No scene from prehistory is quite so vivid as that of the mortal struggles of great beasts in the tar pits. In the mind's eye one sees dinosaurs, mammoths, and sabertoothed tigers struggling against the grip of the tar. The fiercer the struggle, the more entangling the tar, and no beast is so strong or so skillful but that he ultimately sinks.
—Frederick P. Brooks, Jr., "The Mythical Man-Month"

“This center formalizes and elevates the Tar Pits’ role as the world’s leading hub for Ice Age research,” [Lori] Bettison-Varga said. “It’s a gift for science at a time when we feel the importance of helping the public understand the scientific process is paramount.”
https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/story/2026-01-22/la-brea-tar-pits-research-center-makeover

#TarPits #IceAge #science #philanthropy

🦌 Small but speedy! The Dwarf Pronghorn once darted across Ice Age Los Angeles, a tiny relative of today’s pronghorns that called the region home thousands of years ago.

Fossils found at the #TarPits help us uncover how these pint-sized runners thrived in a world of giants.

La Brea Tar Pits & Museum‬
‪@tarpits.org‬ #globalmuseum #IceAge #mammals

Wow, someone dragged a dinosaur telephone switch from the tar pits 🦖 of obsolescence, and now they’re penning their epic saga. Must be nice to have a spouse and sibling willing to indulge a mid-life crisis involving ancient telecom relics 📞.
http://kev009.com/wp/2024/07/Lucent-5ESS-Rescue/ #dinosaurtelephone #midlifecrisis #telecomrelics #technostalgia #tarpits #HackerNews #ngated

I think it's wild that the best-selling brand of dishwashing liquid puts ducklings in its ads and on its labels.

You know why? It emerged after the famous Exxon Valdez catastrophe that Dawn is useful for cleaning up waterfowl.

Some would have our paws stuck in the tar pits for generations.

And for what? For a little bit of money.

After losing billions of dollars on Keystone XL and tank cars, Alberta is pursuing another pipeline
Danielle Smith announces new proposal, but says government won't actually build it
Kyle Bakx · CBC News
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/oilpatch-pipeline-alberta-1.7648452

#oil #TarPits #environment #Canada

Growing up as a paleontology nerd, I read a lot about the La Brea tar pits. But until I ran into a random paper a few months ago, I don't think I've ever read anything about the many other tar pits around the Americas and the world, many of which are equals to La Brea in scientific importance. I certainly never heard the story of Pitch Lake in Trinidad, the tar pit that paved America.

This was a fun one to write.

#TarPits #Prehistory #NowThatsADireWolf

https://daily.jstor.org/la-brea-and-beyond/

@algernon I've seen #Iocaine and #Nephentes referred to as #TarPits.

Vignette - Ou comment empêcher le web de devenir un Panoptique
Avec Vignette, vous ne créez pas seulement des sites web, vous protégez votre contenu en ligne mais aussi internet et même la démocratie, rien que ça !

OpenAI et Anthropic ont ouverts la boite de pandore en ignorant les règles établies qui empêche les...
➡️ https://vignette.eco/actus/_g4s5v/fr
#tarpits #aipoisoning #democratie #artisticintelligence #internet #CNIL #souverainetenumerique #digitalgarden #webrevival #RGPD #IA #AI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vC2mlCtuJiU #tarpits #hacktivism #digitaldefense

Tarpitting AI scrapers stealing your data & bandwidth.
Good idea, but instead of feeding them nonsense garbage Markov chains, find the AI’s own outputs & feed it that, ouroborous-style. #AI #tarpits #scrapers

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2025/01/ai-haters-build-tarpits-to-trap-and-trick-ai-scrapers-that-ignore-robots-txt/

Visit the tar pits in Los Angeles.
https://tarpits.org/experience-tar-pits/la-brea-tar-pits-and-hancock-park

#TarPits #SoftwareMetaphors #DireWolves

Website owners are fighting back: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2025/01/ai-haters-build-tarpits-to-trap-and-trick-ai-scrapers-that-ignore-robots-txt/

#News #AI #AntiAI #Tarpits #Scrapers #robotstxt

Dear US federal employees,

On your way out, would you mind
- do as much good as still possible
- prevent as much harm as possible
- save as much data as possible

You will be made obsolete by the GOP anyway, so why not do some good while you can?

#tarpits #deadmanswitch #atlantisconfigs

e499 — Seeking Data

e499 with Michael and Michael – all about #AI with #DeepSeek, #coldstart, #hallucinations, #BerlinWall, #AttentionEconomy, #IntentionEconomy and a whole lot more!

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 35:44 — 49.7MB) | Embed

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https://gamesatwork.biz/2025/02/03/e499-seeking-data/

Be ungovernable.

New tarpitting open source software to “capture” AI bots that don’t respect robots.txt restrictions:

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2025/01/ai-haters-build-tarpits-to-trap-and-trick-ai-scrapers-that-ignore-robots-txt/

#technology #ai #bots #webcrawl #tarpits

#AI haters build #tarpits to trap and trick #AIScrapers that ignore robots.txt

Attackers explain how an anti-spam defense became an AI weapon.

Ashley Belanger – Jan 28, 2025 4:16 P

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2025/01/ai-haters-build-tarpits-to-trap-and-trick-ai-scrapers-that-ignore-robots-txt/
#NoAI #NoNukesForAI

More headwinds ahead for #AI

#tarpits #deepseek #techbubble

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2025/01/ai-haters-build-tarpits-to-trap-and-trick-ai-scrapers-that-ignore-robots-txt/

#AI haters build #tarpits to trap and trick #AI #scrapers that ignore #robots.txt
#tarpit #security #privacy #robotstxt

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2025/01/ai-haters-build-tarpits-to-trap-and-trick-ai-scrapers-that-ignore-robots-txt/

What’s the backstory of dire wolves, the most-found mammal at the #TarPits?

Here are five juicy morsels about this extinct species that once howled through the Ice Age:

https://bit.ly/IceAgeAngeleno #WolfAwarenessWeek

La Brea Tar Pits @labreatarpits #wolf #wolves #Iceage

the tar pits in Los Angeles at hancock park have become famous for trapping over 3,000 sabre-toothed cats and over 4,000 dire wolves. But nobody asks what made keytars famous.

#fossilFriday
#humor
#tarPits
#LaBrea

🐺 The dire wolf is the most common large mammal from the #TarPits, but it's still really exciting to prepare a skull! Recently discovered in the Project 23 excavations, this specimen will take many months to prepare in the @labreatarpits Fossil Lab for public view.

#wolves #wolf #abreatarpits #fossils