[scsilver]

Yeah but most engineers shoot to short or take to long on automating that thing. Most useful automation takes large standards bodies and decades of coordination. When we are placed in profitable companies it's easier to produced more value than you consume, but I'm not sure making another pet project that I give up halfway through necessarily is. However, I am seeing some evidence if you do build out beginnings in certain fields the knowledge and understanding of that fog of war on the experimental mediums. Think vr programming, the tooling is not great, maybe just diving in there long enough to be brought into a vc back company building out that tooling.

OP, Have you tried getting to some conferences and talking to people, seeing if you can somehow further their goals. Sometimes passion is found in enabling and enriching others with more pointed goals.