I would start with a little Unix (OS X Terminal, Linux or CygWin on the PC) until you feel comfortable navigating the file system, creating, viewing and deleting files directly or via an editor like vi, emacs or nano. Then move on to Ruby or Python.
Aim to be comfortable programatically manipulating text files at a minimum. Maybe install a library that allows you to manipulate Excel spreadsheets, if that is what you use for your numbers. Then try connecting to a databases to run queries/perform updates, and hook it all together into a mini app you run from the command line and does something you find useful.
This is also the case in the UK. Property price here is a trivial expression of the supply/demand function. Yet no one from any of the political parties will suggest the obvious: build. Those with £1MM+ houses (which includes all our politicians) seem to be against this (for some reason).
I would pay serious money for this. Maybe $100 for a single 'call out' on the assumption that it would be an infrequent happening. Ferriss' 4HWW logically demands this, I guess.
--Supplemental--
Before anyone accuses me of being cheap, I'd be happy to pay $100 per hour, assuming the 'call out' would most likely be short in duration since it would be part of the deal that I supply a detailed wiki of the software under support.
Why? This token gesture will achieve what exactly? If someone obscure, but non-the-less important in sci/tech had died, this might be an interesting way to draw attention to a life you might want to brush up on. However, Armstrong, despite his desire for privacy, has never been obscure. Come breakfast tomorrow morning everyone on planet Earth will know he has died.
Hackers can be found in all walks of life, it is not a label to be restricted to those working in technology or writing code. Hackers are people that can effect leveraged change on a system (eg human, technological, natural), taking delight in the outcome. Above all, I would say a sense of mischief and fun is the common trait found in hackers. Read a couple of Richard Feynman's books. He's quite explicit - his work was often done simply 'for the fun of it'.
It's important to get over the idea that you have done anything wrong. Think of it as a percentages game... if you have been invited to interview then your potential employer is definitely interested. So if the interviews keep coming, be assured it is just a matter of time until someone makes you an offer.
As a spinning ball of gas, astronomers had always expected our nearest star to bulge slightly at its equator, making it very slightly flying-saucer shaped
I once interviewed a potential hire in person and at the end of the process he asked 'How did I do?' then pulled out of list of questions in the expectation of forensic debrief as to where he could improve his interview technique!
Frankly, interviewing is a game with many unwritten rules - one is if you don't get the gig, you are expected to politely accept the decision and move on. Another is the interviewer will often decide in the first 60 seconds if you're getting hired, so asking for feedback on where you 'went wrong' is a waste of everyone's time.
Remember, when you interview, your potential employer has every intention of hiring you assuming you tick a few boxes. This is also part of the game. Can you figure out what those boxes are? Put yourself in their shoes. What would you like to see in you? As long as you continue to land interviews, don't become disheartened - keep going and you will get hired.
Pinochet was a useful asset to the UK during the Falklands war, keeping regular Argentine troops committed to the mainland and helping UK Special Forces carry out clandestine missions there. In actuality, 'morality' and the 'rule of law', when quoted by politicians, are platitudes. The reality is rewards are expected and granted for political favours, and I think it is likely Pinochet's ill health was simply a convenient excuse to release him.
As for 'LibDems and Labour'?! You appear to be suggesting that it should be self-evident to everyone reading your post that the LibDems and Labour have a claim to moral superiority over Tories? The LibDems pay lip-service to Civil Liberties (they never expected power, they never expected to be called to deliver) and Labour are the most authoritarian party to ever hold power in the UK. It's just as well Labour are not in power, else Assange would have been shipped to Gitmo months ago.
Can it run iPad apps at the same time as being in telepresence mode? Imagine two of these meeting and exchanging photos or agreeing to a game of chess autonomously.
'I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.'
I think the market makers (who are often just skimmers) and Investment Banks have cooked their goose. How many 'muppets' have now left the market never to return because of all the outrageous revelations, scams and bad news?
Aim to be comfortable programatically manipulating text files at a minimum. Maybe install a library that allows you to manipulate Excel spreadsheets, if that is what you use for your numbers. Then try connecting to a databases to run queries/perform updates, and hook it all together into a mini app you run from the command line and does something you find useful.