Rick Moen wrote:
Quoting Craig Sanders (cas@taz.net.au):
might have been me. i don't recall reading or hearing of it before I started doing it, or before i started mentioning it as a useful anti-spam technique.
of course, it's something so simple and obvious that it's likely to have been independently invented several times.
Which is true of most truly inspired ideas: They're obvious and elegant, after you hear and admire them. Sysadminly judo at its finest.
"(..) Sir Isaac Newton, renowned inventor of the milled-edge coin and the catflap!" "The what?" said Richard. "The catflap! A device of the utmost cunning, perspicuity and invention. It is a door within a door, you see, a ..." "Yes," said Richard, "there was also the small matter of gravity." "Gravity," said Dirk with a slightly dismissed shrug, "yes, there was that as well, I suppose. Though that, of course, was merely a discovery. It was there to be discovered." ... "You see?" he said dropping his cigarette butt, "They even keep it on at weekends. Someone was bound to notice sooner or later. But the catflap ... ah, there is a very different matter. Invention, pure creative invention. It is a door within a door, you see."