Amanda Whitmire

Came here for the comments and have not been disappointed.

I'm really proud that as I mentally ran through candidates of things to take home, most of what came to mind are things we've already scanned & uploaded to Stanford Digital Repository - no action needed. Humbled that I didn't have a grab-list already composed, so I'm working on that now. 🤔 /end

A series of large scrapbook volumes sit on a table in a library. The closest album is the oldest and the fattest.

A look inside the oldest album. There is a photo of Timothy Hopkins, who donated money to build the marine station, and a letter from Hopkins to the director of the marine station at that time (1934), Walter K. Fisher.

Last but not least, I grabbed the scrapbooks that document the history of @stanfordhopkins.bsky.social. Only the first album has been scanned & this is now at the top of my digitization list. Totally irreplaceable. 4/

A photo of a very old looking album that has a waetherd black leather binding and a blue cover with the word "photographs" on it.

A page in the algae album with 4 small specimens arranged on it. They were all very carefully laid out before being pressed so you can see all the parts. The colors are well preserved for being over 100 years old.

A very close-up shot of one of the algae specimens so you can see the texture of the paper, the thickness of the algae, and the rust color of the pigments.

This beauty is one of a kind, and even though it's been scanned, I'd be heartbroken if it was reclaimed by the sea. It's an album, "Marine algae of New England coast," created by collector Grace A, Hall in 1895. Please go admire the photos. searchworks.stanford.edu/view/13786250 3/

A side-view photo of a very large book opened on a table in a library. There is an etching of a species of marine algae that fills one page.

A top-view photo of a different page in the album showing the marine alga Macrocystis pyrifera, which is very common here in Monterey.

What I just call "Postels" is an 1840 folio in Russian & Latin that has etchings of marine algae from Russian surveys of the North American west coast in the late 1820s. Not SUPER rare, but rare enough. I love it, so I took it. cc. @gworthey.bsky.social See: searchworks.stanford.edu/view/2225739 2/

The trunk of a small SUV has several large books and albums stacked in the back.

The tsunami warning yesterday was a good reminder to have an emergency plan, whether it's your house or it's your library or lab. What would you take with you to safer ground? Here's what I took home from Miller Library ... 1/ 🌊🦑📚

Watch how seismometers recorded the passing earthquake waves from the magnitude 8.8 earthquake off Russia’s Kamchatka Peninsula.

Each dot in this animation is a seismic station—red 🔴 means the ground moved up, blue 🔵 means it moved down.

More ➡️ https://loom.ly/6Eo_fYc

A data plot of the predicted tide in Monterey (smooth blue line going up and down a few times over 18 hours) and the observed water level (red line that starts with following the blue line very closely, but then becomes erratic and spiky after midnight on July 30th).

A closeup view of the previous plot showing the peak of the first wave at 7/30, 00:54 hrs, 4.16 ft when predicted height was 3.48 ft.

Another closeup view of the tide data, showing the highest deviation from predicted tide at 4.44 ft when the tide was supposed to be 3.33 ft.

After one of the biggest earthquakes ever recorded (M8.8), we have been extremely lucky on the California coast to experience only a small tsunami. Looking at the tide gauge data in Monterey, the first wave peaked around 12:50 AM (<1 ft) and we saw the highest wave at 4:30 AM (1.1 ft). 🌊

A view out to Monterey Bay on a sunny, clear day. Bird Rock is in the foreground, and the calm shoreline shows clear water.

Dispatch from @stanfordhopkins.bsky.social - it’s a gorgeous day & the kelp beds are bigger than I’ve ever seen them. They wrap all the way around the station toward Lovers Point. 🌊🦑

My husband had emergency laparoscopic surgery to remove his appendix while we were in France. We paid €21 because he used the TV in his room for 3 days. I tried to pay our "international copay" and they looked at me with confusion and sadness.

Saw a sign in England last week that said, "You aren't stuck in traffic. You ARE traffic." 🤯

A tan colored guinea pig with short hair faces the camera. He has the usual cowlick pattern so his short hair sticks up at jaunty angles.

The same guinea pig is viewed from the back, and you can now see he has long hair that sticks up and out, flowing back. He is the mullet of guinea pigs.

Mordecai is business in the front, party in the back.

GBIF and OBIS are amazing and pull way above their weight relative to their funding (esp. OBIS). Huge fan! 🤩

We thought learning Icelandic was a fun challenge, but Welsh takes it to a whole other level. Hats off to y’all. 🫡

Yarn haul so far. Was happy to find that Wool in Bath carried a coned yarn that will work in my machine (Yarn2Cone 2 ply)! All of the skeins of yarn were made locally to the area where I purchased them, and the handspun was by a local gal in Glastonbury. 💕

A closeup view of three skeins of yarn. They are hand dyed green, blues, and an undyed single ply handspun.

Three skeins of hand dyed yarn in purple, cream with rainbow spots, and deep blue/green. Behind them is a cone of 2ply wool yarn in natural colors.

UK camper van 🚐 trip update. I’ve been to yarn shops in Glastonbury, Bath, & Conwy (Wales). I’ve missed a couple on my list b/c we passed through when they were closed. 😔 Off to the Lakes District & then York. England & Wales are *so* lovely so far.

A closeup photo of a clumpy coastal plant with pinkish flowers.

I’m in England & I’ve been taking pictures of lots of things I want to upload to @inaturalist.bsky.social, but we’re caravanning around & haven’t had WiFi, so now there’s a queue. Hitting a pub tomorrow for lunch - that’ll be my chance. 10 new “lifer” birds ID’d via Merlin though!

How will Marianne’s even survive having 400 new customers living next door?

I wrapped a @zotero.org demonstration into a reference chat with a student and they were SO excited about it. "I can't believe I wasn't using this before. This is going to save me so much time!" I also snuck password manager advice in there. 😎

Thank you for sharing this - SUPER helpful.

Great breakdown of the decision by someone deep into copyright and fair use. We need better AI legislation but trying to make copyright do that work comes with lots of awful side effects. Glad to see this ruling isn't pushing that direction much.

Thank you for this! 😍 Really helpful to have options pulled together in one spot.

I woman takes a selfie with three other people looking at the phone. They are on a stage in bright sun, with some bunting in the background.

A view from a stage out to the main arena at Monterey County Fairgrounds. Hundreds of high school graduates in green cap and gown regalia are seen in front of the stage.

I am an introvert. I am also currently president of a school board, so over the last two days I’ve presided over 9 ceremonies (8th grade promotion or high school graduation). I’ve shaken over 1,000 hands. The best days of the year, but I am TIRED. 😮‍💨

It would be a fun project! I haven’t looked into where to find the parts we’d need to order, but should be easy enough to find. Good project for making council folks to help with?

Open Press Project – The 3D-printed printing press Use printmaking for your art whenever and wherever you want. This little 3D-printed press fits into your backpack and gives you the ability to print outside, on vacation or in your living room! We are...

Been trying to resist adding printmaking to my crafting roster, but the #DHmakes timeline makes it increasingly difficult. This may be the final straw: openpressproject.com

Absolutely! Always happy to welcome fellow science nerds to the station. Reach out!

If you let me know when you’re here next, I can show you around the marine station, if you’re interested. ☺️

Right?! I’ve been here for almost 10 years and it still blows me away.

They pay me to work here? Beautiful morning at @stanfordhopkins.bsky.social

Every year at the beginning of performance appraisal season, I have an existential crisis about my job and if I'm doing it right, doing enough, etc. I realize this is dumb, but here we are, right on schedule. 🥴

There’s a recent piece —maybe on wire cutter? About a journalist who wore one of the new AI enabled all day recorders. It records your every conversation & transcribes it all day. I just want you to know that once basic social trust is broken in this way? It’s over