Seattle

Sampling Air Quality at a Seattle Goth Club

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Following a pandemic-induced shutdown, local SeaGoth bar/dance club The Mercury has been reopened for just over a year now. I haven’t returned yet, but I’d heard through the grapevine that they’d done a lot of work on their HVAC system during their hiatus, and apparently have a system that meets or exceeds what’s expected for hospital grade systems.

Sounds pretty good — but I was curious as to just what that meant for their air quality, especially as this is a basement club, and with any such place, is likely to have a lot of people talking and breathing heavily when out on the dance floor. Plus, while I’ve been told that many people are wearing masks while they’re there, it’s by no means 100% (and, of course, it’s safe to assume that those who don’t/won’t mask are at higher risk than those who do).

I had a friend who was heading out there last Saturday night for a little while, and between the one-year re-opening anniversary and there being a merchandise table to distribute shirts and hoodies that people had purchased in a recent fundraiser, we could expect that there would be a good number of people there, even early in the evening. My friend was kind enough to carry along my Aranet4 CO2 monitor during their time there.

Though only there for about an hour, while there, in order to get the best possible “worst case” scenario, they made sure to sit near the merchandise table where people were gathering, and went out on the dance floor a few times. Yesterday I picked up the monitor and loaded its record to see the results.

The end result was, to be entirely honest, much better than I’d expected. The air quality stayed in the green the entire time they were there, averaging around 800 ppm. This is really impressive for that sort of situation.

A graph of CO2 measurements from roughly 9 to 10 p.m. Spikes at the beginning and end of the graph show when the carrier was in their car going to and from the club. The line between the spikes from when the carrier was in the club stays in the green. The displayed measurement point at 9:22 pm is 785 ppm.

Of course, there are some definite caveats to this:

  • It was the first hour, so even with their best efforts to find the most crowded areas, this may not be entirely indicative of what might be measured at peak times.
  • This is a measure of CO2 levels, not COVID or other viruses; you can still be exposed even in a well-ventilated space, even if the likelihood is reduced.
  • And because of that, however good the air quality is, there’s always the chance of talking with someone who is unmasked, asymptomatic, and exhaling their viral load directly into your face.

Since community transmission levels for the Seattle area are still pretty high, I’d still definitely recommend wearing a mask when out clubbing.

However, seeing measurements like this tells me that the money, time, and effort spent upgrading the club’s systems was well spent. I’m still keeping an eye on community transmission levels before I go out, but when I do, I’ll feel a lot more comfortable (though I will be staying masked as well).

(The spikes at the beginning and end of the graph are from when my friend was in their car going to and from the club.)

My local indigenous history

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Reposting for this year’s Indigenous Peoples’ Day.

According to this map, I (along with many of my Seattle-area friends) live on Duwamish tribal land, part of the Puget Sound Coast Salish tribal group (is that the right term to use?). The closest village was “sawh-WAHWH-weh-wad (‘place of whistling’). Duwamish. On Cedar River about 2 miles above present-day town of Renton. This village was occupied by the riverine Duwamish or doo-AHBSH, after doo (‘inside’) referring to (present-day) Duwamish River, Black River and Cedar River, along all of which this group resided.”

Lushootseed (which has several dialects) was the language spoken in the area.

The land was part of Cession 347, taken by the United States in the Point Elliott Treaty in 1855, ratified and proclaimed in 1859 (19KB .pdf). The signatory for the Duwamish was Chief Si’ahl, namesake of the city of Seattle. For all the land taken by this treaty, the tribes were “paid” $150k (roughly $4.3 million in today’s dollars — or roughly 1.3% of the cost of Avengers: Infinity War), distributed over nineteen years not as direct funds, but “to be applied to the use and benefit” of the tribes as directed by the government.

Despite being the first signatory tribe of the Point Elliott Treaty and having cultural history and stories dating back to the last ice age, the Duwamish Tribe is still not recognized as an indigenous nation by the United States Government.

My local indigenous history

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Reposting for this year’s Indigenous Peoples’ Day — I’ve moved since I first posted this in 2018, but not far enough for any of this to change.

According to this map, I (along with many of my Seattle-area friends) live on Duwamish tribal land, part of the Puget Sound Coast Salish tribal group (is that the right term to use?). The closest village was “sawh-WAHWH-weh-wad (‘place of whistling’). Duwamish. On Cedar River about 2 miles above present-day town of Renton. This village was occupied by the riverine Duwamish or doo-AHBSH, after doo (‘inside’) referring to (present-day) Duwamish River, Black River and Cedar River, along all of which this group resided.”

Lushootseed (which has several dialects) was the language spoken in the area.

The land was part of Cession 347, taken by the United States in the Point Elliott Treaty in 1855, ratified and proclaimed in 1859 (19KB .pdf). The signatory for the Duwamish was Chief Si’ahl, namesake of the city of Seattle. For all the land taken by this treaty, the tribes were “paid” $150k (roughly $4.3 million in today’s dollars — or roughly 1.3% of the cost of Avengers: Infinity War), distributed over nineteen years not as direct funds, but “to be applied to the use and benefit” of the tribes as directed by the government.

Despite being the first signatory tribe of the Point Elliott Treaty and having cultural history and stories dating back to the last ice age, the Duwamish Tribe is still not recognized as an indigenous nation by the United States Government.

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Downtown Seattle Barnes & Noble to close January 18th: “When the downtown Barnes & Noble closes, there will officially be no bookstores in the downtown retail core. While there are quite a few bookshops in surrounding neighborhoods like the Pike Place Market, Pioneer Square, Capitol Hill, and Queen Anne, this will be the first time in decades that shoppers won’t be able to browse the stacks of a bookstore without leaving downtown Seattle.”

My local indigenous history

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A followup to yesterday’s Indigenous Peoples’ Day:

According to this map, I (along with many of my Seattle-area friends) live on Duwamish tribal land, part of the Puget Sound Coast Salish tribal group (is that the right term to use?). The closest village was “sawh-WAHWH-weh-wad (‘place of whistling’). Duwamish. On Cedar River about 2 miles above present-day town of Renton. This village was occupied by the riverine Duwamish or doo-AHBSH, after doo (‘inside’) referring to (present-day) Duwamish River, Black River and Cedar River, along all of which this group resided.”

Lushootseed (which has several dialects) was the language spoken in the area.

The land was part of Cession 347, taken by the United States in the Point Elliott Treaty in 1855, ratified and proclaimed in 1859 (19KB .pdf). The signatory for the Duwamish was Chief Si’ahl, namesake of the city of Seattle. For all the land taken by this treaty, the tribes were “paid” $150k (roughly $4.3 million in today’s dollars — or roughly 1.3% of the cost of Avengers: Infinity War), distributed over nineteen years not as direct funds, but “to be applied to the use and benefit” of the tribes as directed by the government.

Despite being the first signatory tribe of the Point Elliott Treaty and having cultural history and stories dating back to the last ice age, the Duwamish Tribe is still not recognized as an indigenous nation by the United States Government.

Linkdump for August 1st through September 1st

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Sometime between August 1st and September 1st, I thought this stuff was interesting. You might think so too!

  • The P-I error that changed Seattle history: "Occasionally, newspapers report factual errors. A well-intentioned interview subject gives bad information, a name is spelled wrong, a breaking news story is inadvertently peppered with grammatical errors. But no incorrect newspaper story has had a bigger impact on Seattle history than one published June 7, 1889."
  • 98.6 degrees is a normal body temperature, right? Not quite: “Forget everything you know about normal body temperature and fever, starting with 98.6. That’s an antiquated number based on a flawed study from 1868 (yes, 150 years ago). The facts about fever are a lot more complicated.”
  • The “I Am Steve Rogers” Joke in ‘Avengers: Infinity War’ Is the Definitive Captain America Moment: That’s who Captain America is, a man who listens to and believes in people when they tell him who they are. That’s a lesson we all should take away from that moment.
  • The Bullshit Web: “An honest web is one in which the overwhelming majority of the code and assets downloaded to a user’s computer are used in a page’s visual presentation, with nearly all the remainder used to define the semantic structure and associated metadata on the page. Bullshit — in the form of CPU-sucking surveillance, unnecessarily-interruptive elements, and behaviours that nobody responsible for a website would themselves find appealing as a visitor — is unwelcome and intolerable.”
  • Ignorant Hysteria Over 3D Printed Guns Leads To Courts Ignoring The First Amendment: "…in the last few days the hysteria [over 3D-printed guns] has returned… and much of it is misleading and wrong, and while most people probably want to talk about the 2nd Amendment implications of all of this, it's the 1st Amendment implications that are a bigger deal." Interesting. I'm not at all comfortable with wide availability of 3D-printed guns, but this analysis of the issues is worth reading.

Last Den of Sin

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Friday night, I went out to the final Den of Sin Friday fetish night at Club Vogue at Neighbours Underground. I’d been looking forward to this for a couple reasons: one, because it had been a while since I’d been out to the club, let alone on an “event” night; two, this would be my first time out with my new D7000.

Long story short: I love this camera! I’m still getting used to the differences between it and my old D70s, so I’m not entirely comfortable and will definitely be fiddling around and tweaking settings until I get it down, but I’m already incredibly impressed with how well it performs, especially in extreme low-light settings.

Here are a few shots from Friday night, the rest are Facebook or Flickr (which includes a few shots too risqué for Facebook, if you’re logged in with a Flickr account). Everything was shot without flash — I had my flash with me, but never got around to putting it on the camera. I haven’t been able to go completely flash-free at the club in years…no matter how I pushed my D70s, it just couldn’t quite handle the low light of a goth club. The D7000, though, doesn’t even pause. This is fun.

Vogue Night- Den of Sin 10
Hands of Kali

Vogue Night- Den of Sin 15
Bianca

Vogue Night- Den of Sin 34
Hands of Kali

Vogue Night- Den of Sin 29
Bianca and DJ Eternal Darkness

Vogue Night- Den of Sin 37
Hands of Kali

Norwescon, Sakura-Con, and Easter Weekend

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I keep seeing questions about why Norwescon and Sakura-Con are both scheduled for Easter weekend this year. Here’s my attempt at an answer, with the disclaimer that I’m not speaking officially for Norwescon or Sakura-Con. This is just what I’ve picked up while chatting with people over the past couple years, and what I can verify over the ‘net (using the past convention dates from Wikipedia for Norwescon and Sakura-Con and this table of Easter dates).

Historically, Norwescon has been on Easter weekend for the majority of its existence, and the past 14 years consecutively:

  • On Easter Weekend: NWC 1, 11, 14, 17, 19-32
  • Near Easter Weekend: NWC 2-10 (and Alternatcon), 12, 15-16, 18

Sakura-Con, which has been in existence for fewer years (13) than Norwescon’s been consistently using Easter weekend (14), spent most of its first decade using weekends other than Easter weekend, very probably in an attempt not to conflict with Norwescon, as there is a lot of fan crossover between the two conventions. In fact, the first two years of Sakuracon were held at the SeaTac DoubleTree, the same hotel that Norwescon was using at the time (and is still using now).

  • On Easter Weekend: SC 10, 12-13
  • Near Easter Weekend: SC 1-9, 11

So, in a sense, Norwescon does have the elementary schoolyard ability to stick its tongue out at Sakura-Con and stamp its feet, saying, “We were here first!” But that would be silly.

So why the change in Sakura-Con’s schedule, if (as I’m guessing) since they at first attempted to work around Norwescon’s established schedule?

Simply put, it’s business. Easter weekend isn’t one of the big travel holidays, and conventions are more able to negotiate better usage rates (in everything from space rental fees to discounted room rates). It’s a win-win for both the convention and the hotel: the convention gets to use the hotel for as little money as realistically possible; the hotel gets a huge amount of business on an otherwise traditionally slow weekend.

So, as Sakura-Con grew in popularity, and needed to expand to find more and more space, I’d be willing to bet that after a while, it simply worked out that the best deals it could get for space (claiming space at the downtown Seattle Convention Center) and its fans (it looks like at least one downtown hotel is offering discounted rates for Sakura-Con attendees) were going to be on Easter weekend.

So yes, at times, it can be a little frustrating to have two major local conventions with a fair amount of cross-pollination in their fanbase going on over the same weekend. However, it’s a friendly competition, and there are always a small number of fans who do their best to bounce between both cons, or at least stop by the other convention once they’ve established a “home base” at one. Doing so is even easier than ever this year, now that the Central Link light rail is in operation: from Norwescon, just take a shuttle from the DoubleTree to the airport, hop the Link downtown, and you can probably be at the Washington State Convention Center and in the midst of Sakura-Con in right about an hour.

Whichever con you choose, though (for me, it’s Norwescon), have fun!

UPDATE: While I’m keeping the “not speaking officially” disclaimer up, I’ve received a number of comments from various people on the Norwescon ConCom (Convention Committee) thanking me for this post, and indicating that they’ll be passing it around as an answer to this oft-repeated question. Awesome!

UPDATE #2: Former Sakura-Con staff member and con chair Isaac Alexander contacted me via Twitter with a few minor corrections to what I wrote:

The Double Tree Inn at South Center is completely different then the Double Tree Sea Tac(which used to be the Red Lion Sea-Tac). The Double Tree Inn at South Center was torn down a couple years ago to make space for the mall expansion.

You were absolutely correct about us not wanting to conflict in the early years with norwes because of the crossover with fans.

Dark Loyalties

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A couple weeks ago, I posted a survey and asked for respondents from the local Seattle Gothic, or seagoth, community for a research project I was working on for my Law and Justice Research Methods class. The response was great, and I ended up getting full points for both the in-class presentation and the final research paper. For those of you curious about the final results, I’ve published the entire report. You can watch the presentation, read the report on the site, download the prettier .pdf version, or even download the .pdf version along with all the data files in case you want to do your own number crunching.

Thanks again for all who filled out surveys and assisted me in this project. It’s very, very appreciated!