Read popen.stdout object asynchronously (or why low level knowledge holes are killing me)

I've been programming for about two years, all this time only in Python. I'll say that those 500 lines I wrote in Flash AS2 before going to Python does not count. I'm fluent with standard library that Python provides, but I've noticed quite a few times now; I'm getting stuck on issues that correlate to low level knowledge. I'm thinking it may trigger someday motivation to learn C. Going on topic, everyone that has ...