I built a QR code with my bare hands to see how it works
Why Hacker News recommends it
HN points to it as a recent, well-made explanation of QR code structure and error correction.
What it is
Veritasium builds a QR code by hand to explain how it works. It covers the history of Morse code and barcodes, how QR codes encode data, why damaged codes still scan, and how safe they are.
Recommended by 1 HN commenters across 1 different months, 2024 to 2025.
What Hacker News said
Recommends nhatcher · 2024-10 · on “The history of the barcode”
Derek Muller just did an interesting take on QR codes and their history on his popular channel veritasium: [this video]
Cites throw0101c · 2024-11 · on “Creating a QR Code step by step”
Recent Veritasium video on the topic, "I used to hate QR codes. But they're actually genius": * [this video]
Cites gukov · 2025-06 · on “Show HN: Qrkey – Offline private key backup on paper”
Yep, if I'm using a physical medium like paper I want to allow for some degradation. Here's a Veritasium video on QR codes: [this video]