Point #2 is the Little Coder's problem _Why spoke of: a beginning programmer is likely to be discouraged by the vast difference between the toy programs displayed in introductory books, and the real code that inspired them.
I think any purported attempt to teach programming which does not end with the student creating a non-trivial, cool app, is a shame. What went wrong between SICP and current (non-Hartl/Shaw) beginning texts?
I recommend learning a language or 5. Ocaml, Erlang, Lojban, Japanese, Quenya, etc. Use Mnemosyne and Smart.fm for quick, cumulative study sessions, translate webcomics and such, play golf with old programs in new and differently powerful languages.
Also, read more. You'd be amazed at how many great SF novels you can read in a year, or how quickly you can devour Misner's Gravitation at a few pages a day.
I think the overwhelming point of all this advice is to have fun. Do things that induce flow.
"I have no recourse because we split the venture 50/50 (no vesting). If I want to continue on the project without him, he can block it. I've tried buying him out and he insists he's committed and will not sell under any circumstance. My only recourse is to quit and block him from taking the idea and running with it. Neither of these are admirable outcomes and I'd rather run the business as far as it can go with a lazy co-founder than end it in such an ugly fashion."
I'm sure someone here would absolutely love to work with your "co-founder". Hell, they may even give him some common human dignity as well as an interesting project.
I'm reminded every time I hear about QM being "weird", of Eliezer Yudkowsky's Quantum Physics sequence.
"I am not going to tell you that quantum mechanics is weird, bizarre, confusing, or alien. QM is counterintuitive, but that is a problem with your intuitions, not a problem with quantum mechanics. Quantum mechanics has been around for billions of years before the Sun coalesced from interstellar hydrogen. Quantum mechanics was here before you were, and if you have a problem with that, you are the one who needs to change. QM sure won't. There are no surprising facts, only models that are surprised by facts; and if a model is surprised by the facts, it is no credit to that model."
It would be interesting to see this combined with a project management system. I imagine being able to snap your whiteboard, have the image cleaned, and placed right onto a project wiki, in one move (similar to Posterous, perhaps).
