bashobits exploring ideas
bashobits exploring ideas
Share Dialog
Share Dialog
Subscribe to bashobits exploring ideas
Subscribe to bashobits exploring ideas
In the beginning, starting an artist account on Twitter as bashobits was mostly good. I could focus on art and related topics, ignoring 99.9% of the other drama. Because art has enough drama already.
Being on Twitter was super helpful to share my first art collection, Seasons of Mobility
I kept sharing little snippets about my art, which is about a future 1010 years after humanity is gone, while life continues in the form of autonomous trains, buses, and cars trained on our data and culture.
Things were going in the right direction for creating and sharing the art.
Apparently someone or something at Twitter didn't like:
A) my art
B) the snippets about my art
C) too many gm posts
D) all of the above
Here's some screenshots of what I was able to salvage from a few of my banned tweets. Don't worry, they're safe for work, unless you work at the dumpster fire formerly known as Twitter:
After getting suspended, I had multiple exchanges with nameless humans, or maybe they were bots.
The conclusion was the message above.
No details why.
Just 'case closed' and for good measure 'replies will not be monitored'.
They ended with 'Thanks, Twitter'.
It turned out getting banned by Twitter was actually freedom.
Freedom to explore alternatives.
After stumbling around for a while and trying some different things, I ended up drifting into Farcaster and Paragraph and Base all at the same time.
I happened to join when Farcaster Frames launched, so that was a fun start:
Inspired by the ⚡️💨 progress with Farcaster Frames, here are 69 ideas to explore https://paragraph.xyz/@bashobits/69-ideas-for-farcaster-frames
And of course I'm sharing some of the story behind my art:
Started with @paragraph and it runs super smooth 🚅✨ This post is an intro to my collection Seasons of Mobility https://paragraph.xyz/@mobility/seasons-of-mobility-collection-introduction
I'm just getting started with this, and it was all because I got banned from Twitter.
Thanks, Twitter.
In the beginning, starting an artist account on Twitter as bashobits was mostly good. I could focus on art and related topics, ignoring 99.9% of the other drama. Because art has enough drama already.
Being on Twitter was super helpful to share my first art collection, Seasons of Mobility
I kept sharing little snippets about my art, which is about a future 1010 years after humanity is gone, while life continues in the form of autonomous trains, buses, and cars trained on our data and culture.
Things were going in the right direction for creating and sharing the art.
Apparently someone or something at Twitter didn't like:
A) my art
B) the snippets about my art
C) too many gm posts
D) all of the above
Here's some screenshots of what I was able to salvage from a few of my banned tweets. Don't worry, they're safe for work, unless you work at the dumpster fire formerly known as Twitter:
After getting suspended, I had multiple exchanges with nameless humans, or maybe they were bots.
The conclusion was the message above.
No details why.
Just 'case closed' and for good measure 'replies will not be monitored'.
They ended with 'Thanks, Twitter'.
It turned out getting banned by Twitter was actually freedom.
Freedom to explore alternatives.
After stumbling around for a while and trying some different things, I ended up drifting into Farcaster and Paragraph and Base all at the same time.
I happened to join when Farcaster Frames launched, so that was a fun start:
Inspired by the ⚡️💨 progress with Farcaster Frames, here are 69 ideas to explore https://paragraph.xyz/@bashobits/69-ideas-for-farcaster-frames
And of course I'm sharing some of the story behind my art:
Started with @paragraph and it runs super smooth 🚅✨ This post is an intro to my collection Seasons of Mobility https://paragraph.xyz/@mobility/seasons-of-mobility-collection-introduction
I'm just getting started with this, and it was all because I got banned from Twitter.
Thanks, Twitter.
<100 subscribers
<100 subscribers
Not only were ElizaOS and Shawn’s accounts suspended, but X also took down the account of memecoin platform gmgn.ai, its founder, and many Chinese memecoin KOLs. The reason remains unclear. That said, welcome to a sufficient decentralized, open, permissionless, programmable, composable, crypto-native social network.
There’s a pattern for sure https://paragraph.com/@bashobits/thanks-twitter
Your story is inspiring, and a reminder of why Farcaster matters. Keep creating here!
Appreciate it, thank you! glad to find you and other fantastic people here for sure 💯
How many of these accounts were authentic? Were they part of Internet Water Armies? Surprised re: Shaw, and gmgn, but X probably wants authentic creators. Btw, we found that many suspended accounts there started their bot nonsense here :( bad neynar, but good spam labels. Also I wonder if this is X just cleaning out crypto twitter. At which point they have to migrate.
The banned high-profile accounts were authentic and had a large number of followers. One possible speculation is that they posted a lot of memecoin CAs, which might have been considered as spreading misleading information.
Good to note re:authentic. A bit of my thesis on why this happened https://farcaster.xyz/bytebot/0xd7a30e34
Wild to see @elizaOS, @shawmakesmagic, @gmgnai, and Chinese memecoin KOLs suspended on X with no clear reason. Is this a targeted move or just platform policy? Decentralized, open, crypto-native social networks are looking more essential than ever.
it's time for farcaster to shine!
I don't feel safe using Twitter anymore
Hi Casters. I haven't used Twitter in years but I did put this on my profile at some point in the last couple of years. Should I appeal?
It’s high time to @ Elon
there’s a special club banned from Twitter for doing nothing wrong, welcome to join us 🙌 https://paragraph.com/@bashobits/thanks-twitter
Appeals don't work on Twitter anymore since Elon fired the whole Support team.
Yeah. And also this is weird that this would be the case. How is this against community guidelines
No, you belong with us now 😂
🤣🤣 I'll show this to Elon 🤣🤣
Forever and ever😂😂
Also to be fair it is still up - so I wonder if this is some kind of spam?
is this real?! they are blocking QR codes?
Is it because of the QR?
Maybe ask @grok
Honestly, I'd say if you don't want to lose the account, you are better to just change the offence. Otherwise it's so easy to just lose your account and really have no decent option of recovery. It is what it is. Is this on your main cover?
how do people have time to post here and on X consistently?
getting banned from X without any explanation makes it easier and simpler https://paragraph.com/@bashobits/thanks-twitter
good question
Regenerative brain rot
unemployed brain rot new world order caffeine matcha
Copy pasta 🍝
Cross posting app Botting
I’m never not on my computer tbh
by starting to neglect X :V
we don't hahah I stopped posting on X for a while now
Usually it's just cross post
do you prefer content visibility here on farcaster or on x, and why? (i use warpcast) personally it's easier to find replies of people i follow on x, it has a different feel. it's also easier to push my own posts towards more visibility by simply replying to them again with another thought
when i recast my own or others' casts here, it feels like it has no effect
wondering if anyone sees this reply on their feed? let me know
it's easier here because i'm not banned here. not saying it's amazing here, just that being able to participate is better than being banned.
hey basho, oh wow why are you banned. that's banning the wrong people
wrote about it early in my time here, and yeah it makes me truly appreciate this place being sufficiently decentralized even if it's far from perfect https://paragraph.xyz/@bashobits/thanks-twitter
ive seen like 1-level deep reply bumping in the feed here, but i and many others wish it was better
I prefer this, but recently there have been a lot of wrong filters used and many of the good users I know have been identified as bots
I use as many platforms as possible tbh. FC mainly for jotting down thoughts and trying to keep up with stuff in crypto. FC bots have left me alone for now X more so for life news/awareness of the outside world. I agree, x is easier to find replies and other relevant info from folks I follow 💚 X bots are wild and nonstop.
🚀 Just published on Forbes: "From Control to Community: Farcaster and the Future of Social Media" 📡 Special thanks to @codeofcrypto, @ted, @christopher, @toadyhawk.eth, and @woj! https://www.forbes.com/sites/digital-assets/2024/11/04/from-control-to-community-farcaster-and-the-future-of-social-media/
finally got a degen allowance and this is the perfect thing to tip! 100 $DEGEN
Thanks!
Very thoughtful piece! For a lot of users, decentralized seems very theoretical until they see what getting banned for no clear reason feels like, and so sharing my story in case it’s helpful https://paragraph.xyz/@bashobits/thanks-twitter
congrats on publishing and thanks for considering and featuring supercast 🤝
Awesome stuff everyone
excited to see this come out and it was great to meet you at the /new-york pizza crawl!!
Great piece- very comprehensive and easy to understand. I can share on LinkedIn with my non crypto network.
Thank you again for the great article -- tipping you 14000 $DEGEN
Thanks, @toadyhawk.eth for your exceptional contribution to the article.
👍 500 $DEGEN
Amazing work Gary 137 $degen
Bluesky just raised $15M in its Series A, totaling $23M with the seed round, and has 13M users. and it still vows to steer clear of crypto to avoid "hyperfinancializing" the platform. Farcaster has raised $180M with 700K users now. Is this comparison fair? we are still early?
cc @keccers.eth just looping you into this conversation
What is their plan for revenue and such? Just curious how to not financially incentivize on social (speaking for creators) I have no opinion on valuations - I’ve never done that stuff yet
The article mentions that they began developing a subscription model for features. There are, of course, many ways to make a profit, but it has nothing to do with crypto.
i've been thinking about this... most people leaving twitter are like sheep and they're leaving because they hate musk or something. for everyone else still in there, the switching costs are too high. but it's fair to ask why farcaster didn't capture more users? what's missing? so, i believe it's a fair comparison.
Yeah, that's why I've been observing what's going on with other social networks. Farcaster can be compared to them, and we can learn from their best practices while avoiding their pitfalls.
/microsub tip: 475 $DEGEN
/microsub tip: 351 $DEGEN
Interesting, have you used BlueSky? What do you think of it?
Avoiding crypto and ‘hyperfinancializing’ is the best thing they did. It’s what allowed them to get 13m users. I’ve been saying this for a while. All this shit is a net negative on the space. And we’re nowhere close to go mainstream with this garbage.
of course using crypto (introducing tokens) to attract users is not a wise move, what’s more important is the product-market fit itself.
Two things they (bluesky and mastodon / Fediverse) did absolutely right- - Less financial content. Btw if you wanna more real ppl financial / tip the platform should just support Tron /Bsc (as fc did with Base). Bluesky have huge users in Asia. - Federated structure. Bluesky don’t wanna web3/blockchain but any node / instance maintainer can fork and add later. No need to do global p2p status- it won’t work. The simple fact is we ran way larger community on Mastodon/Fedi since 2019/2020 and I don’t think FC folks learned the lesson and ever approached, hehe. (While nostr/ lens/ bluesky / mastodon have several conversations with us on this; Bsky/mstdn don’t like crypto but they’re learning fast!) FYI mastodon’s core foundation budget is <1m$ per yr. So much more higher roi and efficiency.
i tried it long time ago, but from my memory it had just a simple interface of twitter and nothing really that is interesting to me. might give it a go again to see the changes
I'd say there's still nothing interesting. I was one of the earliest users, yet I'm still puzzled as to why people enjoy joining Bluesky. 😂
yeah, interesting. I wonder how much of that growth is people leaving X/twitter but wanting a product experience that is stable and not changing often? does feel like “ship changes fast” can have downsides of confusing new Farcaster/Warpcast users.
Same... Soooo 💤.. Just logged in and if anyone wants to see I have a few invite codes...
we’re really just getting started in the web3 but not the crypto race
X changes their blocking policy and forces me to protect my posts from internet stalkers by blocking my profile from non-followers. Because of this I have stopped paying my subscription. Bye, bye X
I had already canceled my subscription and I guess I may change my profile to private as well.
twitter / X is a dumpster fire, sadly https://paragraph.xyz/@bashobits/thanks-twitter
A disinformation dump 🤮
Welcome Crow happy to have ya on the decentralized side of social media 🤗
Thank you so much, X is a dump, I am very happy here.
Been thinking of how Facebook & other user generated content Web 2.0 era platforms as walled gardens, were much like Feudalism in the city states era. Essentially in exchange for identity and well being in a walled garden, a safe have to trade, to identify and express you were allowed to do whatever you want to do as long as you paid your dues and stayed within the walled garden If anything, this Feudalism is still ongoing. A bunch of people are generally upset by it but a lot of folks generally are unaware, accept it as it is, and those that aren't fans are either allowed to live outside the city walls (but find their own ways) or actively want another system besides Feudalism (a few pockets of these people, sort of hoping for various levels of rebellion against the system) Makes me think about how one of the central tenets of why the French Revolution took place was, you guessed it - taking down Feudalism. The August decrees specifically requested to abolish the feudal system, which is fascinating
I honestly feel like there’s a lot more to uncover here, parallels etc and write about but it’s Friday night and I don’t really want to Maybe later
Sure, would be pleasure to read 👌🏽👌🏽
Agree to the parallels, and it’s interesting how what keeps the walled gardens going is users’ attention. We are free to build and express outside. But all the eyes are on the inside. The revolution is when folks realize they can direct their attention wherever they choose.
love reading this ~ energy flows where attention goes
Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité
And laïcité, I never understood why that didn’t make it into the national motto. Such a huge part of the Revolution was not just getting rid of feudalism but of the meddling of the church into societal affairs too
read your cast first, then saw farcaster moving to use twitter as a social signal - being part of the feudalism backslide in real-time ain't fun 😓 https://paragraph.xyz/@bashobits/thanks-twitter
This is exactly Yanks Varoufakis thesis. He calls it Technofeudalism and we're all just serfs.
*Yanis. Stupid autocorrect.
Zuboff has thought and written lots about this https://www.hks.harvard.edu/centers/mrcbg/programs/growthpolicy/digital-feudalism-future-data-capitalism-shoshana-zuboff
And what do the July decrees request?
I like the parallelism with the feudal system, but I think you left out the most important part: People did not own the land, it was owned by the local lord. And here we are, on the streets, shouting "Read. Write. Own!"
This is an interesting frame/parallel, reminded me of the dark forest metaphor that some use. https://maggieappleton.com/cozy-web https://maggieappleton.com/ai-dark-forest
Yeah, well... The Dude abides
112 comments
Not only were ElizaOS and Shawn’s accounts suspended, but X also took down the account of memecoin platform gmgn.ai, its founder, and many Chinese memecoin KOLs. The reason remains unclear. That said, welcome to a sufficient decentralized, open, permissionless, programmable, composable, crypto-native social network.
There’s a pattern for sure https://paragraph.com/@bashobits/thanks-twitter
Your story is inspiring, and a reminder of why Farcaster matters. Keep creating here!
Appreciate it, thank you! glad to find you and other fantastic people here for sure 💯
How many of these accounts were authentic? Were they part of Internet Water Armies? Surprised re: Shaw, and gmgn, but X probably wants authentic creators. Btw, we found that many suspended accounts there started their bot nonsense here :( bad neynar, but good spam labels. Also I wonder if this is X just cleaning out crypto twitter. At which point they have to migrate.
The banned high-profile accounts were authentic and had a large number of followers. One possible speculation is that they posted a lot of memecoin CAs, which might have been considered as spreading misleading information.
Good to note re:authentic. A bit of my thesis on why this happened https://farcaster.xyz/bytebot/0xd7a30e34
Wild to see @elizaOS, @shawmakesmagic, @gmgnai, and Chinese memecoin KOLs suspended on X with no clear reason. Is this a targeted move or just platform policy? Decentralized, open, crypto-native social networks are looking more essential than ever.
it's time for farcaster to shine!
I don't feel safe using Twitter anymore
Hi Casters. I haven't used Twitter in years but I did put this on my profile at some point in the last couple of years. Should I appeal?
It’s high time to @ Elon
https://media.tenor.com/HewFmNRxtT4AAAAC/why-persian-room-cat-guardian
Sswwwwwweet
there’s a special club banned from Twitter for doing nothing wrong, welcome to join us 🙌 https://paragraph.com/@bashobits/thanks-twitter
Appeals don't work on Twitter anymore since Elon fired the whole Support team.
Yeah. And also this is weird that this would be the case. How is this against community guidelines
No, you belong with us now 😂
🤣🤣 I'll show this to Elon 🤣🤣
Forever and ever😂😂
Also to be fair it is still up - so I wonder if this is some kind of spam?
is this real?! they are blocking QR codes?
Is it because of the QR?
Maybe ask @grok
Honestly, I'd say if you don't want to lose the account, you are better to just change the offence. Otherwise it's so easy to just lose your account and really have no decent option of recovery. It is what it is. Is this on your main cover?
how do people have time to post here and on X consistently?
getting banned from X without any explanation makes it easier and simpler https://paragraph.com/@bashobits/thanks-twitter
good question
There are apps where you can publish the same thing on several platforms at the same time, for example @fireflyapp
GN
Regenerative brain rot
unemployed brain rot new world order caffeine matcha
this is my seed phrase???
thank you
I would do this too but I can't stand the taste of matcha 😭
Copy pasta 🍝
Cross posting app Botting
I’m never not on my computer tbh
by starting to neglect X :V
we don't hahah I stopped posting on X for a while now
Usually it's just cross post
do you prefer content visibility here on farcaster or on x, and why? (i use warpcast) personally it's easier to find replies of people i follow on x, it has a different feel. it's also easier to push my own posts towards more visibility by simply replying to them again with another thought
when i recast my own or others' casts here, it feels like it has no effect
wondering if anyone sees this reply on their feed? let me know
it's easier here because i'm not banned here. not saying it's amazing here, just that being able to participate is better than being banned.
hey basho, oh wow why are you banned. that's banning the wrong people
wrote about it early in my time here, and yeah it makes me truly appreciate this place being sufficiently decentralized even if it's far from perfect https://paragraph.xyz/@bashobits/thanks-twitter
ive seen like 1-level deep reply bumping in the feed here, but i and many others wish it was better
I prefer this, but recently there have been a lot of wrong filters used and many of the good users I know have been identified as bots
I use as many platforms as possible tbh. FC mainly for jotting down thoughts and trying to keep up with stuff in crypto. FC bots have left me alone for now X more so for life news/awareness of the outside world. I agree, x is easier to find replies and other relevant info from folks I follow 💚 X bots are wild and nonstop.
🚀 Just published on Forbes: "From Control to Community: Farcaster and the Future of Social Media" 📡 Special thanks to @codeofcrypto, @ted, @christopher, @toadyhawk.eth, and @woj! https://www.forbes.com/sites/digital-assets/2024/11/04/from-control-to-community-farcaster-and-the-future-of-social-media/
finally got a degen allowance and this is the perfect thing to tip! 100 $DEGEN
Thanks!
Very thoughtful piece! For a lot of users, decentralized seems very theoretical until they see what getting banned for no clear reason feels like, and so sharing my story in case it’s helpful https://paragraph.xyz/@bashobits/thanks-twitter
congrats on publishing and thanks for considering and featuring supercast 🤝
Awesome stuff everyone
excited to see this come out and it was great to meet you at the /new-york pizza crawl!!
💯
Great piece- very comprehensive and easy to understand. I can share on LinkedIn with my non crypto network.
Here is a LinkedIn post if helpful: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/infinityadvisoryllc_from-control-to-community-farcaster-and-activity-7259234957653426176-GS4W?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_ios
And, thanks!
Great article! 3000 $DEGEN
Much appreciated!
Thank you again for the great article -- tipping you 14000 $DEGEN
Thanks, @toadyhawk.eth for your exceptional contribution to the article.
👍 500 $DEGEN
Amazing work Gary 137 $degen
Bluesky just raised $15M in its Series A, totaling $23M with the seed round, and has 13M users. and it still vows to steer clear of crypto to avoid "hyperfinancializing" the platform. Farcaster has raised $180M with 700K users now. Is this comparison fair? we are still early?
cc @keccers.eth just looping you into this conversation
What is their plan for revenue and such? Just curious how to not financially incentivize on social (speaking for creators) I have no opinion on valuations - I’ve never done that stuff yet
The article mentions that they began developing a subscription model for features. There are, of course, many ways to make a profit, but it has nothing to do with crypto.
i've been thinking about this... most people leaving twitter are like sheep and they're leaving because they hate musk or something. for everyone else still in there, the switching costs are too high. but it's fair to ask why farcaster didn't capture more users? what's missing? so, i believe it's a fair comparison.
Yeah, that's why I've been observing what's going on with other social networks. Farcaster can be compared to them, and we can learn from their best practices while avoiding their pitfalls.
/microsub tip: 475 $DEGEN
/microsub tip: 351 $DEGEN
Interesting, have you used BlueSky? What do you think of it?
Avoiding crypto and ‘hyperfinancializing’ is the best thing they did. It’s what allowed them to get 13m users. I’ve been saying this for a while. All this shit is a net negative on the space. And we’re nowhere close to go mainstream with this garbage.
of course using crypto (introducing tokens) to attract users is not a wise move, what’s more important is the product-market fit itself.
Two things they (bluesky and mastodon / Fediverse) did absolutely right- - Less financial content. Btw if you wanna more real ppl financial / tip the platform should just support Tron /Bsc (as fc did with Base). Bluesky have huge users in Asia. - Federated structure. Bluesky don’t wanna web3/blockchain but any node / instance maintainer can fork and add later. No need to do global p2p status- it won’t work. The simple fact is we ran way larger community on Mastodon/Fedi since 2019/2020 and I don’t think FC folks learned the lesson and ever approached, hehe. (While nostr/ lens/ bluesky / mastodon have several conversations with us on this; Bsky/mstdn don’t like crypto but they’re learning fast!) FYI mastodon’s core foundation budget is <1m$ per yr. So much more higher roi and efficiency.
i tried it long time ago, but from my memory it had just a simple interface of twitter and nothing really that is interesting to me. might give it a go again to see the changes
I'd say there's still nothing interesting. I was one of the earliest users, yet I'm still puzzled as to why people enjoy joining Bluesky. 😂
yeah, interesting. I wonder how much of that growth is people leaving X/twitter but wanting a product experience that is stable and not changing often? does feel like “ship changes fast” can have downsides of confusing new Farcaster/Warpcast users.
Same... Soooo 💤.. Just logged in and if anyone wants to see I have a few invite codes...
we’re really just getting started in the web3 but not the crypto race
X changes their blocking policy and forces me to protect my posts from internet stalkers by blocking my profile from non-followers. Because of this I have stopped paying my subscription. Bye, bye X
I had already canceled my subscription and I guess I may change my profile to private as well.
X sucks lately 😔
It does. So sad to see hard work we’ve put in the past few years be lost. I’m glad we have Warpcast at least 🫂
twitter / X is a dumpster fire, sadly https://paragraph.xyz/@bashobits/thanks-twitter
A disinformation dump 🤮
Welcome Crow happy to have ya on the decentralized side of social media 🤗
Thank you so much, X is a dump, I am very happy here.
Wow. That’s terrible. 😞
X is bad 🤧
Horrible.
Been thinking of how Facebook & other user generated content Web 2.0 era platforms as walled gardens, were much like Feudalism in the city states era. Essentially in exchange for identity and well being in a walled garden, a safe have to trade, to identify and express you were allowed to do whatever you want to do as long as you paid your dues and stayed within the walled garden If anything, this Feudalism is still ongoing. A bunch of people are generally upset by it but a lot of folks generally are unaware, accept it as it is, and those that aren't fans are either allowed to live outside the city walls (but find their own ways) or actively want another system besides Feudalism (a few pockets of these people, sort of hoping for various levels of rebellion against the system) Makes me think about how one of the central tenets of why the French Revolution took place was, you guessed it - taking down Feudalism. The August decrees specifically requested to abolish the feudal system, which is fascinating
I honestly feel like there’s a lot more to uncover here, parallels etc and write about but it’s Friday night and I don’t really want to Maybe later
Sure, would be pleasure to read 👌🏽👌🏽
Agree to the parallels, and it’s interesting how what keeps the walled gardens going is users’ attention. We are free to build and express outside. But all the eyes are on the inside. The revolution is when folks realize they can direct their attention wherever they choose.
love reading this ~ energy flows where attention goes
Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité
And laïcité, I never understood why that didn’t make it into the national motto. Such a huge part of the Revolution was not just getting rid of feudalism but of the meddling of the church into societal affairs too
read your cast first, then saw farcaster moving to use twitter as a social signal - being part of the feudalism backslide in real-time ain't fun 😓 https://paragraph.xyz/@bashobits/thanks-twitter
This is exactly Yanks Varoufakis thesis. He calls it Technofeudalism and we're all just serfs.
*Yanis. Stupid autocorrect.
Zuboff has thought and written lots about this https://www.hks.harvard.edu/centers/mrcbg/programs/growthpolicy/digital-feudalism-future-data-capitalism-shoshana-zuboff
And what do the July decrees request?
Go touch grass
Perfect, I’m already in compliance
I like the parallelism with the feudal system, but I think you left out the most important part: People did not own the land, it was owned by the local lord. And here we are, on the streets, shouting "Read. Write. Own!"
This is an interesting frame/parallel, reminded me of the dark forest metaphor that some use. https://maggieappleton.com/cozy-web https://maggieappleton.com/ai-dark-forest
Yeah, well... The Dude abides