A question to anyone who's read this book-- is knowledge of Java absolutely required, or is it general enough to somewhat easily use with a different language? I mean, it seems relevant to some of my personal interests but I'd like to know whether I need to give myself a crash course in Java or not.

Eh, all I have are anecdotes, but that's all I can offer. Back in in high school (about four years ago), my family's main computer went down, and neither I nor my friends had an install disk. I'd been experimenting with Ubuntu on my personal computer, and we decided to switch over. Initially there was a bit of a culture shock-- Ubuntu wasn't as user friendly back then as it is now-- but within about a month I only had to deal with teaching them how to use new programs. My sister, who initially had been the most resistant to the switch, is now using an Eee with Eeebuntu installed. It currently has a weird bug where you have to enable the built in web cam from the command line, which she was able to Google for herself and fix. My father is a bit of a free software zealot-- he used the Cathedral and the Bazaar as a model for how things should be run where he works (I'd never mention Eric S Raymond to him before that). But to get to my point, the main reason I believe that so many Ubuntu users are uninformed is because most people who recommend Linux are only really giving out the software aspect, that Linux is free software that works better. But the Linux philosophy is more than that-- that with FLOSS you can make changes if you want, that everything is open, that because of being open the software is not only relatively bug-free but also fosters the development of better software down the line, and that not all software works for everyone (Despite what some people on both sides of the debate might say). The thing is, being introduced to linux is a process-- and people ought to be exposed to all aspects of Linux.

Yes, because clearly there is no difference between fundamentalist Muslims and mainstream Muslims, especially not when it comes to what their leaders are saying. Exactly like how all Christians think that soldiers are dying in Iraq because the military has a hands off policy on homosexuals, just because some of the more extreme televangelists say so. Personally I'm an agnostic, but I think both of you are missing the great-grandparents point-- he was talking about individual churches, not entire religions. I'm not sure how you two got modded insightful, especially not after simplifying to the point of being utterly ridiculous.