two people know things about each other, and think the other person is ignorant of it, but they’re basically playing the same game from opposite sides. It’s… delicious.

It reminded me of John Le Carre, but in a good way (I’m not really a fan; see my review of A Legacy of Spies). It was very administrative – lots of talking, thinking, strategizing – but unlike Le Carre, it was never boring.

I loved it. I tore through it in one day. I barely even remember the two flights I read it on.

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Sat, 5 Sep 2026 00:00:00 -0500

Tim used to be an employee of mine, when he worked in tech. He since walked away from that and started a business that builds decks during the summer and does custom woodwork in the winter. This book was basically written for him.

I visited with my friend Jeff in Boston. We went to the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum and spent time talking about this amateur treasure hunt he had enjoyed. I thought he would like a book about one of the great treasure hunts of the 20th century.

My friend Tom is very conservative and pro-business. We have had a long-running debate over text message. We both respect each other’s opinions and thought processes, though we don’t agree on much. I knew he would love a book where The Left calls out The Left.

I visited my friend Seth in Northhampton, Massachusetts. He took me to three bookstores in their downtown, and I kept buying books I wanted him to read and giving them to him.

Shawn is a friend who loves military history. We used to be roommates, and I remember he had this set of Time-Life books about the Vietnam War in the living room. All the while reading this, I kept thinking he would love it.

My friend Noel works in tech like me, but maintains his own cars. He helped me change the oil and replace the brakes on mine, so we’ve had some conversations about the nature of mental work vs. physical work. This seemed like a perfect book to read together, so I got him a copy.

I sent a copy of this to my son, who — like the last person I sent it to — I also hope will read it with me again.

I had been talking with a friend about this book, so I sent them a copy. I’m hoping he’ll read it with me when I go back through it. He’s very theologically conservative, I thought he would enjoy it and we might come together on some points of agreement.

I have a friend who lives in the Hamptons who has been very hospitable to me on a couple occasions. I decided that anyone who lives on Long Island needs to have a copy of The Power Broker in their house. After he received it, he sent me a lovely picture of it on display in his living room.

I met a guy about my age at Wind River Ranch and had some nice conversations about books with him. He seemed interested in the same type of books as me, and these two books had really meant a lot to me in terms of figure out the last third of my life.

A twenty-something girl working at Wind River Ranch named Reagan was talking about how she was enjoying a book by David Brooks. I was encouraged that a young person was reading Brooks, so when I was down in a bookstore in Estes Park, I bought her another Brooks title that I had enjoyed.

Movie Scene Map

Wed, 2 Sep 2026 00:00:00 -0500

On the heels of Reading Maps, we have Movie Scene Maps, which appears to locate both plot locations and filming locations. The Bond movies never disappoint in terms of globe-hopping: here’s the locations for Casino Royale.

Book Review: Shop Class as Soul Craft: An Inquiry Into the Value of Work

Tue, 1 Sep 2026 00:00:00 -0500

True Lies

Tue, 1 Sep 2026 00:00:00 -0500

True Lies came to the historic theater in our local downtown. I last watched it in the theater fully 32 years ago when it originally released.

I still remember seeing “Tom Arnold” in the opening credits and thinking, “Aw, this is going to suck…” But his character turned out to be one of the best things in the movie.

I’ve always liked the intersection of action and human stories. The marriage angle is kind of fascinating, and the ending is fulfilling. And Bill Paxton does a great job playing a slimy used car salesman trying to bed Arnold Schwarzenegger’s wife, played by Jamie Lee Curtis.

The entire film holds up really well. The sound, in particular, was absolutely incredible. There was supposed to be a sequel, but terrorism was a problematic subject after 9/11, and then Arnold was elected governor of California in 2003. Apparently a TV series was written, cast, picked up… and then ultimate canceled.

My wife even liked it, which I did not expect.

Cheese Plate: August 31, 2026

Mon, 31 Aug 2026 16:19:55 -0500

A charcuterie board at The Copper Door in Bedford, New Hampshire.

The Ipcress File

Mon, 31 Aug 2026 00:00:00 -0500

I watched The Ipcress File from 1965. It was based on Len Deighton’s first novel and was released at the height of mid-60s “Bond-mania” as kind of an anti-Bond.

Michael Caine is Harry Palmer, an Army officer working for the Ministry of Defence. He’s insolent and insubordinate and has some criminal charges in his background. Harry’s world is one of dreary offices, gloomy London streets, condescending bosses, and rote paperwork.

He’s assigned to a unit that’s trying to recover a missing scientist and discover why several other scientists have seemingly become incapable of doing critical research.

There are lots of Bond alumni here: Harry Saltzman produces, Ken Adams built the sets, and John Barry delivers one of the most classic 60s spy soundtracks you’re ever going to find (the sound you hear over and over is a cimbalom). The film direction is artistic — lots and lots of shots through some foreground object to the main action behind it.

It's a solid movie. It has a good mystery, a great climax, and Caine is fantastic in the title role.

There were a few more Harry Palmer films, both in theaters and on television, though none of them are considered as good as Ipcress. There was also a limited series in 2022 on British television which is streaming on multiple services.

Mission Impossible Prague Locations

Sun, 30 Aug 2026 00:00:00 -0500

I’ve always loved the opening scene of the original Mission Impossible. It was set in Prague, and it was the perfect mix of action and intrigue.

As luck would have it, I found myself in Prague a couple years ago, and I spent an entire day tracking down all the shooting locations I could find. (I thought this was novel and original, but it turns out a lot of people have done it.)

I put my pics, and the corresponding frame from the movie, into this Google Doc.

Red Storm Rising

Sun, 30 Aug 2026 00:00:00 -0500

I picked up Red Storm Rising yesterday, and quickly got completely engrossed in it. I have read it, but I was in high school, close to 40 years ago. It was published in 1986.

The first section of the book (I’m 150 pages in) is an absolute masterclass of intelligence gathering. Bob Toland and others in the U.S. intelligence community put together a series of clues that indicate the Soviets are about to launch an attack on West Germany. The awareness comes about slowly and methodically, as they put the puzzle together, piece by piece.

Clancy does great job of zooming in and out, from huge geopolitical machinations down to very human stories. Soviet armies and navies assemble for a surprise attack… but then one man doesn’t look both ways before crossing the street, and a piece of paper he was carrying causes the U.S. to go to DEFCON 2.

I’m absolutely hooked, which is weird considering I know how the book plays out. It’s also inconvenient when the target of an addiction is a 638-page novel. There go my evenings for a while.

Book Review: The Spy Camera: The Minox Story

Sun, 30 Aug 2026 00:00:00 -0500

TLDR: “Strange, but comprehensive”

This is an odd little book. It’s the history of a tiny camera – the Minox – that appears in a lot of spy movies. This is the little camera that someone would use to photograph documents – they trigger the shutter by squeezing it from both sides.

I don’t know why someone would write this, other than a pure love for the device. It’s quite comprehensive. Turns out it was invented by a guy in Latvia in the 1930s, and was manufactured at least through the 1990s.

The company never had any comment on its product being used for espionage. They marketed the device as a “subminature” camera, and spent a lot of research making it as small as possible. The smallest model was about the size of a cigarette lighter. And remember, this was film camera. It had a moving shutter, and a film cartridge.

I went out on eBay and found that you can buy them as collectors’ items for about $200, though I think the film must be hard to find because most of them say “untested.”

I will admit to skimming quite a bit of this book. In some ways, it’s almost a photo album – there are pages and pages of schematics and design diagrams and advertisements, etc. And a lot of the technical details went way over my head. To totally understand the book, you need a working knowledge of how a film camera operates.

A big chunk of the book is an appendix-like section which is a detailed listing and description of every model and variant of the Minox ever produced.

The book is a really comprehensive history of a quirky device that most people have never heard of. I’m glad someone wrote it, and I enjoy it as a fan of spy films, but I’m not quite sure what the demand was for it.

Gene Hackman’s Dual Identity

Sat, 29 Aug 2026 00:00:00 -0500

There’s a fan theory that says Gene Hackman was playing the same character in two espionage thrillers, released 24 years apart.

Hackman starred as Harry Caul in The Conversation in 1974. Then he played Edward “Brill” Lyle in Enemy of the State in 1998.

A theory has been floated that these two characters are the same person. From the Wikipedia page for The Conversation:

Hackman's character Edward Lyle in Enemy of the State closely resembles Caul: he dons the same translucent raincoat, and his workshop is nearly identical to Caul's. Also, the photograph used for Lyle in his NSA file is actually a photograph of Caul. Enemy of the State also includes a scene which is very similar to The Conversation's opening surveillance scene in San Francisco's Union Square.

If this is unintended as an actual plot device, then it has to be an Easter Egg or an inside joke — using the photo of Caul from the first movie for the photo of Lyle in the second movie is hard to deny.

Book Review: Red Storm Rising

Sat, 29 Aug 2026 00:00:00 -0500

TLDR: “A military masterpiece”

I read this book in high school, 40 years ago. For some unknown reason, I picked it up again. It was every bit as good.

In 1985, Muslim militants sabotage and destroy an oil refinery in central Russia. This causes a looming crisis as the Soviet Union will face fuel shortages for years before it can recover. Some members of the Politboro come up with a plan to seize Middle Eastern oil fields.

However, to do that, there is the small problem of NATO. Since they know NATO will defend in the Middle East, first they have to “split” NATO. They decide to do this by (1) invading West Germany by land, and (2) taking over Iceland which will give them the ability to shut down the Atlantic to resupply convoys.

The book is the story of what happens next.

It’s told from several perspectives. On the NATO side, we have the commander of an anti-sub frigate, a weatherman who escaped the Iceland base and is hiding out in the hills, a commander of a submarine, etc. On the Soviet side, we have the tank commander in Germany, the leader of the Iceland force, and others.

The book jumps back and forth between people and situations. Every chapter usually provides an update on all the main characters.

A lot of the war hinges on the Atlantic. If NATO can be supplied from the United States, then it will survive. So there are long, cat-and-mouse games between the supply convoys, their escorts, and the Soviet subs. This might be the books only weakness, as some of this got hard to follow. Sub warfare is pretty abstract as it is – you can’t see anything underwater – and reading about battle after battle got a little confusing.

It helped me to look up the geographic locations that were mentioned. Their relative locations matter to the plot, so knowing where they are relative to each other is helpful. (There are some interactive and static maps published. Here’s one example.)

There’s a lot of military terminology. I kept my phone handy to search for various acronyms and references. Clancy just assumes you know what everything is.

A few notes on character naming:

Two of the Russian officers have very similar names, both starting with “A.” It’s easy to get them confused.
Two of the characters are father and son, and therefore share the same last name. I got these two characters confused too.
Some characters are occasionally referred to by their title, or an acronym of their title (“CINC-WEST” for “Commander in Chief, Western Forces”). Make sure you can correlate these titles to the right character.

(This reminded me of all the problems I had with Russian naming in War and Peace. At least in this one you don’t have the female “-ova” suffix to worry about. Considering the name, geography, and terminology issues, having a notebook handy while reading wouldn’t be a bad idea.)

Clancy does a great job of explaining massive movements of men and machines, but also zeroing in on the human element. He centers the story around the characters and what they’re going through.

It’s a great book – the action never lets up. There’s not a dull moment in the 700 pages.

Ryan Reynolds on Michael Bay

Fri, 28 Aug 2026 00:00:00 -0500

This is a funny, 24-second video published by Ryan Reynolds where he’s reflecting on what’s great about filming with Michael Bay. It’s funny because the opening car chase scene from 6 Underground is filming in the background, and Reynolds just nails the timing (it could be an homage to The Greatest Shot in Television History).

Magnum P.I., S3E1

Thu, 27 Aug 2026 00:00:00 -0500

Magnum P.I. was always spy-adjacent. Magnum was an intelligence officer (…or a Navy SEAL?…or both?), and multiple episodes had a espionage angle to them, usually related to Magnum’s somewhat-murky service during the Vietnam War. He even gets called back to Naval Intelligence a couple of times.

Here’s a 22-second video of one of the most infamous moments in the series. In Nam, Magnum and T.C. were captured and tortured by a KGB agent named Ivan. When Ivan reappears in Hawaii looking for them, it results in a pretty shocking ending for primetime in 1982.

Spoiler: Magnum just plain shoots him in cold blood. The episode ends on a freeze-frame which was omitted from some international broadcasts, as it was problematic. There are no details given about how Magnum gets away with the murder.

This was the ending of a two-parter (actually a two-hour TV movie back in 1982), and the next episode in the series just picks up like nothing happened, innocently guest-starring the zany brothers from Simon and Simon, even.

(I’m still really salty that Robin’s Nest was torn down. You can see it here on Google Maps — it’s never been re-developed. It would have made an amazing AirBnB.)

The 39 Steps

Wed, 26 Aug 2026 00:00:00 -0500

I watched The 39 Steps, which is a Hitchcock movie from 1935. It’s considered one of the classic spy thrillers.

A man in London runs into a woman who claims to be a spy who has uncovered an intelligence network in Scotland. She’s on the run from assassins. Before long, the man is accused of her murder, and he has to flee into Scotland to find whatever she uncovered and prove his innocence.

It’s quite good for its time. The final sequence is really well-done and brings it all together. And I’m no expert on Hitchcock, but there’s a lot of signature style from him in there (including a brief cameo).

I’m not sure if I missed it, but I wasn’t quite sure which side was the bad guys here. This was 1935, so I imagine it must have been the Germans…?

Scarecrow and Mrs. King, S1E1

Tue, 25 Aug 2026 00:00:00 -0500

For absolutely no particular reason, I watched the first episode of Scarecrow and Mrs. King the other night.

(I almost said “re-watched” because I can’t imagine I haven’t seen this before, but it’s been 43 years since it aired, so who can remember…)

The show was a moderate success in the 80s, running for four seasons between 1983 and 1987. It was Bruce Boxleitner’s first notable thing after Tron, and Kate Jackson’s first after Charlie’s Angels.

It was… cute. Boxleitner is an agent for “The Agency,” and Jackson is a recently divorced single mom. He runs into her on a train platform and gives her a package before he gets roughed up by some KGB agents. That draws her into a plot involving a cooking show that is secretly communicating orders to kill other agents (shades of Wayne Newton’s character in License to Kill). By the end of the episode, she’s been recruited as his “civilian partner.”

There’s a weird amount of killing (I counted six people in that episode alone, most of it off-screen), and some plot holes and very convenient coincidences that don’t quite make sense. But it otherwise holds up, so long as you remember this was primetime in the early 80s.

Cryptome

Mon, 24 Aug 2026 00:00:00 -0500

Cryptome was always an odd thing. It was (is?) an online archive and document repository which published things that it hinted should not have been published.

I remember Cryptome from back in the 1990s, when I was first getting on the web. It published all sorts of random combintations of government documents, often rolled up into zip file downloads.

All the while, it gave off a very spy-ish vibe. There were various news articles on topics, but also some odd things like fighter jet operating manuals and official reports on how to store nuclear waste.

I never could figure it out, but I was fascinated by it. To me, this was an example of how the internet was a greater leveling system that gave people access to things they would never see otherwise. I always felt like a bit of a secret agent while I was browsing through it.

The Wikipedia page discussed how they were involved in WikiLeaks and other scandals, which fits. One of the founders died last year.

Syriana Plot Diagram

Sun, 23 Aug 2026 00:00:00 -0500

Syriana from 2005 is my favorite kind of movie: it has lots of plot threads that overlap and come together in different ways. I learned that this style has name: hyperlink cinema.

Unfortunately, a side effect of this style is that the film was wildly complex and hard to understand. While I was watching it for the first time, I was only barely understanding the overall plot mechanics and why everyone was doing what they were doing.

Over a decade ago, I found an interactive “plot explorer” tool for the movie that let you visually follow different threads on a digital surface. It’s here, but it was created in Flash, which hasn’t been relevant or supported on the web for years, so it doesn’t work on my browser.

Helpfully, the creator also converted it to a static image. It shows all the different groups and how they intersect, explaining what their individual motivations are which can help you figure out the plot.

(It’s worth mentioning also that Syriana has an awful torture scene which is probably the biggest impediment to me ever re-watching it.)

Ronin Car Chase

Sat, 22 Aug 2026 00:00:00 -0500

Chases are all over the place in spy movies, but the second car chase in Ronin is one of the best on film. It’s a BMW and a Peugeot through the streets of Paris.

It’s very realistic (except maybe for a weird amount of sparks). There’s no musical soundtrack for most of it, just more than seven full minutes screaming engines and scraping metal. Robert DeNiro looks like he’s on the verge of a stroke from start to finish.

Honda Del Sol Commercial

Fri, 21 Aug 2026 00:00:00 -0500

Here’s a commercial for the Honda Del Sol from 1995.

It’s very Bondian, from the music to the casting to the theme. So much so, that MGM sued Honda and made them pull it off the air.

The lawsuit accuses Honda of copyright infringement and falsely implying that the car is endorsed by MGM and Danjaq.

Fortune Hunter

Thu, 20 Aug 2026 00:00:00 -0500

Back in the mid-90s, there was a very short-lived primetime show called Fortune Hunter. I can’t find a full episode (only five of them actually aired), but here’s a short promo video.

Carlton Dial was a literal fortune hunter — he did jobs for money. I vaguely remember that he was searching for treasure or other valuable items. (There weren’t even enough episodes to totally flesh out the concept.)

There was also a weird plot device where he had cameras in his contact lenses linking back to a computer geek at home base… or something (I might be foggy on that). And, of course, Dial’s gun shot tranquilizer darts, because this was primetime and he was a good guy.

The show did not succeed, but I remember it being mildly interesting, and borrowing heavily from the Bond canon (see the video: “…Dial. Carlton Dial.”). This was right in the middle of Bond’s legal turmoil and exile from the theaters, so the time was right to fill the gap.

The show was so fleeting that I couldn’t even find a decent image for this post. And tragically, the star, Mark Frankel, died in a traffic accident just a couple years after the show aired.

Bond’s Use of the Word “Penny”

Wed, 19 Aug 2026 00:00:00 -0500

In a prior post, I mentioned the scene from Casino Royale where Vesper Lynd says, “I’m the money” and Bond responds, “…every penny of it.”

I suddenly started wondering why Bond would say the word “penny,” given that it’s a name for a unit of American currency. Shouldn’t he of said… “pence” or “quid” or something?

Well, it turns out I’m pathetically uncultured and American-centric. AI set me straight:

Your instinct has it backwards — "penny" is about as British as currency words get. It's Old English (penig), it's the name of an actual British coin (pre-decimal pence, and the 1p piece since 1971), and it's woven through the idiom: in for a penny, in for a pound; a penny for your thoughts; the penny dropped; penny-pinching; spend a penny. Americans use "penny" too, but only colloquially — the US coin is officially a cent. So if anything, "penny" reads as the Anglophone-original and the American usage as the borrowing.

I’ve embarrassed myself.

Book Review: The Pentagon: A History

Wed, 19 Aug 2026 00:00:00 -0500

TLDR: “Interesting, but nothing valuable”

I think I got this book because it was mentioned in How Big Things Get Done. I like books about infrastructure and construction of large projects, so I picked it up.

I don’t know that I got anything valuable about it. I learned some history about The Pentagon, clearly: it was astonishingly expensive for its time, and the subject of a lot of disagreement. The guy who really wanted it – General Somervell – was a little duplicitous about the size and budget. He low-balled at $35 million which sparked outrage. Then it ended up costing somewhere in the neighborhood of $70 million, in 1940 dollars.

It was built to consolidate the War Department, which was otherwise spread all over Washington. Roosevelt had a plan to use it for record storage after the war, but he died and no one else wanted to do that.

It was built in a huge rush, because right after they started building it, Pearl Harbor was attacked and World War II heated up quite a bit. They started building without plans – occasionally, the draftsmen would finished a plan for a section, rush them over to the worksite, and find that the construction crews just winged it and had already completely that section.

A big part of the budget was for the road system around the building. Lots of roads had to get rerouted, and entire interchanges were built. And, of course, the parking lots were absolutely immense.

Security was lax for a long time, and this caused two major incidents.

In 1967 there was a Vietnam protest March to The Pentagon. This is the source of the famous picture of protesters putting flowers in the barrels of soldier’s rifles. There were several scuffles right outside the doors to the building.
In 1972, the Weather Underground planted a bomb in a bathroom. Anyone could walk around the building, so one of their members just spent a lot of time there, until she found a place to hide a bomb, then they built it specifically for that purpose.

Later in the book, they spend a lot of time on the 9/11 attacks. I had also read about this in The Only Plane in the Sky, so there wasn’t much new information on the actual attacks. The Pentagon was undergoing a huge renovation at the time, and most people had not moved back into the area that the plane struck, which thankfully limited casualties. The book did go into detail on the repairs, which were rushed to be completed in a year so they could be completely rebuilt by the first anniversary of the attacks.

It was an interesting book, and I enjoyed reading it. But I can’t say I learned much that will stick with me.

Spy Briefing PowerPoint Magic

Tue, 18 Aug 2026 00:00:00 -0500

A few days ago, I posted about M’s speech to Bond in GoldenEye. Go watch that again: at a certain point, she quickly presses some buttons to reveal a TV and a ….PowerPoint (?) about General Orumov.

This is what I call “spy briefing room PowerPoint magic.” No matter what happens, someone always has these presentations ready to go. What buttons did M press? Did she have this queued up already?

It’s is a trope in spy movies that has always fascinated me. They always seem to have these ready-made presentations about the bad guys, complete with pictures, videos, and detailed stat sheets. They then immediately start talking over them, reciting statistics and detailed histories, or they have someone else in the room do it, as if it was rehearsed. They must prep these in advance because no one is ever seen fumbling for the information or trying to share their desktop — it’s always one button and voila!

In my other life, I work in the field of content management and enterprise software. I can tell you that I’ve never seen things go as smoothly as this.

Some guy is compiling all examples on screen of the “photographs connected by red string” trope. Some other guy wrote an entire book about how science fiction interfaces can be used to learn about how we should design for today.

I feel like there are lessons to be learned about how well fictional spy agencies manage their PowerPoints.