Search Results for: label/appropriate technology

107 results

Why I like being groped by the TSA

Mrs. Homegrown
Thoughtstylings
29 Comments
.... It brought meaning my day, meaning and interest which I’d not have experienced otherwise. I walked away from the grope smiling, skin still tingling a little from contact. I’d escaped the dehumanizing scanner technology and found a more meaningful, low-tech way to pass through airport security and I’d had an experience I could chew on for a while. I was satisfied. In the halls of Security Theater, you take what you can ge...

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Build a Worm Tower

Mrs. Homegrown
Composting, Vermiculture
13 Comments
...allow the worms to come and go. Food and bedding is dropped in the top, which is kept capped. We happen to have worm & compost expert Nancy Klehm staying with us this weekend, and she explained to us that this particular technology makes a lot of sense for hot, dry climates (note the video comes from Australia), because it’s sunken and it allows the worms to distribute themselves in the cool soil during the day. Conversely, I can imagi...

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The World’s First Lamp

Mrs. Homegrown
Design, Domesticus, How-to
15 Comments
...th their ends poking just a little way off the side of the shell. Those are the wicks. This is a shell lamp. This is perhaps what the first lamp ever looked like. (A Paleo-lamp?) At the very least, this is a fundamental human technology. When you build one, you’re echoing the practices of so many cultures over so much history–from the flat clay oil lamps of Rome to the soapstone lamps of the Inuit to the the ghee-burning temple lamps...

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End of Summer Photos

Mr. Homegrown
Appropriate Technology, Gardening, Goats, Vegetable Gardening
15 Comments
...lly planted some potatoes amongst her sweet potato patch. We got a few potatoes and some pretty potato flowers. My friends Gloria and Steve, who own a small herd of goats, did a goat milk tasting at the Institute of Domestic Technology comparing their backyard milk against a couple of store bought goat milks and some cow milk. Guess what? Fresh goat milk from the backyard is delicious and does not taste “goaty”. Store bought goat mil...

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The Sound of One Hand Snapping

Mr. Homegrown
Tools
1 Comment
...nufacture this elegant, simple and effective tool right here in our own fucked-up USA. In fact, it seems that Spring Tools holds the patent for this whole spring-based concept and has extended the idea of “spring driven technology” into a number of areas. We’ re especially intrigued with the potential of their spring driven I.D. Stamper which comes with a set of letters for stamping out a message in metal. Though we have not tes...

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Revolution: A New TV Series About Extreme Suburban Homesteading

Mr. Homegrown
Thoughtstylings
35 Comments
...ow food,” says the narrator. “Electricity” is not how we grow our food. Electricity is generated from finite sources, primarily coal and natural gas. And we use a lot of oil, of course, to grow our food. Our technology, especially the internet and smart phones has radically externalized what used to be  collective and individual cultural memory. It’s notable that this story places so much value on a flash drive as a reposi...

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Essential System #3 – Sew Your Own Damn Clothes

Mr. Homegrown
Domesticus
RLeave a comment
...The Return of Quetzalcoatl says, Instead of envisioning an ultimately boring technological singularity, we might be better served by considering an evolution of technique, of skillful means, aimed at this world, as it is now. Technology might find its proper place in our lives if we experienced such a shift in perspective–in a society oriented around technique, we might find that we desired far less gadgetry. We might start to prefer slowne...

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On the Difficulty of Finding Pastured Animal Products

Mr. Homegrown
Animals
21 Comments
...r adequate. Let’s not even talk about the joke that is the USDA. I do think there is a entrepreneurial opportunity here for someone to start a reliable third party rating organization. How about we use some 21st century technology?  Just think about how cool it would be to make use of webcams so you could trace and see the farm your food came from....

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