metanohi-misc-subsites/subsites/natur/langs/en.php

<?php
$LANG = 'en';
$TITLE = 'Niels\' nature';
$MENU_START = 'Start';
$MENU_EPISODES = 'Episodes';
$MENU_DETAILS = 'Details';

$CONTENT_START = <<<EOD
<h1><i>Nay</i>-ture or <i>yeah</i>-ture?</h1>
<h3>Let <em>Niels</em> explain nature</h3>
<hr />
<p>What is nature? How did the world end up being what it is today?
Why do elfs generally not appear before humans?</p>
<p>These questions are difficult to answer; they, like many other
nature-related questions, require much thinking, theorizing and
brainwashing to answer. Even the greatest philosophers will never be
able to come with a definite answer to such complex questions. Not
even <em>Niels</em> is able to explain it.</p>
<h2>Nature + Niels = Truth</h2>
<p>So, who is this <em>Niels</em>? And what about this <em>nature</em>
-- what is it really? Well, <em>Niels</em> is a person,
and <em>nature</em> is where Niels records his films -- his films
about nature. So far he has recorded three films in the nature, each
one with a specific and quite relevant theme.</p>
<p>So, basically, "Niels' nature" is a TV show -- except that it is
more likely to be played on a computer.</p>  <hr />
<p class='large center'><a href='#episodes'>Watch the episodes</a></p>
EOD;

$CONTENT_EPISODES = <<<EOD
<h1>The eps</h1>
<p>Niels has currently produced 3 episodes, of which currently only
the third (i.e. the newest) is online. This will change at some point,
though it is unclear when.</p>
<p>In all of the three episodes Niels talks as he walks. He talks
about trees, Bigfeet, local warming and bamboos.</p>
<p>Niels speaks Danish, so these episodes are also in Danish. As
Danish isn't a widely understood language, Niels subtitles his
episodes. For now, only the third episode has been subbed, and it has
only been subbed in English. If someone volunteers to sub an episode
in another language, Niels will gladly accept. Niels can be contacted
at <a href='mailto:ns@metanohi.name'>ns@metanohi.name</a>.</p>
<p>Note that all of the episodes are licensed under CC BY-SA,
a <em>free</em> license. Read more about this on
the <a href='#details'>Details</a> page.</p>  <hr />
<h3>How to watch</h3>
<p>If you're using a modern web browser, there's a chance you'll be
able to simply click on the image of an episode and then watch that
episode inside your browser. If you're unable to do that, or if you
don't want to do that, you can always just download an episode for
offline watching -- just click on the download links.</p>
<p>The videos last between 25 and 35 minutes each and are encoded into
the <a href='http://www.xiph.org/'>OGG</a> format,
using <a href='http://www.theora.org/'>Theora</a> for video
and <a href='http://www.vorbis.com/setup/'>Vorbis</a> for sound. You
can read more about this on the <a href='#details'>Details</a>
page.</p>  <hr />


<h2>Episode 3: Global warming</h2>
<p>This was recorded in December 2009.</p>
<a class='shotimg' href='#play3.en'>
	<img src='img/ep3.jpg' alt='Screenshot of episode 3: Global
	warming' />
</a>

<p><a href='#play3'>Play in browser (without subtitles)
(188MB)</a></p>
<p><a href='#play3.en'>Play in browser (with English subtitles)
(188MB)</a></p>
<p><a href='vid/niels-natur3-small.ogv'>Download (no included
subtitles) (188MB)</a></p>
<p><a href='vid/niels-natur3-en.srt'>Download English
subtitles</a></p>


<h2>Episode 2: Bigfoot</h2>
<p>This was recorded in April 2009.</p>
<img src='img/ep2.jpg' alt='Screenshot of episode 2: Bigfoot'
     style='width: 513px; height: 282px;' />
<p><span class='error'>Video not up yet.</span></p>


<h2>Episode 1: The nature around us</h2>
<p>This was recorded in December 2008.</p>
<img src='img/ep1.jpg' alt='Screenshot of episode 1: The nature around us'
     style='width: 513px; height: 282px;' />
<p><span class='error'>Video not up yet.</span></p>
EOD;

$CONTENT_DETAILS = <<<EOD
<h1>How/why/what..</h1>
<p>It has not been a simple task to arrive at this point. Filming,
directing, encoding, planning, thinking.. All very difficult things to
do. This page will attempt to give detailed explanations of various
semicomplex.. things.</p>

<h2>Nature</h2>
<p>The films take place in the nature. That's it.</p>

<h2>License, copyright</h2>
<p><i><b>Copyright</b></i> --
see <a href='http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright'>Wikipedia's
article</a> for an explanation -- has reached a level where only a few
people have that right. Looking at an ordinary film, a piece of music
or even a computer program, it it often <i>illegal</i> to simply copy
it. If a person has used up 5MB of their hard disk for a piece of
music and then chooses to copy it, so that it takes up 5MB on a
friend's hard disk, there's a high risk that person is doing something
illegal, because if the music is covered by a heavy copyright (like a
lot of films, music, books, etc. are), only the ones who reserve the
right to copy it may copy it. This might work okay when the copyright
holders only reinforce their right to copy a work in commercial
contexts, but when they start to restrict ordinary people from simply
sharing art, it's gone too far.</p>
<p>So..</p>
<p>"Niels' nature" episodes are <em>free</em>, in the sense that
everybody is allowed to share them. As a bonus, everybody is also
allowed to modify them and share their modifications, so that even
more people can benefit. All this is made possible by
the <a href='http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/'
rel='license'>Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported
license</a> (also used by Wikipedia). Niels' nature' -- both the films
and the textual content of the website -- is licensed under that
license. For the license to work, there must be a copyright
owner. This is because it's
a <a href='http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyleft'>copyleft</a>
license.</p>  <hr />
<p class='noindent'>Copyright &copy; 2008, 2009 Niels Serup<br /> All
text, pictures (except <a href='img/stop.png'>'stop.svg' and
'stop.png'</a>, which are in the public domain) and films on this
website are available under the Creative Commons
Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported license.</p>  <hr />
<p class='noindent'>The image 'stop.svg' is taken from
the <a href='http://tango.freedesktop.org/'>Tango Desktop Project</a>
and slightly modified. Tango base icons are in the public domain, so
nothing's stopping me from releasing my modified version under CC
BY-SA. But I'll respect the project's ideology and not do that.</p>
<hr />
<p>To attribute me, a link to this website
('http://nature.metanohi.org/') and a string with my name ('Niels
Serup') is enough.</p>
<p>Note that this website uses a small amount
of <a href='http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Javascript'>JavaScript</a>
code to make some things a bit fancier. You shouldn't attribute me
when reusing code
and <a href='http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTML'>HTML</a> formatting
from this website. I find it too trivial to have it require a real
copyleft license; just copy it as you wish.</p>

<h2>Contact</h2>
<p>You can contact me
at <a href='mailto:ns@metanohi.name'>ns@metanohi.name</a>.</p>

<h2>OGG</h2>
<a class='img' href='http://playogg.org/'><img class='left'
src='img/playogg.png' alt='Play OGG' /></a>
<p>"Niels' nature" episodes are encoded into
the <a href='http://www.xiph.org/'>OGG</a> format,
using <a href='http://www.theora.org/'>Theora</a> for video
and <a href='http://www.vorbis.com/setup/'>Vorbis</a> for sound. OGG
is a free video/sound/subtitle container format. Implementing OGG is
easy, as its specification is freely available to everyone. It's also
royalty-free.</p>
<p>You can read more about OGG in
the <a href="http://en.flossmanuals.net/TheoraCookbook/">manual
published by FLOSS Manuals</a>, either online or as a pdf.</p>
<h3>"Why not just YouTube?"</h3>
<p>YouTube still mainly uses H.264 for their videos. It may be that it
    is technically a good codec, but patent-wise it's a mess. That's
    why it's a good thing that YouTube is beginning to use WebM with
    VP8, as that is a free format. It is however still most common
    with Flash-based video players (instead of HTML5-based), and
    considering that Flash can only be perfectly run by the
    proprietary Adobe Flash, it's a problem. Gnash, a free Flash
    player, seems to be steadily solving this problem, but even if it
    eventually becomes capable of running Flash programs perfectly,
    the Flash programs may still not be free. And they should.</p>
<p>It seems that YouTube uses some non-trivial, non-free JavaScript as
    well as a non-free core only partly available through an API. This
    is a problem. YouTube also has ads, which is annoying. One's use
    of YouTube is in typical Google-way probably not very private
    (see <a href='http://www.youtube.com/t/privacy'>http://www.youtube.com/t/privacy</a>).</p>
<p>Read more about free software, the alternative to proprietary
    software, on <a href='http://gnu.org/'>gnu.org</a>.</p>


<h2>How to play the episodes</h2>
<p>If you're using a fairly new browser, it should be possible to play
the episodes inside your browser. They are embedded using
the <a href='http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Use_of_Ogg_formats_in_HTML5'><code>&lt;video&gt;</code></a>
tag of HTML5, which is supported in Firefox 3.5+ as well as other
browsers. As a fallback,
the <a href='http://www.theora.org/cortado/'>Cortado</a> Java player
is used. Subtitles are unlikely to work with Cortado, because it's an
applet.</p>
<p>If playing the episodes directly in the browser doesn't work, or if
you simply don't want to do that, just download the episodes and watch
them in your favourite media player.</p>

<h2>This website</h2>
<p>Apart from using the <code>&lt;video&gt;</code> tag, this website
also uses other new additions to HTML. On browsers that support it
(Firefox 3.5+, GNU IceCat 3.5+, etc.), the background features an SVG
image (<a href='img/bgflow.svg'>bgflow.svg</a>) and transparency as
well as other new CSS things are used at various places. All of this
is nothing but eyecandy, and if it doesn't work because of a browser
that doesn't support it, fear not! The site should still work just
fine. It also works just fine without the JavaScript code. It seems to
work ok in Lynx, anyway.</p>
<p>I'm using a special font called "Domestic Manners" in some areas of
the website (it might not show on all browsers). According
to <a href='http://www.fontspace.com/cheapskate-fonts/domestic-manners'>this
site</a>, the font
is <a href='http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html'>GPL</a>'d, though it
doesn't state what version of the GPL it's under.</p>

<h2>Denmark</h2>
<p>Denmark is a small, cold country.</p>

<h2>Niels</h2>
<p>My name is Niels Serup, and I created these films. I live next to a
forest. <a href='http://metanohi.org/aboutme/'>Read more about
me.</a></p>

<h2>Editing and encoding</h2>
<p>Creating a nice-looking film can be difficult, especially if you
want to make it look professional. Using a slow, old computer doesn't
make things easier. I did manage it, however.</p>
<h3>Editing</h3>
<p>For my third episode I thought to myself that it could be nice to
    do a bit of cutting. I
    found <a href='http://www.pitivi.org/'>PiTiVi</a>. While still in
    its early fases, I found it to be very easy to work with.</p>
<h3>Encoding</h3>
<p>PiTiVi can also be used to render one's video, but it mysteriously
kept crashing and stopping at odd times on my computer. While looking
for help, I noticed that <a href='http://www.kinodv.org/'>Kino</a>
didn't have any rendering problems. To make Kino render render my
PiTiVi file, I created a converter. The two programs use different
file formats for saving data, so it was necessary. You can download
it <a href='http://metanohi.org/projects/various/pitivi-smil.tgz'>here</a>.</p>
<p>To convert my films to OGG I
use <a href='http://en.flossmanuals.net/ffmpeg2theora'><code>ffmpeg2theora</code></a>. Something
like this:</p>
<code>
ffmpeg2theora -o niels-naturX-small.ogv --deinterlace --optimize -v 4 -a 4 -x 448 -y 360 --aspect 16:9 --artist "Niels Serup" --title "Niels' nature X: Y" --date "2009-12-19" --location "Northern Denmark" --copyright "20XX Niels Serup" --license "CC BY-SA (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/)" niels-naturX.dv
</code>

<br /><br />
<h1>WHY???</h1>
<p>Why not?</p>

EOD;
?>