| title | desc | tags | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Science articles everyday |
How I consume Science on a daily basis, why you should too, and fangirling about RSS |
|
I like science. I am a science student writing my masters thesis, and I need to read new articles related to my subject (Quantum Computing) everyday.
Even otherwise, I want to be somewhat up to date about things happening. Why? Because a couple of years ago, I got drawn so much into my other hobby of coding and tech that I started to lose touch with my love for Science. Much like how I lost in touch with my preference for music when I was younger. You need a constantexposure to what you like, and only then will you keep liking it.
There is a whole ocean of sites to read from. I prefer to stay away form the pop-sci kind of articles and youtube channels because it gives you a false sense of the topic, and as someone who knows a substantial amount of math and science, I prefer something with more rigor.
Cue Arxiv papers and Nature articles. There's also Science, AIP and a tonne of other journals, but Nature has kept me happy. Viewing arxiv papers for my topics keeps me updated about the newest things and also sometimes pushes me into a new direction with my research. Nature and Science journals on the other hand give a more overview of things happening in the science world, and also introduce larger ideas and discussions related to academia in general.
Once I selected the sites I wanted to follow, I tried following them via their websites, but this is painfully hard. I then learnt about RSS and was hooked. You simply have to copy the link of the feed you want to follow into your reader application and you get new articles everytime they update. No accounts, no changing apps, and no shady web ads. Just plain content, which is the best thing anyone can ask for.
So I added Nature's RSS feed link which I got by just searching Nature rss feeds. Arxiv's rss feeds are much more advanced and nuanced. Basically, it is of the form https://export.arxiv.org/rss/topic.subtopic, where the topic and subtopic list can be found here.
I added these two to my feed readers, which are newsboat for desktop and Fluent Reader for Android. IIRC, Fluent Reader is also available on iOS. That said there's a plethora of other readers you can choose from.
And voila! Science in my feed.
None, apart from when the pressure to read the articles. Most of the articles, I just read the title and decide to read it completely if I like it.