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Tim Berners-Lee awarded the British Order of Merit

Posted by CowboyNeal on from the accolades-and-acolytes dept.

MarsBar writes "The BBC is reporting that Sir Tim Berners-Lee has been awarded The Order of Merit, a royal award granted directly by the Queen. Previous recipients have included Florence Nightingale, Sir Winston Churchill, Bertrand Russell, Graham Greene, Sir Edward Elgar, Mother Teresa and Margaret Thatcher."

7 of 151 comments (clear)

  1. Good for him... by WIAKywbfatw · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Simply put, Sir Tim Berners-Lee is the Johannes Gutenberg of the Internet.

    His simple invention, and his polite, modest manner should make him the IT icon of our time. I wonder, though, how many people could even tell you what he's done or recognise him by his picture?

    Good for him. He deserves all the recognition that he can get.

    --

    "Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
    1. Re:Good for him... by WIAKywbfatw · · Score: 2, Insightful

      And, yes, before someone decides to educate me about (D)ARPANET, etc, I do know that there's more to the Internet than the world wide web.

      My point was that what Gutenberg did to the printed word (made it faster, easier and thus more accessible to all), Berners-Lee did to the online word (put together a system that made it simple to use and thus acheived the same feat).

      --

      "Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
    2. Re:Good for him... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      "I wonder, though, how many people could even tell you what he's done or recognise him by his picture?"

      Being unknown to the filthy masses is the mark of the true Engineer.
      Sales and Marketing types are popular, Engineers get shit done.

    3. Re:Good for him... by pipingguy · · Score: 5, Insightful

      When you do things right, people won't be sure you've done anything at all.

  2. I can't help but wonder... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Insightful

    Why a man like Tim Berners-Lee, who has done more than practically anyone is history to improve the exchange of information between human beings would accept honors from the nobility, not once, but twice.

    Thanks to Sir Tim Berners-Lee, KBE, OM, I now know a lot more about why I'm a Citizen and not a Subject than I ever learned in school.

    Note to the Commonwealth of Nations and the United Kingdom--abolish the monarchy. No man or woman is inherently superior to another by accident of birth.

    1. Re:I can't help but wonder... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      "Note to the Commonwealth of Nations and the United Kingdom--abolish the monarchy. No man or woman is inherently superior to another by accident of birth."

      Well, we're all born in the UK, and we're all inherently superior to y'all USians.....

      If nothing else, we're superior in understanding words. It's obvious that some people are superior to others by accident of birth - compare an athelete with someone who is born disabled. You probably didn't mean that. When you can tell me what you meant, I'll tell you where you were wrong!

  3. Re:Margaret Thatcher!!!!!!! FFS ... :-( by 0123456789 · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I know I shouldn't feed the troll, but what war did Thatcher deliberately start? I'm not a particular fan of Thatcher, but there are more than enough facts out there about her that there's no need to fabricate criticisms.