> During a short stint compiling manufacturing statistics for the US Census Office, Herman Hollerith grew frustrated with the organization’s manual process of counting questionnaires.

Go out to the world and do something, however boring it may seem. You've got more chances of having a bright ideia than if you stay home just thinking.

Indeed. I am fascinated by the fact, also, that Hollerith was a mining engineer. Used to thinking in a constructive, technical fashion in one complex domain, and transfered skills to a new, nascent, one.-