Keeping your idle ssh connection alive (the wrong way)

Need to keep an ssh connection alive? Maybe you're doing it wrong - use nohup. Can't? Got some weird corner case that needs a living ssh connection with some process doing something in the foreground? You could always use expect/pexpect. But that's too much trouble! This python script is a quick and dirty way of doing it wrong:
import time

import sys

def infinite():

    i = 0

    while 1:

        print "been asleep for ", i ,"hours"

        time.sleep(60 * 60)

        i += 1

def sleeper(minutes):

    print time.strftime("%a, %d %b %Y %I:%M:%S +0000", time.localtime())

    time.sleep(minutes * 60)

    print 'awaking'

    print time.strftime("%a, %d %b %Y %I:%M:%S +0000", time.localtime())

def main():

    if len(sys.argv) != 2:

        print "fail!"

        return

    if sys.argv[1] == "infinite":

        infinite()

    else:

        sleeper(int(sys.argv[1]))

if __name__ =="__main__":

    main()

Usage:

python keepawake.py 60 

Sleeps for 60 minutes

python keepawake.py infinite 

sleeps until you Ctrl+C

If you're using this often (why?! You're doing it wrong!) then of course just throw in an alias within your .bashrc:

alias keepawake='python ~/path/to/keepawake.py'

And now you can call:

keepawake 60

keepawake infinite

whenever your heart desires.