Katie Hafner

Berners-Lee started the World Wide Web as a set of protocols for transferring, linking and addressing documents to send over the Net. Without the global reach and open technical standards of the Internet, the Web could never have proliferated as it did.

Stacey Napp understands the ugly side of divorce - which is often the side that involves money. In fact, she understands it so well that in 2008 she started a business, Balance Point Divorce Funding, which invests in divorce and probate litigation, helping clients cover costs in exchange for a share of the winnings.

Using the HTTP protocol, computer scientists around the world began making the Internet easier to navigate by inventing point-and-click browsers. One browser in particular, called Mosaic, created in 1993 at the University of Illinois, would help popularize the Web, and therefore the Net, as no software tool had yet done.

Most of us cluster somewhere in the middle of most statistical distributions. But there are lots of bell curves, and pretty much everyone is on a tail of at least one of them. We may collect strange memorabilia or read esoteric books, hold unusual religious beliefs or wear odd-sized shoes, suffer rare diseases or enjoy obscure movies.