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 ... Edward Snowden, for the impact his leaks (though they began in 2013) have continued to make? (Or William Binney, for similar reasons?)Nobel Peace Prize winner Malala Yousafzay, who fought a difficult battle for children's right to an education?Telescope popularizer John Dobson, who died earlier this year at the age of 98, after bringing space a little more down to earth for many thousands of people?May-Britt Moser, her husband Edvard Moser, and John O'Keefe for their discoveries about how the brain navigates through the world? Eben Upton, whose little educational hardware project has bloomed into millions and millions of cheap, hackable Linux computers?How about Maryam Mirazkhani, the first woman to become a Fields medalist?Theo de Raadt, who stepped in with replacement project LibreSSL soon after cracks appeared in OpenSSL, and who's been helming the OpenBSD project since 1995?The ESA team that landed a probe on a comet, or the ISRO engineers who managed to send a probe to Mars on a shoestring budget? Anita Sarkeesian, for helping draw attention to undue harassment faced by women in the video game world?Someone relatively quiet or obscure who's nonetheless made the world better through some kind of interesting innovation or contribution? Read on below to see how you can take part, and then nominate your favorite in the comments below. 
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