During my public school years teachers would frequently write PLO on blackboards as a signal to custodians to not erase what was written, during nightly cleaning—Please Leave On.
That we were all returning home each evening to watch news of the PLO—the Palestinian Liberation Organization—was somehow ignored by everyone but me.
In grade 7 we had an all-school assembly, presented by a farm safety group, to talk about the dangers of the PTO, and getting caught up in it, something the farm kids understood intuitively that was lost on the rest of us.
It wasn’t until much later that I learned it stands for Power Take Off, the spinning gizmo off the end of tractors from which all manner of farm implements can be powered.
Browsing the KitchenAid mixer attachments website today, I realized that their stand mixers have what amounts to a PTO; they call it an attachment hub. You can attach a pasta roller, a sausage maker, or a juice squeezer.
What’s remarkable is that KitchenAid supports “cross-generational attachment compatibility” meaning that attachments from the 1930s can be used on modern mixers.
In an era when phone charger standards change with the season, this is a commendable buttress against obsolescence.
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I am Peter Rukavina and this is my blog. I am a writer, letterpress printer, and a curious person.
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In My Schools there were
In My Schools there were White Boards and then in the late-2010s , Schools introduced Smart Boards.
And in modern corporate speak
And in modern corporate speak, PTO is "paid time off"
one day in grade eight during
one day in grade eight during a brief moment of teacher absence, inspired by the PLO, we filled an entire blackboard with acronyms, starting with KGB and FLQ.
KitchenAid also commendably
KitchenAid also commendably buttresses against obsolescence by making their mixers repairable. We mix a lot of bread dough in ours, and wound up stripping the gear that turns the paddle. Eight bucks for the part, half a dozen small bolts and 30 minutes of my time and I had a mixer that was good as new.
Jet engines run accessories
Jet engines run accessories off a PTO shaft (instead of a serpentine belt that automobiles have). So as an aerospace engineer I’ve always dreamed of the myriad of accessories you could theoretically hook to a kitchenaid. Basically anything that DeWalt, Ryobi, or Milwaukee had made that fits in your hand can be run of a kitchenaid with enough gearing. Belt sander, Lathe, Drill, Leaf Blower, drywall cutter, Reciprocating Saw, Mitre Saw, heck you could put a copper coil and electromagnet on the end and make a dynamo, and get good old DC voltage from it and charge your iPhone.
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