[CRASCH]

I have a very similar background. Scary similar. I'm older though. I've had similar feelings at various times. Is this it? Really? Lame...

I used to get excited about new technology and it did seem that something cool and amazing would come out all the time. Just an endless stream of wow. I just can't get hyped up about some mash up, retread, or social widget. I don't think I've changed I think the industry has.

That isn't really a bad thing though. It is an opportunity. I used to wait in anticipation for someone to come to market with a product or solution I foresaw. That rarely happens now with market driven development. That is the opportunity. Don't languish that the amazement isn't there. Make it. You have the skills. I'm sure you see the deficiencies. The industry is now so stagnant in true innovation, this gives us, the technical entrepreneurs the opportunity to innovate.

How to rekindle the flame? I don't know if this will work for you. This is what I do. I buy a new toy and hack on it. A computer or phone. I find a new programming language or something like pfsense (router) and play with it. Find some software that sucks and build one that doesn't. Scratch an itch.

What itch would I scratch right now if I wasn't busy. I'd build a soft bios driver that would emulate a CD/DVD drive. This would load an emulated CD/DVD driver into a PC bios just like a SAS card loads its driver into the bios. This would allow you to select multiple iso images from a usb drive and then boot to that emulated CD/DVD. Right now you can't really do that.