In a recent column, Marc Andreessen made a point of quoting the late Tim Berners-Lee’s own description of how the web came to be: “We were all sitting around talking about how we could do something interesting with a computer. And one guy said, “I know what I think I can do with a computer. I think I can make an email program.” And the rest of us all agreed with him, but we didn’t call it email until he had done it.”

This describes exactly what happened in the early days of the web — there was very little agreement about what should be done with computers and very little agreement on what should be called this new medium. The reason for this is that people have always tried to solve problems in their own way, without regard for any sort of consensus or standard methodology (even if you are not familiar with that term). That is not to say that people did not want to agree on some common standards – they wanted to agree on things like “what should the URL be?” and “how should we organize our documents?” But when there was no agreed upon standard, people often picked whatever they liked as most appropriate — even if it wasn’t right.

Today, we are at a point where we must take a closer look at whether or not any consensus has been reached in order to define our own standards and bring them into common usage as well (or at least get our ideas heard). Here is one example:

There is an open source project called bitcoin . There are several different forks of bitcoin . One fork is named bitcoin cash , which adds a feature called SegWit . Another fork is named bitcoin gold , which adds another feature called CryptoNight . Everyone agrees that both these features will provide faster transaction times and lower fees than existing bitcoin software. However, no one agrees how these features will be implemented or whether they will be implemented in any particular order (or whether Bitcoin Core software will change its behavior). We need some rules regarding what happens when two such different implementations become available – rules that explain when one implementation becomes more correct than the other; and whether anyone can improve upon them by patching Bitcoin Core software (after making sure nobody else does so using their fork) so as not to leave anyone worse off than before (which would have occurred if nobody had patched Bitcoin Core).

We need guidelines for deciding which changes are best for

Cheating is often about more than just sex

A recent study conducted by researchers at the University of British Columbia, University of Toronto, and the University of Waterloo suggests that people are cheating when they are in long distance relationships.

In a paper published in the March issue of the journal Emotion, the researchers found that people who were physically or mentally better off were more likely to cheat than those who were lower on these factors. The study further showed that physical and mental health was not a factor in these relationships, which is important to note because otherwise it would seem as though it was cheating.

The study’s lead researcher, Dr. Stuart Newman, explains his findings: “We expected cheating would be driven by who was physically and mentally better off. We found it was instead driven by how much money each partner was better off — rather than relating to their relationship quality in general.”

Cheating can be emotional as well as physical

I have a friend whose 20-year-old son is a senior at a top university. When he comes home for the holidays, he brings his camera with him and videotapes his favorite things. He used to record everything — but now it’s more of a hobby than anything. I know this because I watch the recordings, which seem to be more about him than me.

He doesn’t let me copy them, though — “I don’t want you watching me cheat on my wife!” he says when we get into an argument about it.

I realize that my friend has decided that cheating is part of how to express himself — no matter how much it hurts him or his family, it must be done somehow in order to understand himself better. But why? Is there something inherently wrong with cheating? Are we all so self-sacrificing that we need to do this stuff in order to prove our love and value?

I feel like there are many reasons why people cheat on their spouses or partners: they may not love them anymore; they may believe that they can find someone else who loves them as much as they do; they may be afraid of being alone; and so on — but if cheating happens often enough, does it become a habit? This is one area where I have no answers or solutions for my friend, but it does fascinate me about what makes cheating work for some people and not others.