TECHNOLOGY OF FREEDOM:
Adventure in Hypertext


Freedom is the joy of adventure

Freedom comes in many ways.
Some, like the mountains, offer grandeur and beauty.

Here's a new approach to freedom:

  • a rudimentary but operable technology
  • an invented system of structure
  • co-ordination of engineering and psychology
  • hey, what is this freedom stuff, anyway
  • presented as an adventure for the visitor's enjoyment


THE BIG PICTURE

Freedom grows out of, into and through structures:
  • Climbing a mountain
  • Surfing the web
  • Building a project
  • Playing card games with friends
  • Working a network of business relationships
  • A jury reaching a verdict
  • Political institutions

Visiting this website is like a trip to the mountains


In these pages, the primal elements are
  1. the mystery of freedom
  2. a technology of devices
The elements come together in a cluster of pages called Base Camp.

There are three ways to Base Camp

--Water Trail
Freedom is real and we experience it in many ways. Freedom is also a conceptual marshland. Water Trail goes cross-country to skirt the marshes of philosophy, perhaps avoiding falling in (no avoiding the bugs, though). It constructs an artificial psychology and finds a way ("The Way of Error") to notate structures for interpretation through devices so as to resemble activity of human experience. The initial system is crude and deals with only very simple problems, but it includes a capacity for development that leads to revised systems of greater scope. Development is directed toward notation and organization of ambiguities that mark places where freedom can be exercised.

--Ridge Route
Ridge Route presents a series of hardware devices, similar to actual manufactured items. The original device is a simple associative (content-addressible) memory system based on a resistance network. Subsequent devices build on the original and develop progressive scope in co-ordination with development of the artificial psychology of Water Trail. Each device uses commands that organize data and that mimic shifts of attention within structures. Commands can be programmed to organize data through mass action.

--Kwik Tour
Kwik Tour is an entertaining survey based on feelings. Please be prepared for something wild.

Other pages here that may be of interest:
DO NOT PUSH THIS BUTTON!
You are already at the Entry Page

Website
navigation buttons and technical info

Author
Robert Kovsky

like a table of contents, organized and linked

To top of this page.

All materials copyright by Robert Kovsky, 1997.

Gotcha!

You fell for the old "wet paint" ploy.

You also may have experienced a small thrill of freedom. (That's why you did it, I suspect.)

You have been relocated to a different place in the original page. It's called an "internal link."

Nothing additional need be loaded from the slow, remote server.

There is a difference here between:

  1. an internal link that shifts your attention within a page; and
  2. an inter-page link that shifts your attention from one page to another page.
This website includes a puzzle: "pixie dust" is hidden in the website. The first person to find it will get his or her name and achievement inscribed here.

This website also includes an entire level of detail not discussed in the examples. This level of detail can be identified with a one line statement. Once you see it, it should be obvious.

-- This wingfoot button returns you to the source of the diversion

To top of Entry Page.


All materials copyright by Robert Kovsky, 1997.

A View of Base Camp

At the center of Base Camp is one example: this website

This website contains:

The terrain is first seen at a low level but rises fast

The visual images are like glimpses of summits, each prominent and individual, but appearing only in fragments. The words are like valley walls, less dramatic and explicit, but marking the thread of concept that leads to the high elevations.


A key element of structure is the "link between pages." For example, there is a link that will take you from this entry page to a page describing Ridge Route, namely the ridjguid page.


You can use a link to exercise freedom

Often, one page will contain links to several different pages. The visitor can exercise freedom, by clicking on a link. The visitor can also ignore any and all links, use navigation tools in the browser or just "click off."


You can use links to build structures.

Children's toys provide convenient metaphors. Think of blocks, tinker toys, lincoln logs, and legos.

In the linked list (familiar to all programmers), there is a head to the list and several items (four here). Different notations provide a variety of ways to grapple with these structures.



The first image you will find on arrival at Base Camp shows links between pages in this website. Here's a piece of that image.


The work at Base Camp depends on strong structures, like "backbones" embedded in this website that can support less orderly structures.

This website is governed by a simple structural system. The work at Base Camp centers on a revision of that simple structural system. The revision proliferates into different forms:


Ambiguity structures are developed to co-ordinate different forms. Ambiguity structures are the technical expression of freedom in these pages. Here is the most explicit part of an ambiguity structure reached from Base Camp. It co-ordinates a form based on static organization with one based on active devices.


-- Return to reference

To top of Entry Page.


All materials copyright by Robert Kovsky, 1997.