If

IF you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise: 

If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools: 

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: 'Hold on!' 

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
' Or walk with Kings - nor lose the common touch,
if neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man, my son!

--Rudyard Kipling

Information and Design

Why those who devise the mechanisms to generate data need designers to communicate and orchestrate their outputs.

Pants

I generally try to avoid posts like this, but I found myself so baffled by this sight today in Columbia Heights that I had to post it.

The woman below appeared to be heading off to work around 8:50am this morning on Newton Street.  Nothing about her stood out at first.  But then I thought, "Is she missing her pants?  A skirt maybe?"

Upon closer inspection, something was indeed out of place.  I was speaking with my friend, Jonah on the phone and said, "Uh man, I need a second opinion on something I'm seeing here.  I'm going to SMS you an image right now and give me your honest point of view." --which he did.

He concurred that this woman appeared to have on no pants.  I checked my rear view mirror from about 1/2 half a block away, and yes, that pink polka dot pattern was indeed showing in the front too.