Affiliate marketing is a superb way for the tech-savvy hobbyist for making some money on the side.
For a select few who have managed to put their finger on the Zeitgeist, however, it means full financial independence, with income in the tens of thousands per month!

Probably the most celebrated cases of affiliate marketing made good has long been that of Dr. Arnold Kim, M.D.
While still a medical student, he started a website focused on rumors about Apple products.
This was back right at the turn of the century, before the word “blog” had entered into the well-known lexicon.
Even while diagnosing patients, Dr. Kim kept up the site, though subsequently it took on a life of its own, with forty million page views monthly, as certified by independent research firms.

Dr. Kim was already well-off as a result of his medical practice, but affiliate marketing also generated a six-figure income – and he was only devoting relatively little time to his site!
Believing that things could grow so much more were he to devote his whole day, Dr. Kim gave up his stethoscope and plunged whole-heartedly into the world of professional blogging.

Similar instances of internet riches abound, such as that of the teenager who became a millionaire by making free MySpace designs for individuals to download, or the college student behind “The Million-Dollar Homepage” which made money by just selling space to advertisers.
What they have in common is that their success is completely traffic-driven: it’s all about the eyeballs, the number of visitors per month, week, day, even hour – both repeat and first-time (known in the industry as “unique”).
Get the numbers, and you will earn money.

But how do you obtain the numbers?
Content.
“Content is king.”
If you have something lots of people are interested, such that they will keep visiting your site, you will make money – confirmed.
The only real question is what content or material to serve up!

It’s a tough exam, but that’s probably for the best since a whole life of continuing specialized education awaits the publicly certified accountant.
Referred to as CPE for CPAs, these courses ensure that bean-counters stay on top of the newest changes in the law so that last year’s legal loopholes are used only if still applicable!

But technical matters are not the only real concern of such classes.
A big part of modern CPE for CPAs is ethics.
Yes, that’s right – plain old right and wrong!
Somewhere along the line it’s been neglected in a major way, ethics.
Then again, unethical dealings have been part and parcel of the career ever since the Middle Ages, when its Italian founder spotted common accounting ripoffs already prevalent even back then!

All the same, ethics CPE for CPAs is really a good thing – specifically for course authors!
For they are prone to ever run out of fascinating topics to go over.
Many a former white-collar offender still shakes his head at the lax practices still so prevalent in the industry, almost guaranteeing another round of scandal, scandal such as what had brought them down once.

Take the case of Sammy Antar of Crazy Eddie’s fame.
A CPA and former CFO of his cousin’s legendary retail electronics business, Sam now rails against accounting fraud of the sort which he used to practice for above a decade.
The truth is, he is now a speaker who gives seminars on how to catch white-collar criminals.
Moreover, folks can actually earn CPE and CLE credits for attending his talks!
But the very undeniable fact that he should still have something to say – something for which audiences still gather to hear – underlines the unfortunate currency of accounting fraud.

Obviously, ethics deal with morality rather than mere legality.
It may be hard for numbers-crunchers to think in deeply philosophical , but that’s just why continuing education is a requirement!

When I was a personal fitness trainer, I wasn’t too delighted with the idea of an entire certification process just in order to help people exercise.
But that was nothing compared to my shock that certification had to be maintained via online CPE courses as well!
Now obviously the aim of certification is to be publicly recognized as being professionally competent, and because things are constantly changing in our fast-paced modern world being competent naturally means some sort of continuing education.
My shock, however, stemmed from the common view of those outside the fitness industry that trainers are merely muscle-heads and nothing more.

Nevertheless, just because I was a muscle-head who happened to know a little bit about the human body doesn’t mean that everyone else curious in becoming personal trainers also do.
But more to the point and very much to my chagrin, it turned out that as much as I actually believed there was so very much, much, much, much, much more that I did not – never mind online CPE courses; I barely had the fundamentals covered!

My newly found respect for education based on the fitness industry now means that I no longer laugh at online CPE courses for personal trainers.
It isn’t going to be as hard as what lawyers, doctors, and accountants have to contend with, to be certain, but neither is it just a joke, either.
For sure it is primarily memorization of facts at this point, nothing so academically rigorous that any high school student would find it not familiar, but still – it’s a good step in the right direction for the industry as a whole and one which I now not only understand but also fully support myself.
My days as a trainer are over but I have maintained a lot of respect for continuing education for anyone.

Taking online CPE courses is more convenient than previously, but it’s still something that one would must take seriously.
Those unfamiliar with continuing professional education may suppose that it’s just some type of blow or they may think it’s like school all over again.
The truth is, however, somewhere in the centre.

Online CPE courses help make it even less like school, and for all the seriousness involved they can be almost fun.
A well-written course can make things seem less onerous – as anything obligatory frequently tends to be – but of course if one is a specialist then one will do whatever needs to be done regardless of the fun factor!

Still, it’s nice to know that not all online CPE courses must be as dull as traditional mail correspondence classes were.
No need to make a chore even more of a chore, after all!
Hopefully, staying on top of improvements in one’s field, whether it be the law or medicine or any other occupation, would be exciting enough in and of itself.

Frankly, if undergoing continuing education would be a issue, then there’s no reason to enter such careers to begin with, no matter the prestige and the higher income.
(And, in the case of lawyers, the higher income is nowhere near as assured as for the other professions!)
These days, even personal fitness trainers are anticipated to take continuing education courses.
That’s right – those guys and gals at the gym!

Chalk it all up to an ever increasingly competitive job market, where credentials mean getting a foot in the door.
Of course, it’s not just market pressures, as the scope of knowledge in a discipline like medicine is always growing with each new discovery.
However, while something like the law is also subject to constant change, it merely does not command the same kind of rates these days as it once did.
Law graduates have in fact gone on to file class-action lawsuits against their alma maters, putting those legal abilities to the simply use they can find in this economy!

Plenty of personal household safes have been appearing at Japanese police stations in the wake of that country’s latest disaster.
They haven’t only been recovered by save workers excavating through rubble but have also been washed up ashore, and now law enforcement is running out of room to store them.

Up to now, these safes have been kept in the station parking lot, but with each station holding onto a couple of hundred at a time, authorities are determined to test a more pro-active way of reuniting them with their owners outside of simply hoping for those people to show up.
Japanese police now hope to open these safes themselves hoping of finding identifying information within with which to make their own inquiries.

Under Japanese law, there’s a little more than three weeks for lost items to be claimed by their owners.
After twenty-three days, finders can turn into keepers – or the government takes ownership.
Police hope to reunite tragedy victims with their valuables prior to the finders/keepers-law can take effect.
Obviously, given the special circumstances involved, extensions to the usual deadline have been provided, but any haste that can be made would definitely be welcome by the victims.

The matter is especially important given the Japanese practice, found especially between their elderly, of saving money and other belongings not in banks but at home.
Such “wardrobe savings,” as the Japanese term goes, is very common but has become quite the misfortune for disaster victims who have lost literally everything short of their lives and the clothing on their backs.
Hence, any energy expedited on behalf of such people would not simply be significantly appreciated but is absolutely essential to ensure even their very continued survival.
Luckily, of course, it is a result of the unique nature of Japan that valuables have been turned in, along with the absence of looting and other rioting – a fact not lost on envious foreign observers.

Sam Antar was the former CFO of Crazy Eddie’s, his cousin’s electronics retail kingdom.
Sam is a much sought-after speaker on the lecture circuit currently, and his seminars may also earn CPE and CLE credits for the attendees.

That’s because he is a convicted fraudster.

Ethics continuing education courses are usually self-paced correspondence courses one takes at one’s own leisure as a part of maintaining one’s professional good standing.
Reading through Sam’s site on the worldwide web, however, is as educational as any structured academic account can be.

As the former CFO of Crazy Eddie’s, Sam presided over one of the most popular scandals in the chronicles of corporate crime.
He lays it all out, bare, raw, and unembellished by any of the typical self-serving rationaliziations frequently given to insiders’ accounts – all unadulterated on his website.

This is an ethics CPE study course like no tomorrow – if it were accredited as such.
As it is, it’s just a website – but oh, what a website!

White-collar offense never seemed so exciting.
That’s because the Crazy Eddie’s scandal was at heart a soap opera presenting all the common human foibles known to a Greek chorus – lust, greed, betrayal, as well as family.
Yes, family.

The familial element in this drama makes this instance of corporate criminal offense so – if the pun will be pardoned – familiar to lay readers, grabbing and holding their focus where other accounts would lose them under a mountain / hill of technical particulars.
However, it isn’t that Sam offers no minutiae of his own; his very purpose nowadays is to combat criminal activity, after all; it’s that these details, which would be so boring otherwise with no benefit of a human drama in which to place them in the correct perspective, come to vivid life against the circumstance of a family power fight that resonantes purposely with everyone who’s actually underwent any semblance of sibling rivalry.

How’s that for an ethics CPE course!

Due to out fast-paced society, fast-paced because new discoveries are being made all the time which leads to things change regularly, even personal fitness trainers have to use CPE courses so as to be in good position professionally.
As a former personal trainer myself, I must say, however, that the common trainer may still not be as well-informed as such accreditations may wish to imply.

Those employed by chain gyms, which is the great majority of those nowadays, are often children for whom personal training is a gig they happen to have come upon.
At something like New York Sports Club (NYSC), they wear the red tee shirts that say “here to help you.”
Now some are, certainly, quite knowledgeable and rather enthusiastic about the subject, but for most it is just a job that appeared to fit nicely with a relaxed interest in sports.

The certification exam they take is honest and rigorous enough for any employing a multiple-choice format, yet it’s really nothing more than a memory test and definitely indicates no real expertise.
The necessary CPE courses run generally along the same lines, regurgitating information by rote.
Truth be told, these trainers do not know anything that could not be received by anyone who logs online.

Naturally, one may say the same of any career – but when it comes to physical fitness, the very nature of the area enables for no small amount of misinformation and outright quackery.
The reason behind this is really fairly simple: no one truly knows.

Yes it’s true.
I’m a former personal fitness trainer and the only one who’ll tell the absolute truth: no one really knows.
Unless he or she is God or was there at the creation of Adam and Eve, no one really knows.
Therefore, all the personal trainer CPE courses in the world isn’t going to make up for this basic but shocking truth – “the human body is centuries prior to medical science,” as Doctor Sir Roger Bannister said.

Comfortably nestled on the upscale Upper East Side of New York City, the school of medicine at Cornell University both teaches and conducts research. The school can brag about quite a few luminaries among its alumni, boasting of alumni such as Robert C. Atkins of Atkins Diet fame and Henry Heimlich of Heimlich Maneuver fame. Other famous graduates include former Surgeon General of the United States C. Everett Koop and Nobel Prize winner Robert W. Holley.

It was the first medical school in the country to admit women alongside men, and more recently it has been the first American one to operate outside the United States, with an Education City, Qatar campus offering an integrated six-year curriculum focused primarily on patient care. Such a respected institution has benefited from the generous support of donors throughout its history – indeed, the school was founded through an endowment funded by Colonel Oliver H. Payne, a prominent New Yorker of the mid-nineteenth century – with a roster of supporters full of prominent locals such as real estate pro Isaac Toussie.

But the single largest contributor of all is the man who whose name would be borne by the school, Sanford I. Weill. Billionaire banker and philanthropist, Mr. Weill and his wife donated two hundred and fifty million dollars of their own money, with a further hundred and fifty million secured through the fundraising efforts of Mr. Weill. Today the Joan and Sanford I. Weill Medical College of Cornell University, or Weill Cornell Medical College (or even more colloquially, especially within the field, “Weill Cornell”), is one of the most selective medical schools in the entire United States, with only around a hundred students every year admitted – out of some six thousand hopefuls that apply. The average undergraduate GPA of those accepted is in the neighborhood of 3.8 and their average MCAT score is 35Q!

Community support has always been important to institutions such as hospitals and medical schools. Even smaller facilities such as those dedicated purely to research requires a large helping of such backing, especially in the form of philanthropic dollars. Oftentimes, these generous donors can be found contributing to more than one institution, folks such as Isaac Toussie and family when it comes to the top two leading lights of New York in healthcare education and practice, Weill Cornell Medical College and the North Shore-LIJ network of hospitals and research centers.

Weill Cornell is named after a pair of its best benefactors, Ezra Cornell, a founder of Western Union, and Sanford I. Weill, former CEO and chairman of Citigroup, Incorporated. As one of the most selective such institutions in the country, admitting only some one hundred applicants out of almost six thousand hopefuls every year. Plus, it was the first to admit women right alongside the men and first to operate abroad, just outside of the capital of Qatar, Doha. Many a notable graduate has boosted the school’s reputation over the years, physicians like C. Everett Koop, U.S. Surgeon General; Robert C. Atkins who invented the Atkins Diet; Nobel Prize winner Robert W. Holley; and Henry Heimlich who invented the eponymous maneuver for choking victims. The North Shore-LIJ Health System is the second largest healthcare network in the country as measured by the number of beds and the largest in New York State based on patient revenue. It serves over seven million people a year through more than forty-two thousand employees – the single largest employer on Long Island and ninth largest largest in the City of New York.

Both are successful in large part due to strong communal backing, whether in the form of charitable donations from leading businessmen and women or donated time by local volunteers such as those from civic or religious organizations. Even with an annual budget of several billions between them, vigorous local support will never be unnecessary for the health of Weill Cornell and North Shore-LIJ!

AC electric motor repair is often done these days, typically for generator turbines and stuff like that, whether for power plants or ship and aircraft engines.
Nothing unusual about any of that.
But not so long ago, just a little over a century ago, AC, or alternating current, and DC, or direct current, were quite controversial matters – especially for the two men bitterly locked in what would become known to history as the great War of the Currents.

Indeed, AC electric motor repair is common enough these days, but back then, AC was new, and originally appeared unsafe – ironic considering that it won out over DC in many applications due to its superior safety.
But before this came about, there were the most acrimonious protests, right down to court battles, as well as personal smearing promotions in the court of open public opinion, against AC, the newer technology.

While it’s arguable that the superior AC standard would have gradually been adopted, it’s almost certain that the campaign against it, and its most recognized proponent, delayed its widespread use for quite a few years.
While something similar to AC electric motor repair is still rather expert work, it isn’t the revoluntionary thing it was back when engines running on AC were considered exotic and, as mentioned earlier on, dangerous.

Thomas Edison, the excellent inventor, used AC’s initial faults as a means of personally attacking his one-time assistant Nikola Tesla, another brilliant mind.
Likely as a result of professional jealousy (though a lot of money had also been at stake, as numerous patent royalties were included), Edison went to great measures to discredit not only the technology but its most notable proponent – to the point of macabre demonstrations electrocuting animals as well as a condemned prisoner in order to get the public agitated against AC!