STRAY neuron

Blog (lack of) update

dkaz — Sat, 24 Jan 2009 04:41:03 +0000

Haven’t posted anything here in a while…my attention span never lent itself to full-on blogging

In the meantime, find me on Facebook or Twitter (http://twitter.com/dkaz)

Apache Tip: Blocking by User-Agent in Tomcat/mod_jk configurations

dkaz — Thu, 29 May 2008 20:47:23 +0000

The key here is using Location (instead of Directory) for your Deny directive (otherwise your JkUnmount’d calls will not be blocked)

  SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "Firefox" bad_bot

  
    Deny from env=bad_bot

WTF/M - best code review stat ever

dkaz — Tue, 05 Feb 2008 06:06:48 +0000

So damn funny, yet so damn true.

Kids, Keyboards and Oscar Peterson

dkaz — Sat, 03 Nov 2007 03:20:55 +0000

My oldest kid, a 2nd grader, has started taking some (group) piano classes on a trial basis.

She seems to enjoy it a lot, so I bought her a 5-octave keyboard, a stand and a seat - a $300+ investment.

As it happens, I played piano for 11 years as a kid, so this has also provided the motivation for me pick it up again.

I’ve been YouTube’ing a lot for some good riffs to play and I ran into this video - while I can’t even imagine attempting to play the piece, watching one of the greatest pianists in history, Oscar Peterson, is still a phenomenal and inspiring experience.

phpmyadmin Tip #1: rename your phpmyadmin dir to something unique

dkaz — Thu, 01 Nov 2007 17:27:56 +0000

Found in Apache logs…on a domain that doesn’t even have MySQL installed…

85.17.155.21 “GET /phpmyadmin/main.php HTTP/1.0″ 404 - “-” “-”
85.17.155.21 “GET /admin/main.php HTTP/1.0″ 404 - “-” “-”
85.17.155.21 “GET /myadmin/main.php HTTP/1.0″ 404 - “-” “-”
85.17.155.21 “GET /phpMyAdmin/main.php HTTP/1.0″ 404 - “-” “-”
85.17.155.21 “GET /PMA/main.php HTTP/1.0″ 404 - “-” “-”
85.17.155.21 “GET /admin/phpmyadmin/main.php HTTP/1.0″ 404 - “-” “-”
85.17.155.21 “GET /admin/phpMyAdmin/main.php HTTP/1.0″ 404 - “-” “-”
85.17.155.21 “GET /admin/sysadmin/main.php HTTP/1.0″ 404 - “-” “-”
85.17.155.21 “GET /admin/sqladmin/main.php HTTP/1.0″ 404 - “-” “-”
85.17.155.21 “GET /admin/db/main.php HTTP/1.0″ 404 - “-” “-”
85.17.155.21 “GET /admin/web/main.php HTTP/1.0″ 404 - “-” “-”
85.17.155.21 “GET /admin/pMA/main.php HTTP/1.0″ 404 - “-” “-”
85.17.155.21 “GET /admin/main.php HTTP/1.0″ 404 - “-” “-”
85.17.155.21 “GET /admin/mysql/main.php HTTP/1.0″ 404 - “-” “-”
85.17.155.21 “GET /admin/myadmin/main.php HTTP/1.0″ 404 - “-” “-”
85.17.155.21 “GET /admin/webadmin/main.php HTTP/1.0″ 404 - “-” “-”
85.17.155.21 “GET /admin/mysqladmin/main.php HTTP/1.0″ 404 - “-” “-”
85.17.155.21 “GET /admin/phpmyadmin2/main.php HTTP/1.0″ 404 - “-” “-”
85.17.155.21 “GET /admin/phpMyAdmin-2.2.3/main.php HTTP/1.0″ 404 - “-” “-”
85.17.155.21 “GET /admin/phpMyAdmin-2.2.6/main.php HTTP/1.0″ 404 - “-” “-”
85.17.155.21 “GET /admin/phpMyAdmin-2.5.1/main.php HTTP/1.0″ 404 - “-” “-”
85.17.155.21 “GET /admin/phpMyAdmin-2.5.4/main.php HTTP/1.0″ 404 - “-” “-”
85.17.155.21 “GET /admin/phpMyAdmin-2.5.6/main.php HTTP/1.0″ 404 - “-” “-”
85.17.155.21 “GET /admin/phpMyAdmin-2.6.0/main.php HTTP/1.0″ 404 - “-” “-”
85.17.155.21 “GET /admin/phpMyAdmin-2.6.0-pl1/main.php HTTP/1.0″ 404 - “-” “-”
85.17.155.21 “GET /admin/phpMyAdmin-2.6.2-rc1/main.php HTTP/1.0″ 404 - “-” “-”
85.17.155.21 “GET /admin/phpMyAdmin-2.6.3/main.php HTTP/1.0″ 404 - “-” “-”
85.17.155.21 “GET /admin/phpMyAdmin-2.6.3-pl1/main.php HTTP/1.0″ 404 - “-” “-”
85.17.155.21 “GET /admin/phpMyAdmin-2.6.3-rc1/main.php HTTP/1.0″ 404 - “-” “-”
85.17.155.21 “GET /db/main.php HTTP/1.0″ 404 - “-” “-”
85.17.155.21 “GET /web/main.php HTTP/1.0″ 404 - “-” “-”
85.17.155.21 “GET /PMA/main.php HTTP/1.0″ 404 - “-” “-”
85.17.155.21 “GET /admin/main.php HTTP/1.0″ 404 - “-” “-”
85.17.155.21 “GET /mysql/main.php HTTP/1.0″ 404 - “-” “-”
85.17.155.21 “GET /myadmin/main.php HTTP/1.0″ 404 - “-” “-”
85.17.155.21 “GET /mysqladmin/main.php HTTP/1.0″ 404 - “-” “-”
85.17.155.21 “GET /mysql-admin/main.php HTTP/1.0″ 404 - “-” “-”
85.17.155.21 “GET /phpmyadmin2/main.php HTTP/1.0″ 404 - “-” “-”
85.17.155.21 “GET /phpMyAdmin-2.2.3/main.php HTTP/1.0″ 404 - “-” “-”
85.17.155.21 “GET /phpMyAdmin-2.2.6/main.php HTTP/1.0″ 404 - “-” “-”
85.17.155.21 “GET /phpMyAdmin-2.5.1/main.php HTTP/1.0″ 404 - “-” “-”
85.17.155.21 “GET /phpMyAdmin-2.5.4/main.php HTTP/1.0″ 404 - “-” “-”
85.17.155.21 “GET /phpMyAdmin-2.5.6/main.php HTTP/1.0″ 404 - “-” “-”
85.17.155.21 “GET /phpMyAdmin-2.6.0/main.php HTTP/1.0″ 404 - “-” “-”
85.17.155.21 “GET /phpMyAdmin-2.6.0-pl1/main.php HTTP/1.0″ 404 - “-” “-”
85.17.155.21 “GET /phpMyAdmin-2.6.2-rc1/main.php HTTP/1.0″ 404 - “-” “-”
85.17.155.21 “GET /phpMyAdmin-2.6.3/main.php HTTP/1.0″ 404 - “-” “-”
85.17.155.21 “GET /phpMyAdmin-2.6.3-pl1/main.php HTTP/1.0″ 404 - “-” “-”
85.17.155.21 “GET /phpMyAdmin-2.6.3-rc1/main.php HTTP/1.0″ 404 - “-” “-”

Top 10 Actors of Our Generation

dkaz — Thu, 13 Sep 2007 04:38:05 +0000

Argued about it at work today…here’s my list…in no particular order…

These are the men at the top of their game (therefore Pacino, Nicholson and DeNiro are not present)

Leonardo DiCaprio
Christian Bale
Sean Penn
Russell Crowe
Philip Seymour Hoffman
Brad Pitt
Forest Whitaker
Paul Giamatti
Johnny Depp
Jude Law

Skyler’s B-day….Animoto’d

dkaz — Fri, 17 Aug 2007 03:55:25 +0000

I tried out a new video mixing service, Animoto, tonight.

I have it to give it very high marks for ease of use, because even my first video (created during “So You Think You Can Dance” commercials) came out way better than I expected.

Linux Tip #7: For loop on a range of numbers

dkaz — Fri, 25 May 2007 03:50:05 +0000

Little know seq (sequence) utility is a great way to loop on a range of numbers in Linux. It came in very handy today and will hopefully stick in my brain in the future.

for i in `seq 1 10` do .. done

“Different” use of the ternary

dkaz — Thu, 17 May 2007 01:35:05 +0000

Amusing use of the ternary from our codebase..

log.debug( ( randomize ? "R" : "Not r" ) + "andomizing content" );

Bugatti Veyron - Hold on to your seat watching this clip!

dkaz — Sat, 28 Apr 2007 06:16:42 +0000

Great car TV show on the planet - TopGear - presents an incredibly enthralling clip of the fastest car on the planet - Bugatti Veyron.

Watching clips of “Top Gear” makes you wonder why the show is nowhere to be seen in US. Come on Discovery, buy rights to this damn thing instead of spending money on bikers in tight shorts!

UPDATE: I thought about embedding this, but decided it to link it instead - DailyMotion’s viewer is much bigger than the embedded one and you want size to experience this.

Here it is: http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x157l2_bugatti-veyron-at-top-speed

UPDATE #2: If you love the first clip, check out this (even more unbelievable) one by TopGear (linked by Roy in the comments). Awesome stuff. I’m adding Atom to my shopping list for my 45th b-day.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=WaWoo82zNUA

Traditional crunches are a waste of time

dkaz — Sat, 31 Mar 2007 19:40:15 +0000

I’ve always believed crunches to be the single most effective abdominal exercise. However, research from San Diego State University suggest just the opposite. Check out these results…

For strengthening the rectus abdominus (the muscle down the front of the abdomen), ranked most to least effective:

1. Bicycle maneuver
2. Captain’s chair
3. Crunches on exercise ball
4. Vertical leg crunch
5. Torso Track
6. Long arm crunch
7. Reverse crunch
8. Crunch with heel push
9. Ab Roller
10. Hover
11. Traditional crunch
12. Exercise tubing pull
13. Ab Rocker

For strengthening the obliques (on the sides):

1. Captain’s chair
2. Bicycle maneuver
3. Reverse crunch
4. Hover
5. Vertical leg crunch
6. Crunch on exercise ball
7. Torso Track
8. Crunch with heel push
9. Long arm crunch
10. Ab Roller
11. Traditional crunch
12. Exercise tubing pull
13. Ab Rocker

Mommy, mommy, mom, mom, mom, …

dkaz — Mon, 19 Mar 2007 04:39:39 +0000

I was watching this YouTube video on my buddy’s projector screen tonight and my kids could not get enough of it….genius…

Linux Tip #6: Looping on lines of file in bash

dkaz — Mon, 12 Mar 2007 23:42:47 +0000

I discovered a large gap in my bash kung fun today - I had no idea how to loop on lines of data in a file.

It turns out that “while data” pulls off this trick quite nicely:

while read myline do $myline done < inputfile

Pavlov Theory - “The Office” edition

dkaz — Sun, 11 Mar 2007 21:10:15 +0000

before I lose this hilarious clip…I need to share it

Lazy-Loaded Singletons

dkaz — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 20:08:36 +0000

I haven’t been using “traditional” singletons for a couple of years now (Spring craze and all), so the Initialization On Demand Holder idiom, which allows for lazy instantiation of singletons, has escaped me until now.

private static class LazySomethingHolder {
public static Something something = new Something();
}

public static Something getInstance() {
return LazySomethingHolder.something;
}

Here’s the explanation, courtesy of Bill Pugh, Brian Goetz and friends.

Found via TheServerSide.