There’s a Portlandia for that

Scicurious recently blogged on the topic of literature reading–how much was enough and how much did you manage? Regrettably I do not read enough, as in, I barely skim abstracts of new material. Work that I am interested in for grants and/or that I’m going to cite in manuscripts get more attention. But in general I do not read broadly anymore and I think it sucks. I miss it. I read lots in grad school. I killed many trees.

One aspect of literature reading in grad school that I do not miss, however, is the discussion amongst the grad students of ‘Oh hey, did you read that?’ ‘What about this?’ ‘Wuuut? How could you possibly miss so and so’s Nature paper that definitively links an increase in squirrel pee in deciduous forests to the decline in alpine lichen communities?’

You know, your badassedness is directly tied to your general knowledge of random things.

Well, there’s a Portlandia for that. Enjoy.

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