Chris Struble Writes

My church has an auction every year. This year it is online. I decided to donate something new to the auction. I will give 1-on-1 online guitar lessons to up to ten people who contribute to the auction. This is something I have only done a few times before in person, and never online. It is long overdue. I have been playing guitar since I was four, with a decade off in my teens and twenties. Over forty years altogether. I learned mostly on my own, by listening to songs on the radio and working out how to play them. I had a few books with introductory lessons and chord boxes. I only learned to read music a few years ago. But I can play hundreds of songs, and have written more than twenty of my own, in three different tunings. I needed a photo for the auction site, so my wife took this photo of me on our couch. The guitar is a Yamaha NTX 700 classical acoustic-electric, with nylon strings. It has a beautiful sound and is easy to play. I bought it ten years ago and it is still my favorit...

It's time to write about why I support Joe Biden for president. Joe Biden believes in science. He accepts basic scientific facts such as the germ theory of disease and the greenhouse effect. He will take scientific evidence into account when making decisions. He will tackle the biggest threats to our economy and our safety, the coronavirus pandemic and climate change. Joe Biden will work for fairness. He will protect health insurance coverage for people with health issues. He will protect working people and small business owners. He will protect women, LGBTQ people, people of color, and others who continue to be denied full access to the American dream. Joe Biden will protect democracy. He will protect our sacred right to vote, our freedom of speech, our right to peacefully protest, and the sovereignty of our states and cities. Joe Biden embodies decency. He will lead by example with his own behavior. He will not use the presidency to benefit himself, or his big donors, or to settl...

This week the air quality in Washington state has been very unhealthy due to wildfires in California, Oregon, and Washington. We have been forced to close all our windows and stay inside for days. We have a box fan running continuously through a furnace filter to remove particles from the air. The inside air is stale, hot, and muggy but at least it is better than outside. But some people have to work outside to earn a living, such as landscape workers, gardeners, utility workers, road workers, and many others. Landscape workers have to work with bad air quality in the best of times. I am thinking of two cycle engines and dust and allergens from grass clippings. My heart goes out to all the outdoor workers. I hope they are getting the PPE and other equipment they need to protect their lungs from this smoke.

Tonight I finished the final presentation and video for my paper "Generator-based Testing: A State by State Approach" for the 2020 PNSQC conference. Learning to record and edit a video from home was a challenge. I already had a small audio box with a condenser microphone that I have used to record music. I had to get that running with my computer, and with software that would display a presentation from my computer and record from a webcam and microphone in real time.  I used ScreenCastify, a Chrome extension which was simple to use and had enough editing tools for what I wanted to do. It is free but only for videos up to 5 minutes long. I had to buy the commercial license, but it was worth it to get this done. I am relieved and immensely proud of this accomplishment.

This morning I want to give a shout out to energy utility workers everywhere. These folks work hard every day to keep the lights on, literally, every day, often in the worst weather. Last night, on the hottest day of the year so far, we lost power in the early evening, along with over a hundred people in our neighborhood. Within ninety minutes several utility trucks from Puget Sound Energy came to our street, along with a fire truck from Renton Fire Authority that blocked off the end of the street so the utility workers had room to work. An hour later power was restored and our house began to cool down. Thank you energy utility workers for keeping the lights on, and firefighters for everything you do to keep people safe.

As I have been following the news in recent months, I have been listening to the voices calling for the protection of black lives, and for police accountability. I support the end of qualified immunity for police officers. Qualified immunity grants government officials immunity from civil lawsuits for their actions while doing their jobs. It is not a constitutional principle. It was a doctrine created in 1967 by the Supreme Court. Since 2005, courts have applied the doctrine even in cases of excessive force or police brutality. An incident that happened yesterday illustrates for me why police must be held personally accountable. It is why I am compelled to speak out now. A mom and her four daughters were sitting in their SUV in a parking lot in Aurora Colorado. Police officers approached with guns drawn, handcuffed the entire family, including the six-year old daughter, and made them lay face down on hot concrete. The officers approached the vehicle because their records showed it as s...

This week I finished the second draft of my technical paper "Generator-based Testing: A State by State Approach". Two of my coworkers, Steven and Neelu, reviewed it and gave me helpful feedback, which I really appreciate. I sent a copy to Larry, our VP of Engineering, to ask him to review one section of the paper where I talked about my employer's business. In a department meeting he mentioned that he had read the entire paper and had given a lot of thought to it. He also asked me to present it to a department meeting in the near future. It was very nice of him to read it and to give me that public recognition. If any of my friends in the software industry would like to see the latest draft, contact me directly, and I will share it with you.