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Slashdot Asks: The Beanies Return; Who Deserves Recognition for 2014? 299

It's been a long time since Slashdot has awarded the Beanies -- nearly 15 years, in fact. But there's no time like the present, especially since tomorrow edges on the new year, and in early 2015 we'd like to offer a Beanie once again, to recognize and honor your favorite person, people (or project; keep reading) of the past year. Rather than a fine-grained list of categories like in 2000, though, this time around we're keeping it simple: we can always complicate things later, if warranted. So, please nominate below whoever you think most deserves kudos for the last twelve months. Is it ...

Read on below to see how you can take part, and then nominate your favorite in the comments below.

A few guidelines to make this work:
  • Please use the title of your post well; in the form "Name: Description of why they're deserving." (Example: "Harold Ramis: Goodbye, and thanks for all the laughs.") That way, your title can help organize the discussion, and will be easy to scan for. (That's how we'll look to credit the first one to suggest a candidate, as well.)
  • Speaking of which: please scan the other suggestions first; if you find there one you'd like to argue for or against, better to do it there, rather than start a new thread.
  • Please name an actual person, or a specific group of people, so we can send your choice -- or a representative, as appropriate -- some kind of token (to wit, a beanie). But be as creative as you want: the names listed above are just starting points.
  • Explain why your choice deserves to be lauded, with links and words; underrated heroes are welcome. If there's a relevant Slashdot story to link to, so much the better, but it's no requirement. Make it clear why your favorite deserves recognition for 2014, even if it's for contributions that started longer ago. Feel free to nominate yourself, but the same guidelines apply.
  • Accentuate the positive. We figure beanies sent to Keith Alexander, John Brennan, or Kim Jong Un won't get worn very often. Maybe there can be some anti-Beanies down the road, but for now, name the good guys, of whatever variety.
  • You need not be logged in to take part -- anonymous entries are welcome. However, because of comment thresholds, among other reasons, logged in comments may carry more weight.

We'll winnow down the suggestions below into a short list for further consideration -- and perhaps toss in a few more options to boot -- and aim to come up with a deserving new Beanie recipient (possibly more than one) before the first new moon of 2015.

Submit away.

This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.

Slashdot Asks: The Beanies Return; Who Deserves Recognition for 2014?

Comments Filter:
  • by x0ra ( 1249540 ) on Tuesday December 30, 2014 @05:41PM (#48699429)
    ... and only being remembered [by the really stupid plebe] for his really cool shirt !
    • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward

      He didn't land a probe on the moon.

    • by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 30, 2014 @05:49PM (#48699517)

      Christ, even the asshole nominating him for the least prestigious award in history can't even remember where he landed a probe...

      • by Quirkz ( 1206400 )

        Don't tell me it was our system's seventh planet ...

      • by x0ra ( 1249540 ) on Tuesday December 30, 2014 @06:04PM (#48699669)
        oops, I don't really know where the "moon" came from as I kept thinking about a "comet" :-/
      • by westlake ( 615356 ) on Tuesday December 30, 2014 @08:07PM (#48700569)

        Christ, even the asshole nominating him for the least prestigious award in history can't even remember where he landed a probe...

        It happens when the only thing the geek remembers are the leather clad babes with guns on his tee shirt.

        Maybe it's because I grew up in Pasadena, home of Caltech, mother ship of science nerdery, but I recognized Taylor's type immediately. Take a look at him: the dorky eyeglasses, the beard that's not really hip enough to be hipster, the elaborate tattoos that spill out from under that shirt all the way to Taylor's wrists. The man even had a tattoo of the Rosetta landing needled onto his leg back in January! And garish casual shirts of all kinds are part of his everyday wardrobe. Matt Taylor could be a character in ''The Big Bang Theory.''

        And part of Science Nerd culture seems to be that if your brain is big enough, it's OK for you to dress for every single occasion as though you were pondering the theory of relativity while walking your dog. So Matt Taylor donned completely inappropriate wear -- inappropriate because a scientist ought to dress professionally when presenting his work to the public, which is not the same as messing around in a lab.

        The real problem with Rosetta scientist's inappropriate shirt [latimes.com]

        • Oh enough, if a woman wore that kind of clothing during the interview, even if it was a shirt covered in pictures of hunky men, the usual talking heads bobbing up and down showering her with praise would have to wrestle with the thirsty white knights to bray the most approval. You go girl, fight that patriarchy!

          Bigotry of all sorts needs to be rooted out, especially the spreading boil that is feminism.

  • by SoCalChris ( 573049 ) on Tuesday December 30, 2014 @05:42PM (#48699443) Journal
    What about Bennett Haselton, for always so graciously providing his view?
  • by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 30, 2014 @05:44PM (#48699469)

    You are going to put someone who whines about cyberbullies on the same list as the first woman to win a Fields medal?

  • by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 30, 2014 @05:48PM (#48699511)

    Lets be fair here. Yes there might be some need for attention to women in game development. But if you make a kickstarter for 12 videos about the plight of women in video games, get a lot more than your goal required and then only make 6 (and only 3 of the 12 topics covered), its more like a fraud than caring about women in video games. Never mind many other fishy things like suggesting they are a not for profit but them only having become so long after the kickstarter, when it became useful because they took copyrighted materials.

    I personally think that The fine young capitalists has done a lot more for women in video games than Anita will ever do. Its nice to point out there are only very few female game designers and AAA games aimed specifically at women, its better to directly enable women to become part of the club.

    • by Anonymous Coward

      Also consider that She in fact does none of her own work. Mcintosh writes for her, she is merely a puppet.

      It would be like awarding a presenter for a scientist's findings. And I am being nice here.

  • by K. S. Kyosuke ( 729550 ) on Tuesday December 30, 2014 @05:49PM (#48699515)
    'nuff said.
    • Seconded. Demonstrably making science cooler by making money at it. Fighting the good fight against protectionist industries.
    • by T.E.D. ( 34228 )

      Clearly he is referring to Elon James White, founder and CEO of TWiB media [wikipedia.org]. Where many folks would just whine about voices of color (and of women) not being properly represented in the media, he's actually doing something about it.

      There is pretty much nowhere else you can go to hear first-hand experience on things like living with ADHD, living as a target of racisim, Dr. Who, the new slate of superhero shows on TV, being attacked by police in the Fergeson protests, game systems, politics, and Comics. In ot

    • I could get behind this one - Musk is one of the few actually doing something about getting people into space, and actually making it a paying enterprise.

  • John Dobson (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 30, 2014 @05:51PM (#48699535)

    I know a lot of young amateurs with our club own a worthwhile scope because of Dobson's innovations. I hated to see him go. He made good equipment affordable and he spent a lot of evenings out on urban street corners, giving the curious a chance to see something they may never have been able to otherwise while asking nothing in return. He also ran a pretty serious lecture circuit that a lot of small astronomy groups took advantage of.
     
    He may not have had the most notable achievements from an overall view of the field of contenders but he did it selflessly. He's the Mother Theresa of astronomy as far as I'm concerned.

  • by Anonymous Coward

    And doing so at the right time [huffingtonpost.com], before most people had formed an opinion about Google Glass [the5pointcafe.com].

  • by xxxJonBoyxxx ( 565205 ) on Tuesday December 30, 2014 @05:52PM (#48699547)

    From a developer's perspective, for 2014 I'd suggest Miguel de Icaza. From his Mono roots he built Xamarin for cross-platform mobile development, and appears to have been a force in the NET Open Sourcing.

  • Edward Snowden (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 30, 2014 @05:54PM (#48699569)

    I recommend Edward Snowden, for being the first to demonstrate that Theo de Raadt isn't too paranoid.

    (I say this with great respect for Theo's amazing work over the years)

  • Malala Yousafzay (Score:5, Insightful)

    by LWATCDR ( 28044 ) on Tuesday December 30, 2014 @05:54PM (#48699571) Homepage Journal

    Nobel Peace prize winner that actually tries to do some good.
    Was shot in the head, recovered, and is now fighting for what is right at the risk of her life.

    I see no debate on this one.

  • Anita Sarkeesian (Score:4, Interesting)

    by mitcheli ( 894743 ) on Tuesday December 30, 2014 @05:55PM (#48699575)
    Before we go and mark Anita for sainthood, has anyone actually watched her videos? She literally pisses on virtually everything as being demeaning to women. If I had to go by the things she said, I would be convinced that there was a definite conspiracy to hold women down and subjugate them through companies failed attempts to incorporate girls toys (Legos), or to suck as a feminine heroine (Hunger Games) or any other medium to try and reach out to girls for inspiration. And I'd be damn convinced that the Founding Fathers of the US were a gang of men bent on male domination, why else would the Washington Monument be such a phallic symbol? Honestly, I think Anita suffers from some kind of gender-based delusion and has spent far to many years in "Women's Studies". My daughter played Lego's as a young girl and was more than willing to build a space ship right along side the boys. And you know what, I thought the flowers on the spaceship were pretty darn cute.
  • by grub ( 11606 ) <slashdot@grub.net> on Tuesday December 30, 2014 @05:58PM (#48699611) Homepage Journal

    Theo de Raadt for no other reason than he is Theo de Raadt.
  • by russotto ( 537200 ) on Tuesday December 30, 2014 @05:59PM (#48699629) Journal

    ...and for once again demonstrating that just because something sounds like tinfoil-hattery doesn't mean it isn't true.

    As for Sarkeesian, I say we arrange for a debate between her and Theo de Raadt.

  • by rmdingler ( 1955220 ) on Tuesday December 30, 2014 @06:00PM (#48699635) Journal
    If you recall the World before the revelations began, though the subject was touched on in movies and forums such as this, it was not recognized as a foregone conclusion by hoopleheads until his information dissemination began.

    Like him or not, call him hero or traitor... there is no way 'round observing the sowing of universal mistrust of governments he has instilled in our populace.

    • Well said. I agree. It should absolutely be Snowden for exactly the reason you presented. Love him or hate him, he pointed a bright light into a very dark corner.

  • by CaptainLard ( 1902452 ) on Tuesday December 30, 2014 @06:01PM (#48699647)

    I'm sure everyone here knows who he is. In my opinion, hes the most eloquent, humorous, reasonable, and personable ambassador from a hard core scientific discipline of this generation. Watch cosmos if you haven't already. His ability to break it down for the layman while preserving the incredible spectacle of the universe is right there with all the Carl Sagans of the past. And....he did it on Fox of all places!

  • by DiamondGeezer ( 872237 ) on Tuesday December 30, 2014 @06:06PM (#48699687) Homepage

    ...then its definitely because the Patriarchy are still working to suppress women's voices.

    And if you're not part of the Patriarchy then you should be contributing to Anita's Kickstarter.

  • If I had a daughter, I would dream of her developing the same courage, and a comparable intelligence. What she ( Malala, not my inexistent daughter ) advocates trumps anything else on the list, however important it may be. Malala should get the prize.
  • by Spy Handler ( 822350 ) on Tuesday December 30, 2014 @06:07PM (#48699701) Homepage Journal

    Anita Sarkeesian, for helping draw attention to undue harassment faced by women in the video game world?

    Career feminist looking for social injustice and finding it in _______? How does that deserve special recognition? It's what they do. It would be shocking if she looked somewhere and *didn't* find any injustice... that might actually deserve some kind of an honesty award.

    Yes she did receive rape and death threats and I do not think she deserved it, but guess what, they were just threats. There was no way in hell she was going to actually be raped or killed by these juvenile gamers (juvenile either literally or the 30 year old virgins who never moved out of their parents basement and are juvenile in all but age)

    But if instead of taking on relatively harmless gaming nerdz, had she had taken on, oh let's say Islam -- in the name of whose religion millions of women are sexually maimed and sometimes outright killed each year -- I would say she deserved a big award. Because getting your vagina mutilated and your head bashed in with stones is so much worse than being objectified as a sex object in some video game. And because whereas gaming nerdz post rape and death threats on Twitter but have never actually carried one out to date (because they're virgins and wouldn't actually know how to rape a woman), Islam does actually rape and kill and behead women. Frequently.

    • But that would be politically incorrect... which is why Ayaan Hirsi Ali isn't on this list and Anita the Pick Up Artist Seminar Saleswoman is.

  • Snowden (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Nemyst ( 1383049 ) on Tuesday December 30, 2014 @06:15PM (#48699759) Homepage
    I mean seriously, is there any other person who has left a larger mark on the world this year? He's put his life on the line, angering the largest world power in order to reveal a bewilderingly sprawling surveillance network spying on its own citizens with a complete lack of ethics and oversight. He will not be able to step into most of the Western world for years to come because of his honesty and moral code. Everyone has heard of his revelations and we are still not done with them.
  • by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 30, 2014 @06:15PM (#48699767)

    and making the world really understand what goes on in Washington

  • If Snowden's revelations were actually a surprise to me I'd have nominated him instead, but what he revealed I'd already simply guessed and been warning everyone about (and hence been ignored as being paranoid and delusional for) since about 1997.

  • by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 30, 2014 @06:31PM (#48699877)
    Not listed above, but probably should be: Appelbaum is one of the authors of the Spiegel article linked here the other day (https://yro.slashdot.org/story/14/12/28/2054228/snowden-documents-show-how-well-nsa-codebreakers-can-pry), a Tor developer, security researcher more generally, and generally a smart-ass, in a non-pejorative sense. He's been (after his involvement was outed) a sort of diplomatic bridge to Wikileaks, and helped found San Francisco hackerspace Noisebridge. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J... [wikipedia.org] - and any slashdot story about Tor, and many of the ones about Wikileaks ;)
  • Eben Upton (Score:2, Interesting)

    by lophophore ( 4087 )

    Eben Upton gets my nod. The Raspberry Pi is a huge success; his goals were noble; they were to make an inexpensive computer that **anybody** could afford and use to learn about computing. Delivered.

    As far as Snowden goes -- I award him some used toilet paper. If he was a patriot, then he would have kept his disclosures to what was patently illegal, that is, the NSA's warrantless collection of data from American citizens in America. But Eddy went way past that; he had an agenda, and his agenda was not to

    • Re:Eben Upton (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Areyoukiddingme ( 1289470 ) on Tuesday December 30, 2014 @11:33PM (#48701721)

      ... he had an agenda, and his agenda was not to surface the NSA's illegal activities in the US, his agenda was to burn down the NSA completely.

      If that actually was his agenda, then I am doubly pleased with him and nominate him for two Beanies and a Nobel (category doesn't seem to matter much to that committee).

      The NSA must be burned to the ground and the ground salted. It can not be repaired, it can not be cured, it can not fulfill any part of its nominal mission. It is corrupt to the core, and so secretive and so well-funded that it can not be fixed. An organization whose representatives routinely lie to Congress and get away with it is completely and totally out of control. It must be ended. It must be hunted down. It must be extinguished. Its installations must be destroyed, its cash accounts must be seized, its assets must be auctioned off. It is a plague upon the Earth, and the sooner it is gone, the sooner the dignity of humanity can be repaired, even a little.

      If Edward Snowden helped even a little with that task, he is a hero worthy of awards far more notable than Slashdot's editors can bestow.

  • by CanadianMacFan ( 1900244 ) on Tuesday December 30, 2014 @07:17PM (#48700203)
    Don't know if it was this past year or from 2013 into this year but he captured the attention of many people who forgot about space.
  • by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 30, 2014 @08:30PM (#48700731)

    John Dobson spent a large part of his life giving to the community. He helped bring amateur astronomy to the masses, and inspired many to not only build their own scopes but make discoveries that the "big boys" did not. He opened the universe to everyone.

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