I focus primarily on academic research on Internet protocols, cybersecurity, and machine learning, published typically by ACM and IEEE. These are deep subjects in their won right. Now I add Bitcoin research to the mix which keeps me fairly busy.

Yes and yes.

Stick to the topic when working on a project. Then after that, open it up wide.

Wow, do you read research papers strictly on the same discipline or branch out to related disciplines so that you can cross-pollinate ideas?

cryotosensei

I call it “scholar hacking”. Exploiting Gray Data for fun and profit.

Scholarhacker

Came here to say exactly this. Reading research papers and connecting the dots.