Thanks - fascinating stuff. I'm now even more convinced I want to give it a try, but I think I'll play around with public data and tutorials before leaping into home sequencing.
And RE: home sequencing, honestly the hardest part for a beginner will likely be the sample prep, since that takes some combination of wet lab experience and expensive equipment. I really wish molecular biology was as simple to get hacking on as writing software. The lag time between doing an experiment and getting a result is so much longer than waiting for things to compile, it just makes improving your skills take longer.