{"id":6,"date":"2004-12-03T14:55:37","date_gmt":"2004-12-03T14:55:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.kateandryan.net\/wpblog\/?p=6"},"modified":"-0001-11-30T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"-0001-11-30T08:00:00","slug":"better-off-flipping-the-switch-on-technology-by-eric-brende","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.kateandryan.net\/?p=6","title":{"rendered":"Better Off: Flipping the Switch on Technology by Eric Brende"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"leftbox\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/rcm.amazon.com\/e\/cm?t=authorryanmwi-20&#038;o=1&#038;p=8&#038;l=as1&#038;asins=0060570040&#038;fc1=000000&#038;lc1=0000ff&#038;bc1=ffffff&#038;lt1=_blank&#038;nou=1&#038;IS2=1&#038;bg1=ffffff&#038;f=ifr\" width=\"120\" height=\"240\" scrolling=\"no\" marginwidth=\"0\" marginheight=\"0\" frameborder=\"0\"><\/iframe>\n<\/div>\n<p>Homesteading means many things to different people.  Brende&#8217;s focus in this entertaining book is less about homesteading and more about the role automated machines plays in our lives.  For eighteen months the Brendes chose to live in a community that doesn&#8217;t use electricity, automobiles, computers, or powered machinery (except human or horse power).  So there are no discussions of solar or wind power.  Solar design in houses, etc.  I found it to be a very engaging book.  The idea of carefully evaluating what technology you will use is an important concept.  As Brende points out, &#8220;It often makes no sense to save labor and time when &#8216;labor&#8217; provides needed exercise and &#8216;time&#8217; is spent with family or neighbors.&#8221;  <\/p>\n<p>All things considered I enjoyed the book.  I would have liked to get more of a sense of Mary Brende in the book.  As it is written there is little sense of her perspective in the book.  She&#8217;s there, but in the background most of the time.  Even so I would eagerly recommend this book to anyone questioning the role of technology in their lives.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Homesteading means many things to different people. Brende&#8217;s focus in this entertaining book is less about homesteading and more about the role automated machines plays in our lives. For eighteen months the Brendes chose to live in a community that doesn&#8217;t use electricity, automobiles, computers, or powered machinery (except human or horse power). So there [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books","entry"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5Xt8g-6","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.kateandryan.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.kateandryan.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.kateandryan.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.kateandryan.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.kateandryan.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.kateandryan.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.kateandryan.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.kateandryan.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.kateandryan.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}