The Mandelbear's Musings

I've been reminded that this is the 25th anniversary of a very special newsgroup called alt.callahans. My own first post came a couple of weeks later, after I finally persuaded our sysadmin to add it to our news feed.

I have a lot of history with that Place.

I wrote a song, too: "Someplace in the Net". I probably need to totally rework my set list for Orycon. :P

Ganked from slothman, who saved me the trouble of removing the replication code:

Explain your LiveJournal name and its meaning.

This is a multi-step process. First, you have to realize that "mdlbear" is short for "Mandelbear". It's only seven characters; a fact that hackers who cut their teeth on eight-column tabstops will readily appreciate. It's also faster to type, and fits conveniently in DOS filenames, IRC nicks, and so on.

The "Mandelbear" is the name this fractal, which you can also see in my default userpic, acquired when I described myself that way in a post on alt.callahans. I'll track that one down eventually, meanwhile this post includes the following description:

"The Mandelbear started out in Callahans as a medium-sized teddybear. He is presently a three-dimensional cross-section of a four- dimensional fractal, usually the one defined by iterating z^3+c, with Mandelbrot sets in one direction and Julia sets in the other. The cubic Mandelbrot set looks a lot like a sort of weird teddy-bear made out of hearts, with two antenna-like structures on its head. It is, of course, infinitely fuzzy."

The "medium-sized teddybear" was originally derived from the "Middle-Sized Bear" in Cordwainer Smith's story "Mark Elf". Here it is. It's in the collection The Instrumentality of Mankind from Del Rey, 1979, original copyright on the story 1957. I quote the relevant passage in this post:

[The story so far: Carlotta vom Acht has awakened from 16,000 years of suspended animation, and has spent several days wandering around in the wilderness that Earth has become. At the end of the story she encounters the Middle-Sized Bear.]

"Allow me to introduce myself. I am the Middle-Sized Bear who lives in these woods."

...

Carlotta was angry, confused, frightened, and sick again. She started to run.

Something as solid as a blow hit her.

She knew without being told that it was the bear's mind reaching out and encompassing hers.

It hit--boom!--and that was all.

She had never before stopped to think of how comfortable a bear's mind was. It was like lying in a great big bed and having mother take care of one when one was a very little girl, glad to be petted and sure of getting well.

The anger poured out of her. The fear left her. The sickness began to lighten. The morning seemed beautiful.

She herself felt beautiful as she turned--

And there you have it.