▲ of the Mind [007]

While some people may be able to have a newsletter with a three digit numbering scheme and pass right over issue 007 without making a James Bond reference… I ain’t one of them.

The James Bond series of films is something I’ve been heavily invested in since the Pierce Brosnan era. I also played a gross amount of the Golden Eye game for the Nintendo 64 (it truly is a classic for the platform). It is certainly up for argument who the “best” actor has been to play Bond, however, I have enjoyed the last several films starring Daniel Craig more than the ones before them. The story arc in the recent films has been darker and goes deeper into the man that James Bond is and how he got there vs. simply leaning on the secret agent character and fascade.

There’s quite a bit of speculation on who will play Bond in future films, but I don’t have any strong feelings on that topic. My hope is that it will usher in a new face and personality that can continue to surface layers of the character and story that were previously untapped.

In my normal way of taking something inane and looking for a deeper meaning… I’ve actually thought a lot about how if we zoom out and look at our own lives, many of us have probably had some similar casting changes for the character that is one’s self. As I look at my own life and the phases or chapters it has had thusfar, I can say with certainty that there have been a few casting changes. While that may make some people uncomfortable, I think it is a sign of growth. A shedding of the skin that no longer fits to grow into the new skin that does.

After my grandmother passed away in 2008, we were going through her things; as a family left behind does. She always kept a small lined pad next to her chair at the kitchen table. It was used for jotting down various notes and things of reference throughout all the years I knew her. The one she was using at the very end had many blank pages left, but when the pad was flipped through there was one loose, folded page tucked all the way against the binding and the brown cardboard backing. It was a page that had been torn out and on it was a single sentence written in her ever-too-perfect handwriting:

It’s never too late to become the person you want to be.

1️⃣ Something I read…

‎Cracking the Code: Sneakers at 30

As its thirtieth anniversary sneaks up, editor-at-large Dominic Corry celebrates an eerily prophetic early-’90s heist caper that bridges the analog-digital divide.

Further back than when I was into James Bond movies, there was Sneakers. I was 10 when the movie debuted and I think I saw it in the theatre, but can’t be certain. Either way, I have watched it several times at this point, and it’s a classic for sure. This quote from the Letterboxd article nails it:

This is a rare movie about technology that gets it right, being accessible for everyone and accurate enough not to offend people familiar with the subject matter. It entertains, but also quietly sneaks interesting things into your head—you can pick up a lot about asymmetric cryptography, counterintelligence and social engineering (although you won’t ever hear them called that).

The short summary (that this film does an amazing job at illustrating) is simply this… Every. Detail. Matters.

2️⃣ Something I use…

Poet.so

This handy web app is one I use often for displaying a tweet in a much nicer way than the native Twitter UI allows via embed codes. It takes a Twitter URL (as well as LinkedIn and Shopify links, apparently) and lets you tweak the formatting into a shareable or downloadable card that is just gorgeous.

3️⃣ Something I heard…

Daring Fireball: The Talk Show Bond Anthology

Back in 2011, Dan Benjamin and I reviewed the then 23 James Bond movies made to date (including the non-EON production Never Say Never Again). David Smith has collected those segments into a standalone feed so you don’t have to hunt for individual movies, and don’t have to scan each episode trying to find where the Bond discussion starts.

This is the internet at its best. The link post routes over to David Smith’s curation passion project. If you like John Gruber, Dan Benjamin or James Bond movie discussion (or any mix of those ingredients), this is a great listen.

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Angles Outside 180 📐

This section is only for the folks that scroll to the bottom of a newsletter the way true fans sit to the end of the credits in a movie hoping for a little more…

How awesome is it that both 007.com and the Twitter handle @007 are both owned by the movie franchise and used frequently to share things old, new and fascinating around the franchise?
Similar to item #2, the makers of the awesome Raycast app for Mac have launched a standalone website for creating beatuiful images of your code. It’s also a script that can be run from Raycast itself. If you’re using a Mac and not running Raycast, shame on you.