Oh look a shiny!

Sometimes a bit of astronomical news, a dataset or a new tool catches your eye and you just gotta chase after it. Meanwhile there are other commitments, possibly (likely) deadlines and you have to finish stuff on occasion.

And yet the shiny. I have to admit I chase the shiny more often than not. Quickest way to burn it out. Or have some sort of productive procrastination.

examples include using a self-organizing map on the catalogs of M101 to identify background galaxies, wondering how much power telescopes use and at what point it becomes viable to run them on solar panels and a big battery, etc etc

Chase the shiny (within reason). You'll learn a new thing and probably end up using it later. This is often where my ideas for a student project comes from.