I've built a simple .Net DLL that can be used on any ASP.Net site to handle dynamic redirects of requests coming into that website.  This will allow you to dynamically redirect an incomming url based on the url being sent in.  YOu can recombine the elements from the requested Url to build a new Url to be redirected to or transparently transferred to.

 

The component is called Geeqs.Net.Urlrewriter and you can configure it by adding RegEx rules to your web.config file.  As a component, it can be just dropped into any existing ASP.Net 1.1 site without having to modify your site.

 

See the deets here: http://blog.geeqs.net/archive/2006/04/18/Geeqs_Net_UrlRewriter.aspx

 

Go see this movie.

What you're looking for is over here:  http://blog.geeqs.net  

So I went out and watched War of the Worlds on Thursday.  This is a sci-fi horror movie. There are several freak-out moments in the movie that were well done, as well as some real "holy crap" moments like the “fire train“. They've taken more license with an adaptation of the original H G Wells story by playing out a story of Cruise on the run with his family. Count on Spielberg to run with that. Cruise's character has 2 kids, a teen boy and a little girl. The girl is played by Dakota Fanning, the boy is played by an unknown (to me) local Nanaimo, BC kid Justin Chatwin. The 3 actors did a fine job of building tension and fear throughout their panicked flight from their homes.

Elements of this movie remind me of many big-budget disaster type movies, such as Deep Impact (another one of my favourites), where much of the movie is spent fleeing from some kind of almost personified natural force. Here the forces aren't natural, but you will find common themes like a mass evacuation of cities, vigilantism, theft, etc... this is always good for some emotional impact when dealing with families on the run.

Picking it apart technically:

1. spaceships buried for thousands of years and nobody noticed them?
   Right... so thousands of spaceships buried underground for thousands of years or more and nobody ever notices them.  Not through mining, exploration, construction, earthquakes or anything?
2. spaceship pilots "injected" into underground spaceships through "lightning"?
   Why?  I mean, if you're not going to explain how the ships are there for so long, why bury them without pilots? 
   Frankly, I'd find it much more plausible if the ships were rained down on earth from orbit as projectiles like in the good old days!
3. Harvesting blood from humans and spraying it around as fertilizer?
   Why?  Grind 'em up and spit them out.  There's more good stuff in us than just the blood, you know? 
   How can you have any pudding if you don't eat your meat?
4. What was the purpose of the aliens waiting so long before they invaded?
   Why would an invading force that was present before today wait until now to invade?  What could the possible reason be?

The Ending:

One of the things I was looking forward to finding out was whether or not the story would stick to the original ending, or if they'd "adapt" a new one. I'm glad to see they stuck with the original ending after all, but I didn't expect the ending to be as anticlimactic as it was. This will likely be a common criticism for the movie.

The Verdict:

It's not perfect, and not good enough to become one of my all time sci-fi favorites, but over all this movie is definitely worth seeing on the big screen.

“Sir Bob Geldof the Tool”s Quote:

"There is no use in your prime minister coming to Scotland, unless he is prepared to do this deal," ...
"If he's not prepared, stay at home. Just stay at home. Don't come."
"You're not welcome unless you are prepared to do something finally and irrevocably on behalf of the poor of this world,"

Bob has come out to tell our Prime Minister, Paul Martin, to not bother coming to the G8 summit unless he's prepared to raise funding to 0.7% of Canadas gross domestic product (GDP) from the current levels of about 0.26%.  That's almost tripling the current funding levels. 

I agree with the initial response from the Martin office (Reuters):

"One would think that Live 8 would want to pressure politicians to not only say yes but to say how (to boost aid),"

Paul Martin gave an appropriately diffusing response in the house of commons:

Mr. Martin said he supports the 0.7-per-cent target by 2015 but won't make a commitment until the government has a plan in place to get there.

"I believe it is important that governments say not just what they're going to do but that they should say how they're going to do it, Mr. Speaker," Mr. Martin said, responding to calls for action from NDP Leader Jack Layton.

"I'm telling you that the problem with international public policy is that too often commitments are made on the grounds of photo ops and I will not do that."

I think this was a well metered response from Martin that was to diffuse Geldof's inflamatory remark which was likely more for Geldof's publicity.  It appears to be the thing to do” for a semi-popular figure to insult Canada because we're the nice guys and wont shoot back, though it may be justified.  That Geldof, he's just so brave...

 

A few links to other stories on the internet about this:

• Reuters story:  Boost aid or skip G8 meet, Geldof tells Canada PM
• CTV News story: Geldof puts pressure on Martin to increase aid
• Bob Geldof: The Most Clueless Man Alive? Or Just Ignorant?
• Rick Mercer's comments: 
  "Don’t get me wrong it’s not that I don’t think people like Sir Bob have a place on the world stage. If I was to hold an international symposium on getting off Junk or the perils of autoerotic asphyxiation I would expect a healthy number of rock stars with royal titles to take part in it."