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The word technology has morphed into meaning "gadgety stuff", like PDAs and computers and such. Douglas Adams once defined it as "the stuff that doesn't work yet".
I like the Wikipedia's definition better. I think of technology as knowledge that makes life easier. When steel was first invented, it was a huge technological achievement. I'm sure that lots and lots of combinations of smelting and forging techniques were tried before a reasonable set were found that produced desired results. Once that knowlege is gained, however, someone else could produce steel without having to understand all of the techniques. You just have to be able to follow the recipe.
Even simpler things, like a wheel, are firmly in that category. The idea of taking a sledge (something that you drag on the ground) and making it into a cart by putting wheels on it was a completely revolutionary idea. Once you understand the basic idea of a cart, you can apply to principle to other cards or other vehicles, you just have to know enough about to make a round wheel, and the rest is assembly.
Wood stove technology is something that I've become aware of recently. My father in law had a Round Oak (it's a brand name) wood stove in the basement of their old house for the longest time, without ever having used it. They recently had a big garage/shed built at their retirement cabin, and he brought the stove from their old house and set it up as a way to take the chill off the shed in the winter. As it turns out, Round Oak stoves are something of collector's items, and so he's been trying to get newer, nicer parts for his. It's a neat thing to have to sit around on winter evenings. (There are some Round Oak stove photos in the middle of this page for those curious to know what they look like.)
And I have to admit that it is nifty. It's gotten me curious about the technology of wood burning stoves. What makes a good one? How do you make them more efficient? What's the trick of having them burn so that you don't have to feed them all the time? Is it possible to have a stove burn overnight so that you don't have to re-light the fire in the morning? My father in law is going to take his apart this summer, I think, to clean and re-condition the inside. I'm hoping to be able to take photos of the thing in pieces, so that I can see how they're made. I might put up a page about it.
That got me curious about wood stoves in general, and so I did some searching. It turns out that there was a bunch of EPA legislation in the early 1990s regulating the types of wood burning stoves that could be sold, so now there are "EPA approved" wood stove. There are apparently three general varieties. There are "catalytic" stoves that have an element that promotes the burning of the unburned gasses from the wood. These have to have their elements replaced every few years. There are "pellet" stoves, which use pellets made from wood products. They require electrical fans to circulate the air. To me, part of the point of having one (if you had one) was that it doesn't need to be serviced, and it can operate independently of electricity. The third type are "recirculating" stoves, which vent the exhaust around the firebox and so burn more efficiently that way. (I don't get how that actually works, I've just read about it.)
If I find a really good on-line source, I'll post it. Perhaps I'll pick up a book. But first, it's time to go run errands and mow the grass the first time this season.