Sing Club QLD Education Site

Archive for January, 2012

I have worked at one business or another, since I turned 16. I worked for both private and nonprofit businesses, for big corporations and small professional firms. I still remember the excitement, as well as the culture shock, of my very first job. Because of my own experience, I made both of my children get part-time jobs as soon as they turned 16. It was not for the money, though they enjoyed that aspect of working. It was for the experience of being a part of the workplace.

While our children are in school, they lead a totally different life than when they graduate and enter the workforce. Whether they enter after they graduate from one of the Philadelphia schools or after college graduation, the culture shock is there. Children, who have worked in non-neighborhood, part-time jobs during their adolescence, have an edge over those who have not. They have been exposed to the expectations that will be placed on them by an employer. They have experienced the “office politics” that even exist at a neighborhood McDonalds®. They not only know what to expect, but they have learned how to live up to those expectations.

The United Way of Southeastern Pennsylvania teamed up with 165 other businesses and organizations in January to sponsor Shadowing Day for Philadelphia schools’ ninth graders. Over 1,552 students spent a workday with a mentor at his/her workplace, giving the Philadelphia schools’ students a first-hand experience of the “real world” workplace.

Each Philadelphia schools’ participant was paired with an employee from a host business or organization. The student literally shadowed their mentor for an entire workday to see what they actually do in their job, what expectations they must meet, the interrelationships within that particular workplace, and how the employee handles his workload, coworkers and supervisors. The experience reduces the future culture shock, when these Philadelphia schools’ students enter the workforce.
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It has been proposed that the quarks and leptons consist of more fundamental particles called rishons. The T rishon may be defined as having mass and charge e/3. The V rishon is neutral and has little or no mass. The rishons have spin 1/2, carry color charge, and combine in triplets or rishon-antirishon pairs. Thus the electron is a TTT, the neutrino VVV, the down quark TVV, and the up quark TTV. If the T has somewhat greater color charge than the V, the down quark would have a net excess of the color carried by the T. The antiup quark TTV would appear to have a net deficiency of the color carried by the V, or equivalently, an excess of anticolor, and behave as an antiparticle. Hence the TTV would appear to have an excess of color and behave as a particle, in agreement with observation. The leptons have no net color. There is no need for hypercolor.

All particle interactions consist of rearrangements of rishons, or creation or annihilation of rishon-antirishon pairs. For example, beta-decay occurs when a down quark changes to an up quark, emitting an electron and neutrino:

TVV –> TTV + TTT + VVV

The massless particle was originally called a neutrino; it was later defined to be an antineutrino. This model favors the first choice.

If the binding between rishons is much greater than the binding between quarks or leptons, then quarks and leptons could associate without losing their identity, just as atoms can form molecules. Lepton number is also conserved if the VVV is assigned a negative lepton number.

The second and third generations of the electron and the quarks might be formed by adding one or two TT pairs to the first generation. The second and third generations of the neutrino might be formed by adding one or two VV pairs to the first generation. The force binding the rishons is evidently so great that the separate rishon wave functions “fall” together into just one wave function, in which case there would be no internal structure.

The effective mass of the TTV is nearly equal to that of the TVV, which implies that the T-T bond has binding energy nearly equal to the bare mass of a T. The electron has three T’s and three bonds and hence should have little mass compared to a quark, as observed. The muon obtains most of its mass from the added TT and should have a mass comparable to that of a quark, as observed.

The boson carriers of the weak force presumably consist of the rishons required to form the decay products. The photon may consist of a colorless VV pair; for example red-antired. The gluon may consist of a colored VV pair, for example red-antiblue. Hence the weak force may simply be the color force carried by weak bosons; the electromagnetic force is the color force carried by photons, and the strong force is the color force carried by gluons, mesons, quarks, and possibly other hadrons. Read the rest of this entry »

1. What is Probate?

Probate is the method by which the assets of a deceased person are gathered, creditors paid, and the remainder of the estate distributed to beneficiaries. In most Florida counties, the probate system is conducted in a specialized probate division of the Circuit Court, under the oversight of one or more probate judges.

2. How is Probate Initiated?

Although any beneficiary or creditor can initiate probate, normally the person named in the will as Personal Representative, also known as the executor in other states, starts the process by filing the original will with the court and filing a Petition for Administration with the probate court. If there is no will, typically a close relative of the decedent who expects to inherit from the estate will file the Petition for Administration.

3. Who is Eligible to Serve as Personal Representative?

A bank or trust company operating in Florida, any individual who is resident in Florida, and a spouse or close relative who is not necessarily resident in Florida are all eligible to serve as the Personal Representative. Nonrelatives who are not resident in Florida are not eligible to serve as Personal Representative.

4. How is the Personal Representative Chosen?

If the decedent had a will, the person named in the will as the Personal Representative will serve, if eligible. If that person is unable or unwilling to serve as Personal Representative, the person chosen by a majority of the beneficiaries in interest of the estate shall choose the Personal Representative. If there is no will, Florida law provides that the surviving spouse may serve, or, if there is no spouse or the spouse is unable or unwilling to serve, the person chosen by a majority of the beneficiaries in interest shall serve.

5. Is the Personal Representative Required to Retain an Attorney?

In Florida, the Personal Representative is required in almost all probate estate to retain a Florida probate attorney. Although the Florida probate forms are available to the public, these are of no use to a non attorney.

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When a business goes global, there is a risk of being not properly understood in other languages, or, even worse, misunderstood. That is why, when you are going to expand your business, your success can depend on the person who translates your website, documentation, ads and so on.

Don’t insist on translating your text word-by-word or sentence-by-sentence. Contrary to the popular belief, the translation won’t be more accurate this way. Just the opposite is true: a translator who translates word-by-word is a BAD translator, or a mediocre one — at the most.

A MEDIOCRE translator will diligently substitute words, word-combinations and idioms of one language for those of another language. He searches piles of dictionaries for various lexical units. He will be really proud of the result. Don’t blame him — he probably is conscientious and hard-working. The only drawback is that his translation won’t work.

A GOOD translator will care for the MESSAGE of your text. He realizes that good translation isn’t just finding right words. He will try to find right linguistic means to convey your message; what’s more, he will leave your style intact. He will be proud of the result, too — and he has the reason to think so. Your message will be conveyed — in every respect. Will it work? That’s another question.
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