Trees

He cannot read or write.
He has not got a Agriculture PhD.
He is over 60 and an African by birth.
He knows the trees by their smell, more than the name.

We in this country cut and sell trees but he grows them in a desert land.
We are lazy but he is not.

Leaves serve other purposes. After they fall to the ground, they act as mulch, boosting soil fertility; they also provide fodder for livestock in a season when little other food is available. In emergencies, people too can eat the leaves to avoid starvation.

The improved planting pits developed by Sawadogo and other simple water-harvesting techniques have enabled more water to infiltrate the soil. Amazingly, underground water tables that plummeted after the droughts of the 1980s had now begun recharging. "In the 1980s, water tables on the Central Plateau of Burkina Faso were falling by an average of one meter a year," Reij said. "Since FMNR and the water-harvesting techniques began to take hold in the late 1980s, water tables in many villages have risen by at least five meters, despite a growing population."

Some analysts attributed the rise in water tables to an increase in rainfall that occurred beginning in 1994, Reij added, "but that doesn't make sense—the water tables began rising well before that." Studies have documented the same phenomenon in some villages in Niger, where extensive water-harvesting measures helped raise water tables by fifteen meters between the early 1990s and 2005.

Over time, Sawadogo grew more and more enamored of trees, until now his land looked less like a farm than a forest, albeit a forest composed of trees that, to my California eyes, often looked rather thin and patchy. Trees can be harvested—their branches pruned and sold—and then they grow back, and their benefits for the soil make it easier for additional trees to grow. "The more trees you have, the more you get," Sawadogo explained. Wood is the main energy source in rural Africa, and as his tree cover expanded, Sawadogo sold wood for cooking, furniture making, and construction, thus increasing and diversifying his income—a key adaptation tactic. Trees, he says, are also a source of natural medicines, no small advantage in an area where modern health care is scarce and expensive.

"I think trees are at least a partial answer to climate change, and I've tried to share this information with others," Sawadogo added. "My conviction, based on personal experience, is that trees are like lungs. If we do not protect them, and increase their numbers, it will be the end of the world."

Monty Python and Python Programming Protocol (PPP)

I never thought Linux has any relationship to Monty Python's playacting and his scripts.
Now I discover python language's name comes from his acting skills and not due to any programming language as long as a reptile called python.

In my case any programming language is a python to me whether it is C or C++ or Java or Beans (they never spell or spill the beans or code in anyway comprehensible to human mind but to computers only) and sometimes with cobra venom installed in them and any sane guy start hating them.

All these changed when I discovered Linux. Whether you like or not one needs to know few starting scripts and rooting responses, booting and Grubbing files, if one wants to embrace Linux.

So I did.

Now I hear suddenly from nowhere 'A' Level students are made to learn python in schools and act like Monty Python of BBC.

BBC Basic was the first language I started learning before Sinclair's Basic and long time before I discovered there is something called C and later Unix.

By the way, the language is named after the BBC show “Monty Python’s Flying Circus” and has nothing to do with reptiles.
Making references to Monty Python and acting skills are actively encouraged by the Linux community.

Some of Python's notable features:
Uses an elegant syntax, making the programs you write easier to read.

Is an easy-to-use language that makes it simple to get your program working. This makes Python ideal for prototype development and other ad-hoc programming tasks, without compromising maintainability.

Comes with a large standard library that supports many common programming tasks such as connecting to web servers, searching text with regular expressions, reading and modifying files.

Python's interactive mode makes it easy to test short snippets of code. There's also a bundled development environment called IDLE.

Is easily extended by adding new modules implemented in a compiled language such as C or C++.

Can also be embedded into an application to provide a programmable interface.

Runs on many different computers and operating systems: Windows, MacOS, many brands of Unix, OS/2.


Is free software in two senses. It doesn't cost anything to download or use Python, or to include it in your application. Python can also be freely modified and re-distributed, because while the language is copyrighted it's available under, an open source license.

Python is an easy and powerful object-oriented programming language. It was originally created back in the 1980's, but saw it's first public release in 1991. After the release of Python 1.0 in 1994, it quickly became one of the preferred programming language for the creation of web applications in the Internet, alongside with Perl and PHP.

It's creator, Guido van Rossum has played a major part in the Python development from it's first release and has a central role in deciding the direction of the Python development.

Python is often used as a scripting language for web applications in combination with the "mod python" module for the Apache web server. Python's easiness of use and ability to integrate with different SDKs allows the creation of many different programs for Windows, Linux, Маc ОS and other operational systems.

This is what Eric Raymond gas to say about Python

I had already heard just enough about Python to know that it is what is nowadays called a “scripting language”, an interpretive language with its own built-in memory management and good facilities for calling and cooperating with other programs.

So I dived into Programming Python with one question uppermost in my mind: what has this got that Perl does not?

Perl, of course, is the 800-pound gorilla of modern scripting languages.

It has largely replaced shell as the scripting language of choice for system administrators, thanks partly to its comprehensive set of UNIX library and system calls, and partly to the huge collection of Perl modules built by a very active Perl community. The language is commonly estimated to be the CGI language behind about 85% of the “live” content on the Net.

Larry Wall, its creator, is rightly considered one of the most important leaders in the Open Source community, and often ranks third behind Linus Torvalds and Richard Stallman in the current pantheon of hacker demigods.

To say I was astonished would have been positively wallowing in understatement.

It's remarkable enough when implementations of simple techniques work exactly as expected the first time; but my first metaclass hack in a new language, six days from a cold standing start?
Even if we stipulate that I am a fairly talented hacker, this is an amazing testament to Python's clarity and elegance of design.

There was simply no way I could have pulled off a coup like this in Perl, even with my vastly greater experience level in that language. It was at this point I realized I was probably leaving Perl behind.

Now Guido van Rossum who has a major role in development in Python will join the elite three mentioned above.(Linus Torvalds, Richard Stallman and Larry Wall).

It is not easy to master a computer language but one who has background knowledge and basic understanding of several language would benefit from it.

Jumping into it straight away may not be the best way.

Learning C and Unix, Linux and how scripting done and modules used to take advantage of Linux kernels is necessary before embarking on this adventure.

In any case Linux is the winner.

It is an object oriented interpretive language with graphic capability may be better than Visual Basic but if one needs to advance in programming language one need to know the code and syntax behind the ant graphic interphase.

There are lot of language wrapped behind the Linux kernel and scripting. It is far better to master Linux and simple commands and scripts before delving.into an advanced language with powerful capabilities.

I still prefer to call it a python with reptilian image because it is a very very long language behind the big modules.

Enjoy Linux and one will enjoy Python too but do not let it wrap round your neck and squeeze your wind pipe and suffocate you.

Better learn few piping tricks in Linux and put the python inside a pipe and tame it.

Then it will work for you like a poor captured cobra dancing!

PCLinuxfullMonty-The Gorilla has Come to Town!

Yes, I do not miss a punch when I say gorilla has come to town!
The KDE 4, PCLinuxfullMonty has come to town bringing with it a bounty of packages.
I prefer it called a PCLinuxBounty instead of Monty.

Better still call it dearly as the PCLinux-The Gorilla in Town.

First of all let me thank the guys / girls who packaged this 4GiB-Gorilla of a version in a DVD and then posting it on only LinuxTracker, in the beginning of the year not in the middle or nowhere in the year.

Posting it on K or bit torrent was an absolute requirement since if I wanted to download on a normal browser it would have taken ages and would have never been able to accomplish it. Even the K-torrent it took solid 2 and a half days of continues downloading.

Thank god we had a holiday for our Independence Day, I could do that on that day was an achievement.

Please do not post this on a normal sever. It will kill the interest of a newbie in the poor third world countries wanting to download it.
S/he never (mostly he's) would be able to download it with the appallingly slow download speed here and poor servers (switched off in the night) here.

They would not have the perseverance of an old man like me who would never take a No for an answer.

It is never too late.

I must tell you it was not without pain I mounted it on my old computer with 1GiB RAM.

I had to go back to SuSe days and press F1. F2. To F6 to get the bearing and mounted a old kernel to boot it up,

It was not quick to boot with 64 RAM old graphic card.

Once mounted after very slow response (KDE4) it had packages well into the Knoppix 3.4 GiB live CD packages.

Only difference was Knoppix was fast still my favorite as a live CD.

It looks like texstar had done another first.
It has 32 and 64 bit capability too.
After some fiddling it mounted on one of my spare 64 bit computer. Took a hell of a long time to install but once installed wit was smooth running on 512 Graphic Card and 1 GiB RAM.
Even though it tool a long time to install it only used 60% of the RAM unlike SuSE 3.5 KDE which gobbles up all of the RAM and sometime freezes,too.
None of those problems and I was playing patient card game while it was installing.

I must confess my gut feeling is this is 64 bit and I my reading was right it was stated in the F1 documentation.
The packages were that much it nearly took me 20 minutes to glance through them and to find the install drop-down.
While all this was going on I was testing light weight archbang openbox distribution and unlike PCLinux when right clicks the first item of the drop-down was install.
Monty would have been better serves if I could find install like with openbox but nonetheless that 20 minutes was used up looking for all the new packages which was fun.

This time Knoppix has done honours by allowing it to be installed into hard disk.
(Whereas I could not find it in the PCLinux. I think it may be there in the F1 or somewhere else which I did not delve deeper. I will find it when I am ready to install it).

Thanks guys / girls for including LibreOffice, Blende and Skype, Scribus and many more.
It is comprehensive.

So enjoy both when it is hot hot like a spicy meal.

I could wait I have now installed it and running now and may be daily.
Activated K-Torrent and started downloading Salix Live KDE!