extended slices and buffer objects ????

[Mats Wichmann]

Perhaps someone can shed light on my confusion about these two Python
features?

(1) Extended slicing.  I've seen claims that it's useful for
"multidimensional data structures such as matrices and arrays", but my
brain just isn't making sense of this. Can anyone give me a practical
example or two?

[2] Buffer objects.  What are buffer objects for, anyway? I find this
description from the Reference Manual somewhat less than enlightening:

Buffers are not directly supported by Python syntax, but can be
created by calling the builtin function buffer(). 


Thanx,

Mats Wichmann