I have seen a lot of cursed stuff in my time in academia but this is among the *most* cursed. Grammarly is generating miniature LLMs based on academic work so that users can have their writing ‘reviewed’ by experts like David Abulafia, who died less than two months ago.

Press Regulator finds Telegraph did indeed publish complete nonsense on stilts. www.ipso.co.uk/rulings/0210...

Tracking our *negative* voting intention (who would Britons vote AGAINST): ➡️ Ref 38% (+9) 🌹Lab 34% (-4) 🌳 Con 7% (-1) 🌏 Green 7% (+4) 🐦‍ LD 3% (-) changes w/ Nov 2025 As Reform has plateaued in the polls, the number of people saying they would also vote *against* Reform has grown

🆕 "In 2015, only 1 per cent of private donations came from companies and individuals giving £1 million or more; by 2024, this had risen to 𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗿 𝗮 𝘁𝗵𝗶𝗿𝗱." New research from @rosewhiff.bsky.social & @stevejgoodrich.bsky.social on the super rich's growing influence on UK politics. More ⤵️

3 things you need to know: Videos from #FOIFest are now online and can be seen at youtube.com/playlist?lis... ...or...

🚨 It looks like the UK government is gearing up to upend copyright law in favour of AI companies, legalising the theft of their work. This is despite creatives' huge protests, and despite previous proposals being roundly rejected by the public. Please spread the word. 🧵 1/4

So much will be said about all this in the coming days, but IMO the biggest takeaway is that James Watt and Martin Dickie each pocketed more than the price BrewDog was eventually sold for, while 500 hardworking staff are now out of a job & 220k equity punks don't get a dime. Absolute charlatans.

This is very good news.

An AI-assisted reporting mess? This report mangles two different incidents in two completed different places together in one post. Feel very sorry for the people that have died, and the volunteer rescue teams that tried to save them. Hire some subs @dailyrecord.co.uk ghostarchive.org/archive/rarlz

"Our Updated Terms of Service Include Provisions Allowing The US Government to Use Any Activity As an Excuse to Execute You. Press [YES] to Agree or Press [NO] to Lose Access to Every Service You Need to Survive."

Really unsure about this headline. The SCOOP poll found Reform up 1 point in the constituency vote and 1 point on the list, i.e. not significant change. If anyone "surged" it was the Scottish Greens, up 3 points in the constituency vote and 6 on the list.

Research shows Greens are getting less broadcast media coverage than other parties. theconversation.com/why-isnt-the...

Hahahaha

This is a huge testament to the power of local journalism and @londoncentric.media's work. Bravo. open.substack.com/pub/londonce...

Improve what you see in Google Search, by adding The Conversation as a preferred source. Here's how 👉

Mr Nobody Against Putin, which has won a Bafta tonight, is on iPlayer. Profound doc self shot by a Russian school teacher who filmed as his school was forced to inject propaganda into its classrooms www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m002kx2d

Locking people that have not comittted a crime in camps? That's what Alba are backing? www.inverness-courier.co.uk/news/holyroo...

Come to Gairloch for a different kind of rock music. Or go to Torridon and buy a shop and cafe. Also, find out why one local postie had to make his own Royal Mail signs for his delivery van... gairlochtimes.org.uk/museum-myste...

take a shot every time you hear the words "just glad the queen isn't here to see this"

Interesting is see whether an unpaid trade envoy role will be a 'public office' for the purposes of Misconduct in Public Office. No more comments on this case from me now, and replies off.

Meanwhile, should you have any doubt about the politics of the x algo... www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Interesting that over on Mastodon they are planning on building in email notifications for some users - targeting public bodies. blog.joinmastodon.org/2026/02/our-...

Some sobering stats here. Soon much of the night sky might be moving satellites. theconversation.com/too-many-sat...

Employment rates for non-EU born are now *above* those for the UK born. Gap used be nearly 10 percentage points. A tribute to the success of UK immigration/immigrants and labour market integration, especially in recent years. Something government should celebrate..

We’re launching a new independent newspaper for Leeds - funded by readers. If you want better local journalism in Leeds, this is how it starts. 👉 Pledge your support: leeds.ghost.io

👀 Looking at you #bbcr4today

An interesting 📊 choice from ESPN's Olympic medal coverage. By giving each country its own axis-range, the bar for USA's 8 silver medals is the same height as Norway's 12 gold. If you're trying to compare countries at a glance, USA's bars are all bit taller than they should be.

Why are so few public bodies in Scotland?

Large language model can fuel extremists attitudes LLM-generated arguments using universal moral framings increase moral absolutism, willingness to fight and die, and justification of violence. nyaspubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

A Ferret investigation has found more than 20 Scottish wind farms are paying less money than expected to local communities. The shortfall could add up to more than £50m.  Critics have branded that an "acute injustice". Read the full story 👉 https://bit.ly/4rIcDzY

Bluesky is the new science Twitter, new study by @whysharksmatter.bsky.social and Julia Wester concludes! "Results show that for every reported professional benefit that scientists once gained from Twitter, scientists can now gain that benefit more effectively on Bluesky than on Twitter."

"Railway churnalism: how many stories do I need about some new seats and a bit of carpet?" A rant about press releases - and not even very significant ones - being presented as news jonworth.eu/railway-chur...

'[Google] provided ICE with the usernames, physical addresses, and an itemized list of services associated with the Google account of Amandla Thomas-Johnson, a British student and journalist who briefly attended a pro-Palestinian protest in 2024 while attending Cornell University in New York'

🗣️ "The UK government must demonstrate that it is serious about restoring integrity.” As @anticorruption.bsky.social launches #CPI2025, @danieljbruce.bsky.social warned @theguardian.com that only real reform will reverse the UK's decline. www.theguardian.com/world/2026/f...

Up to £1 billion (!) of new funding for local energy projects to be made available through the Local Power Plan...

I really hope people advocating to ban kids from SM read this. Some kids are isolated by disabilities or circumstances. Furthermore, some kids grow up in abusive households. “Ideally, a child’s exposure to online worlds should be moderated by their parents” isn’t a reassuring sentiment for everyone

Useful.

“The United States has dropped from 30th to 48th in that same year, the biggest drop of any nation BY FAR. Its reputation-peers are now Kuwait, Algeria, Kazakhstan…” That was last year. I can only imagine where the US reputation is now. The fastest destruction of a nation’s reputation in history?

This is bit of a spanner in the works. A lot of cash riding on getting this through... www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

An online racism issue led to his resignation as Staffs council Reform UK Ltd group leader just seven days after his appointment. "The move means Reform UK will have had three group leaders in the space of nine months"

The CIA just stopped publishing their World Factbook and took every page, including the archived copies of previous versions! This sucks. It was public domain, so I recovered the 2020 edition (the last one published as a zip file) and shared it to GitHub simonwillison.net/2026/Feb/5/t...

Good to see the ICO opening an investigation into X to understand whether personal data has been processed lawfully and whether appropriate safeguards were built into Grok to prevent the generation of harmful manipulated images using personal data. ico.org.uk/about-the-ic...

Chaotic carnival of chancers latest: - Jenrick and Braverman vote FOR the abolition of the two child limit while the other four Reform MPs vote against - and of course Farage doesn’t even bother turning up to do his job

Today's "few notes on this register" bought to you via train wifi

🔴NEW: One of Scotland’s high-profile salmon companies has accused other producers of failing to report lice infestations at fish farms “honestly”, according to emails obtained by The Ferret. Find out more:

Sad news from Wikipedia. Following lengthy discussion on the talk page, they've removed Matt Goodwin's claim to be the first in his family to go to university on the grounds that it [checks notes] isn't true. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Ma...

I'm not prone to exaggeration but this is probably the biggest scoop I've ever been involved in Mandelson's partner took £10,000 from Epstein to pay for his osteopath course while Mandelson was de facto UK deputy prime minister, according to new files more to follow www.ft.com/content/c950...

Nice work if you can get it... mahadk.com/posts/ai-ski...

Issue 2 of the Gairloch and District Times is out today with news that planning officials have given the green light to a proposed mock roundhouse at Gairloch Museum. gairlochtimes.org.uk/museum-round...