Show HN: QR code renderer in a TrueType font

The internet has found its latest beautifully unhinged invention: a font that can turn text inside square brackets into a scannable QR code, right there on the page. No separate picture, no extra tool, no behind-the-scenes trickery. You type something like [hello], switch to this font, and suddenly your boring little word becomes one of those black-and-white boxes you usually point your phone at in restaurants. Even wilder, the rest of the sentence stays readable, so people are already gawking at the idea of mixing normal writing with hidden scan-me blocks like some kind of typographic spy game.

And the real show, of course, was the comment section. One user called it "absolute black magic," which pretty much set the tone. Another dubbed it a "wonderfully cursed idea," while someone else went even harder with "This is terrifying, great job!" That is basically the highest compliment the internet can give: equal parts praise, fear, and delighted panic. The closest thing to drama was less a fight and more a communal meltdown over the fact that fonts can apparently do this now. There was also a mini victory lap when a commenter pointed out the idea had been suggested the day before, giving the whole thing a "called it first" subplot. The only practical wrinkle? Browsers can awkwardly split these QR chunks across lines, which somehow makes the whole thing feel even more cursed. Nerdy, weird, useful, hilarious — the comments were obsessed.