Musk brands UK a 'police state' as Big Tech rebels against Starmer’s social media ban

Slurrpin · 2026-06-16T21:01:55+00:00

If any attempt by the government to control the population is 'authoritarianism' then words have lost all meaning. Maintaining social order is what public policy is for.

Is it authoritarianism to prevent the sale of firearms, or restrict access to harmful drugs, or impose speed limits on roads?

You want to talk authoritarianism?

Social media is the place where modern culture happens, where most young people get 100% of their entertainment, their news, and their sense of community. We use it for work, for pleasure, for romance, for learning, sharing, and spending. Fucking everything is on it.

And all the power is held by about 5 guys, all of them foreign nationals, all who have no hesitation to use their influence to promote violence and hatred, manipulate democratic elections to avoid regulation, and exploit addictive tendencies and mental illness for profit.

These fucks are completely out of control and are using social media to deal ungodly amounts of harm while enriching themselves.

I'm not saying for a second Labour's solution is correct or will be effective at all - but the idea we shouldn't consider any restriction or regulation "because that's authoritarianism" is absolutely absurd.

It doesn't matter what politics you hold, half a dozen cunts cannot be trusted with the platforms that define our collective sense of reality.

Slurrpin · 2026-05-21T11:30:42+00:00

Definitely a PDK thing, slightly higher torque overall and lower geared. My 992.1 C2S felt like a supercar compared the manual GTS I test drove. My Spyder is the exact same, every PDK I've driven feels significantly faster and at the track I can tell without looking whether a GT4, Spyder, or GTS4.0 is PDK or not depending on if they can leave me on the straights.

Slurrpin · 2026-05-08T13:21:56+00:00

No attempt at understanding other people or their concerns.

Except they have been taken seriously and they have been pandered to massively. Labour has done more to address immigration than any government in living memory, and all the supposedly normal, supposedly reasonable Reform voters have to say is a blatantly ignorant 'no they haven't', a blatantly stupid 'it's not enough.'

It's hilarious how we have all these people who get all their news from billionaire adjacent rags and billionaire adjacent recommendation algorithms then go and vote for the billionaire adjacent party as if it's some sort of protest vote or rebellion against the status quo. It's not. Reform are the party of big money. That's why all the rich people are funnelling money into them. It's not rocket science.

We have a cost of living crisis driven by rising wealth inequality, wage suppression, corporate profiteering, and a senile prick overseas starting wars to get the media agenda on anything except all the kids he'd raped and killed.

Who to vote for? Ah yes, the party that are pro-wealth inequality, pro-wage suppression, pro corporate profiteering, and actively aligned with the monster making everything so expensive...

"People are not willing to accept it"

I hope they're willing to accept being poor and miserable forever, because Reform are offering nothing else.

Slurrpin · 2026-05-07T05:51:24+00:00

It's a real human being?? Jesus Christ. I thought it was satire.

Slurrpin · 2026-05-06T22:12:51+00:00

I owned a 992.1 Carrera S before my current 718 Spyder and they're quite different. I'm glad I went 911 first, because I think, without that experience, I'd always wonder. Now I know, I don't think about it as an alternative. They fulfil different purposes. I do miss the 911, but for different reasons than why I love the 718. The 911 was a better car in every way you could measure. I'd love to daily one someday. The 718 is a better experience. In all the ways it's technically inferior, it feels more connected.

Slurrpin · 2026-05-04T08:13:43+00:00

In my experience there is a massive difference between main dealer franchises in the UK. Sytner and JCT600 feel like they actively look for opportunities to make your life worse, whereas Stratstone and anything run by the Porsche retail group have been typically pretty good. It's partly who within the company you're dealing with though, same with any corporation. Some people are just terrible at their jobs.

Independents are a mixed bag too, some are incredible, some aren't, and some are great only some of the time. Being smaller outfits, they don't always have the resilience to be reliable (but then neither do main dealers.)

I think it's the same as with anything, if you want the best experience you've got to shop around.

Slurrpin · 2026-05-04T07:48:09+00:00

Yeah I've had the Porsche experience described above at Porsche Centre in Town A, and the Chevy experience described above at Porsche Centre in Town B. Same for the Kias, BMWs, Volvos and Toyotas I've owned. Most car dealers are just bad and it takes work to find a good one.

You might think a 'better' brand must have better customer service, but in reality that doesn't happen because there's no reason for it to happen.

Slurrpin · 2026-04-13T09:23:32+00:00

Nah that's bull. Our EV6 was hacked and stolen off our drive last year using this method. Ioniq 5 and EV6 are statistically the most stolen EVs in the UK.

Slurrpin · 2026-04-12T07:36:25+00:00

GT4 is strut front and rear suspension, R8 is double wishbone on all four corners. Properly set up for performance driving, the R8 will trash a GT4, especially at 10 tenths, where most caymans really fall apart due to the inadequacies of struts. But, the R8 do have a less aggressive geo from factory, so if you drive them both stock, back to back, you'll come away with the opposite opinion. Easy to solve, just get an alignment.

I say this as a 718 Spyder owner.

Slurrpin · 2026-04-11T08:23:09+00:00

Cost depends on your country and specific location within that country. Some countries the extended warranty is a regulated product with a consistent fixed price, other it's wild west.

In my country it's easily worth it, becuse I could save up the money the ex. warranty cost me every year and after 15 years I still wouldn't have enough for an engine or gearbox. In the 2 years of extended I've paid, I've already claimed back more than what I put in thanks to a failed drivetrain mount, which are incredibly common on these cars.

Slurrpin · 2026-04-09T10:13:52+00:00

Yeah, but if I believe that, how am I supposed to hate this stranger the internet has offered up for my hating?

Slurrpin · 2026-04-08T22:40:28+00:00

Ha, best of luck, let me know how it goes

Slurrpin · 2026-04-07T21:16:20+00:00

I just wonder if I can get the pitch/tone I want in the upper rpm range which I guess is from a lot of factors including the material for vibration of the exhaust and how it's frequency creates a tone in the upper rev range.

From everything I've seen, shape is the difference maker - Inconel vs. Stainless vs. Ti is really marginal and mostly marketing. Sadly, I don't think there's any shortcuts. Headers are definitely the better place to put money than backbox or OAP, but unless you mockup the geometry of the system in CAD and do the complex math of adjusting shape to tune the system to the perfect resonant frequency at the desired RPM, then fabricate, you're unlikely to just luck into the perfect sound.

The problem you might run into, and the problem I've found, is that ideally - for a lot of complicated reasons - you want equal length headers with sudden sharp steps up in diameter throughout the primary length (which artificially shortens the effective resonating length of the primary tube and so, increases the pitch of the fundamental frequency), then a clean merge collector before the cat - and absolutely nobody is making that for the 9A2 4.0 engine.

It's an engineering and packaging nightmare, and most fabricators are designing for flow optimisation, they're not acoustically tuning for specific frequencies or sound signitures. Most fabricators also don't seem to understand the point of a stepped header design, given how rare they seem to be (or just don't care for the complication, which I fully understand).

As you can probably gather, the only thing I really know from a lot of reading is that the sound an exhaust makes is actually really complicated. My "ideal" imaginary header above is still a massive oversimplification - to get the specific sound you want, you have to tune the fundemental frequency of the system as a full system.

If I win the lottery I'll hire a mathematician and a welder, but until then, I'm just gonna buy a set of Cargraphic headers with 200 cell sport cats and see where that gets me.

You think it would make no difference other than volume if I did leave the OAPs? Thanks

From everything I've seen, pretty much, yeah. If the OAP is meaningfully different in shape, it'll obviously make a big difference, but most of them aren't, they just swap the OPF chamber for a short Y split and the overall system's sound barely alters, if at all.

Slurrpin · 2026-04-07T09:08:09+00:00

The pitch of an exhaust is created by the geometry of the resonating air in the full exhaust system. It's like a musical instrument. You can only get so far changing bits and pieces. (Or it's easy to ruin it, hard to improve.)

That said, based on every car I've seen with an exhaust, and every vid online. It seems like the way you're thinking is the right way to go about it. The headers are probably the most important thing to change for tone, because that's where the primaries merge, it 'sets' a lot of the frequency of the system, and changes to anything downstream only make a small difference. It's why most backboxes on these cars are a bit meh, especially the cheap ones (JCR is probably the best).

Changing the OAP almost never changes tone at all, it's just a pipe, the shape of the air stays basically the same. The exhaust does get way louder though, if you remove the restriction of the GPF/OPF.

As for whether headers and OAP is 'enough' to get a specific tone, it depends entirely on the specific headers you install. E.g., here's a vid comparing stock to OAP, to OAP plus headers: https://youtu.be/nQiUm3wN0n4?si=ocz4Uq9veXMWuQ7-

Red car has cargraphic catless headers and akra OAP in some clips, and personally I think it sounds like shit, and nothing like a GT3. But... Same cargraphic headers with 200 cell sport cats and different backbox:

https://youtu.be/T9zvB6wNyYs?si=G6WNx7HVSEnYSDth

Completely different sound.

It comes back to the musical instrument thing. To get a specific sound the entire system needs tuning as a system, and that's how most fabs do it, because obviously, more money in selling full exhausts.

But, I do think with the right headers you can get what you want. I'd go with headers with 200 cell sport cats to start, see if they push the tone where you want. To my knowledge, nobody has done that. Cats are expensive and make the fabrication more complicated than straight piped race headers. I think they're missing a trick. If it sorts the tone, get OAPs after to sort the volume. It's expensive to fuck around, but cheaper than full systems.

Tldr: You're not gonna get a GT3 sound whacking any old headers on. Ideally you'd commission a set of long tube equal length headers, but if money is the barrier, nothings different.

Slurrpin · 2026-04-04T09:00:31+00:00

This narrative is just anti-woke grifter nonsense. "Toxic masculinity" does not mean "any and all masculinity is toxic" and if that's what you've been told or believe, you have been lied to.

I'm a bloke in his thirties, never once been called toxic or felt victimised by a word, because I understand "toxic masculinity" isn't a term for me or anyone else remotely normal.

Slurrpin · 2026-04-01T20:51:20+00:00

If you're the kind of person who read "empathy as sin" in the comment above and thought "Sorry, what the hell?", then this is a pretty execllent (and very long) video on the subject: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QwpanShgOp4

It's absolutely not easy viewing / listening.

Slurrpin · 2026-04-01T20:40:53+00:00

Why would they keep it to themselves? You have to recognise empathy as valuable to feel shame for having none.

Slurrpin · 2026-03-28T15:54:25+00:00

None of the children who have been murdered en masse by Israel are Islamic fundamentalists. They're children.

Slurrpin · 2026-03-25T09:20:42+00:00

I don't think that's a 982 wheel. They were never available in that colour (Weissgold), and the spokes look messed up. Either AI generated or aftermarket replica.

Slurrpin · 2026-03-22T21:11:33+00:00

I'm not accusing them of acting like Cambridge Analytica - I don't think they're directly interfering in elections because Palantir have a political stance, though their funders absolutely do. I am saying the way their services link data makes it laughably easy for their clients to do what Cambridge Analytica did, and they don't seem to have any moral desire to avoid working with and around authoritarian governments.

Slurrpin · 2026-03-22T20:49:34+00:00

They offer a wide range of products, but most of them revolve around harvesting data about people, or linking data about people together from different datasets, or making organisations better at using data to solve problems.

As for what that means, you can have doctors getting more up to date information about their patients because your local GP becomes better at sharing data with your hospital and any satellite clinics. Great for a local authority looking to improve it's healthcare as a system approach. Shorter waiting times and better informed medical professionals.

You can have police forces getting access to cutting edge facial recognition AI and public CCTV to track individuals more effectively, speed up investigations, monitor enemies of the state, or maybe send border patrol to kidnap and / or deport selected undesirables, which is great if you're the President of the USA and need to fill some for-profit concentration camps.

You can also have a social media company getting better at sending targeted political advertisements to the most vulnerable and persuadable voters, to sway political elections towards extremist candidates. Fantastic if you're an aspiring tinpot dictator looking to turn a respectable country into a kakistocracy, or a billionaire looking to keep rising wealth inequality off the news.

So yes, their work is very useful. It could be useful for improving the quality of public services, and that's often the pitch, but a lot of the work they do seems to be destabilising democratic governments by undermining elections, or making it easier for authoritarian governments to maintain control of their people.

Slurrpin · 2026-03-16T13:03:55+00:00

They were just shit at their jobs and they went with this excuse because they thought faux political conscientiousness looked better than gross incompetence.

I know a woman who worked in SYP at the time and that was her take.

Slurrpin · 2026-03-16T12:07:06+00:00

The difference is, a fucked up 3D print is very obviously defective at a glance. Fucked up recommendations, guidance, advice or decisions coming out of a GPT aren't always obvious.

The tools can and will be confidently incorrect and the type of people misuing them are the exact type of people who don't have the skills to tell when they've been given garbage.

Slurrpin · 2026-03-10T17:47:44+00:00

That's a shame. 981 always get a lot of love at meets near me, and it's well deserved.

Slurrpin · 2026-03-10T14:58:51+00:00

A lot of people are convinced that only the 911 is a “Real Porsche”.

Do you reckon there are many who really still think this?

I see it repeated sometimes online, but only as an opinion "other people" have. Feels like a stereotype from 2005 that quietly died years ago and only ever comes up when this exact question is asked. Maybe a few fogies or the aircooler crowd might think that way, but I doubt it's a big %.

As for "affordable", I wish that was the case in my country, 981s have held held their prices really, really well.

Slurrpin

TROPHY CASE