William W. Chuang's Blog

The day before he was assassinated, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered what came to be known as the "Mountaintop" speech. He ended by referring to a bomb threat against his plane as he was flying in to deliver the speech:
And then I got into Memphis. And some began to say the threats, or talk about the threats that were out. What would happen to me from some of our sick white brothers?

Well, I don't know what will happen now. We've got some difficult days ahead. But it really doesn't matter with me now, because I've been to the mountaintop. And I don't mind.

Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But I'm not concerned about that now. I just want to do God's will. And He's allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I've looked over. And I've seen the Promised Land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the promised land! And so I'm happy, to…

My firm needed two phone lines so I shopped around. Nextiva offered unlimited domestic business for $29.99 per line, which comes out to $36 per month after taxes, fees, and surcharges. There was also no contract. Verizon wanted a one-time setup fee of $166 in addition to a monthly charge of $76.12 per line including taxes, fees, and surcharges. They also wanted me to commit to a one-year contract. Vonage charged $50 for their business unlimited plan, but could not give me two lines on the same account. There was nothing negative about Nextiva online, though there wasn't much positive news either, so I decided to try it out.

I placed an order for a Linksys PAP2T-NA VOIP adapter for $55 plus $15 shipping, as well as two lines of service. I was assured that the adapter was unlocked so I could take it with me to another VOIP provider. When the adapter arrived, I set up the system but the phone service would not work. I called Nextiva technical support. They spent an hour on the phone …

Adam Goldstein, a.k.a. DJ AM was found dead in his New York apartment today along with some drug paraphernalia. Last year, he survived a deadly plane crash along with Travis Barker. There's currently a new Final Destination movie in the theaters. If Mr. Barker dies, I'm calling shenanigans.

On Thursday's show, Glenn Beck of Fox News went on the warpath against Obama and the liberal left. Mr. Beck tried to create an acronym for "OLIGARCHY". Mr. Beck did not succeed. This guy can't be serious, can he? If so, he better stop because lots of Americans take him seriously. They're distorting our national debate on health care reform and politics in general.

Protip: "ARH" is not pronounced "ARCH" in the English language.

From CNN:
Pirates holding a Taiwanese-flagged ship off the coast of Somalia fired on a U.S. Navy helicopter Wednesday as the aircraft monitored the ship, the Navy said.


The pirates were on a ship they had hijacked back in April. They had converted the ship for use as a floating base from which they were launching smaller attack boats. The helicopter was not hit, and was uncertain as to whether or not it had been fired upon until reviewing video of the incident.


Clearly, the Somali pirate menace continues. The Obama Administration should lead the world to stop this idiocy. There's no reason there should be pirates in 2009.

Saw this on Big Debt, Small Law. Peak, an attorney staffing agency that hires out contract attorneys to law firms for document review, now offers a certificate in Concordance document review for $199. That's a joke because doc review is quite brainless. Is this where the legal profession has fallen?

Reuters reports that the Federal Reserve was ordered by a federal district court to reveal the companies that received a government bailout. Judge Loretta Preska of the Southern District held that the Federal Reserve did not show that revealing the information would cause the companies to suffer imminent financial harm. Two Bloomberg News reporters filed the lawsuit after the Federal Reserve failed to make the disclosures pursuant to a request under the Freedom Of Information Act. The lawsuit is captioned: Bloomberg LP v. Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York (Manhattan), Case No. 08-9595.

If the Federal Reserve discloses this information, we can finally see how healthy our economy really is. The recent rally was predicated on the recovery of the banks. If the truth is that the banks have been propped up by massive government loans, then we may be in for some rough economic weather. A number of economists had proposed nati…

In a post entitled "Recess Rally," Michelle Malkin organized a grassroots rally against socialized medicine, such as the Medicare and Medicaid programs run by the government. The rallies were supposed to have taken place on August 22 at congressional offices everywhere. Too bad I missed it. I would have loved a chance to see the Republicans take on these gross entitlement programs, which are enlarging the scope of our federal government.

Tomorrow, Tuesday, August 25 is my birthday. I will be having drinks at the Russian Vodka Room at 7:30 PM. The place is on 52nd St. between Broadway and Eighth Ave.

Feel free to join me.

I spent some time over the weekend with my parents fixing up my office. Tovia's away on vacation, and I'm sure he'll be pleasantly surprised when he returns on Wednesday. The phones should hopefully be set up tomorrow.

The health care debate in our country seems to be driven by bad information. Feministe reports that 62% of Republicans want the government to "stay out of Medicare." If you weren't aware, Medicare is a federal entitlement program. Oddly, 24% of Democrats and 31% of independents feel the same way.

This is probably why Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh get away with trashing Obama's health care reform bill while criticizing cuts in Medicare spending.

Original survey from Public Policy Polling.

I woke up early this morning and went to dim sum with my parents, which is usually fun because that's the only time we ever get to talk about non-work related topics. Today was a rare exception. Little did I know that they were going to try to set me up. I don't mind the idea, but we seem to have very different ideas about suitable mates. Apparently, they are shallower than I am.

When I got home, I took my dogs on a long  walk. They love to run, and watching them gallop on their tiny legs is hilarious. The exercise made them much more amenable to sitting quietly as I worked on my firm website. I still need to put up profile pictures of Tovia and I, but I spent a while registering our firm and website on a bunch various social networking sites such as Yelp, Google Local Search, and the Yellow Pages. You never know where a lead can come from, right?

I finally got bored of that so I watched the last four episodes from the season 2 of Mad Men as well as the season 3 premiere. It'…

I have two dogs, a Chihuahua named Frogger II and a Pomeranian named Pom-Pom (because, get it, he looks like a pom-pom). I took some photos of my dogs after they had just been bathed. They both just turned a year old recently. I turn 27 next week. Happy birthday to us all, I guess. I have more pictures of my Pomeranian than of the Chihuahua because the latter is way too hyper to sit still for photos.

More than a few small businesses are still using e-mail addresses at gmail or yahoo domains. There's no reason not to have an e-mail address at your domain by using Google Apps, which is a free solution. The only expense is that you have to buy a domain name for around ten bucks or so at Go Daddy. Once you're done, head on over to Google Apps. A few minutes of set up gets you a Gmail interface for an e-mail address at your domain. You can even customize your interface by uploading your own logo. The only wrinkle is that you have to tinker with your SPF settings to avoid your e-mails from being rejected as junk. This last step is actually very important, and tends to be neglected.

Google Apps has many cool features. The most significant one is that you can have e-mail pushed onto your Blackberry without having to host a Blackberry Enterprise Server. Google takes care of that for you transparently. You just have to set up your e-mail account on your Blackberry just like any othe…