"Works on my machine".

I get someone made a hilarious mistake.

But why would you not even test the code before gluing them to all the tables?

Or before sending the code to be etched?

I think since its not so much btoken as pointing to a local file, I think they may have tested it on the one device they made it, so it worked...on that device.
They should have 100% tested it on other devices
- Guess I'm showing my age then. Because the intended end use device is obviously a phone, I assume they used their phone to generate the qr, send it out to etch, and test the result. I can't use my phone for shit like that. To me that is much more a real screen type of job (generating the qr code, generating the gcode in lightburn, etc) done on a computer, instead of a tablet/phone
I created a QR generator website and you have no idea. I get emails from people saying they’ve printed the codes before discovering it goes to the wrong place (sometimes even to my own site!) and if I can fix it. No... check your codes before they go to print!
The funniest one I had caused me to get a huge spike of traffic on Christmas. It was so weird and left me clueless for weeks, until I got an email from somebody wishing to cancel a subscription.
I don’t sell subscriptions or anything at all!
Turns out somebody printed a QR code into a smartwatch instruction booklet that went straight to my site… The ad revenue was insane tho!
Might have been a temporary link (e.g., shortened URL) that passed tests initially but stopped working later on.
- The browser says "localhost", so it would have had to stop working by suddenly redirecting to localhost...

Fuck I despise this menu bullshit. Give me a fucking menu.

They had to put a fucking law in Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo mandating that restaurants had to have physical menus with the printed prices.
Give me a menu or I'll tell you what I want and you can figure out how to put it in.
Either that or I walk.
- Say "for $3.00" after your order, too. Fuck'em.
The only setting in which it’s actually helpful is when you go to an establishment that prioritizes drinks and the food is an afterthought (but you can still walk up to the bar and never use the QR code if you wanted).
- They are, unfortunately, basically required in countries with high inflation where prices change so often that printed menus become unmanageable.
I like when there's a qr code that allows you to order and pay without needing to wait for a waiter. A qr code where it just links to a pdf of a menu that they didn't want to print sucks.
- If it’s printed on the inside of the menu so you can order quickly when it’s busy and help take some of the pressure off the servers and maybe get your food faster? That’s cool.
  When it’s just a virtual menu so they can surge price in real time? Fuck those places.
- PDF is at least kind of permanent. Most restaurants that have qr code set up usually have "surge pricing" that allows them to change their prices on a whim.
One of the nice things about having a foldable is that restaurant menus work wonderfully on them. Don't have to worry about tiny text nor horizontal scrolling BS at all.

I once got a group message from my child's teacher, screaming in excitement that "the event at school is live!"

The link points to 192.168.x.x.

The #1 reason I hate QR codes (edit: directing to a website to order & pay for a restaurant online) is because they make you agree to further terms and conditions like collecting data on you.

All just to fucking order food.

Shit should 100% be illegal.

I'm not against the concept of having digital ordering as an option. But it must be an option, and without any data collection

I don't think you have to agree to terms to look at a menu. Maybe a cookie popup though. Those are annoying!
- Cookie popups are terms and conditions. They could easily make a page without any tracking cookies, only the ones nessecary for the service to functions, and they wouldn't need the popup.
The #1 reason I hate QR codes is because they make you agree to further terms and conditions like collecting data on you.
0.o A QR code is basically just a data-encoding format and is mostly used to store a link to something. I'm not sure where ToS/etc. come into that.
- You'll be redirected to a website, and then you'll get asked to allow cookies, etc.

I had a worse fucking experience somehow just last week, the QR code pointed you to their fucking instagram, that's where the weekly lunch menu options were posted, except I have no idea how my colleagues even accessed it, because anything I clicked didn't take me to that "story/reel" whatever the fuck it's called, the owner of that restaurant deserves to burn in hell for eternity

I honestly want to fight businesses who don't have a website.
Website hosting is dirty cheap, domains are dirt cheap (relative to other costs of the business).
If you're a retail/hospitality venue your traffic is so low.
If you point me to a Facebook or Instagram page as your only web presence (meaning, no organisation at all, just bloody chronological posts, and maaaaybe some useful information in the page bio), I'm gonna be annoyed.
The number of times some business or organisation updates things on Facebook and Instagram, and not on their website, is frustrating.
Has happened to me many, many times, where I turn up to something that isn't happening because they've only posted it on Instagram

Reading other comments I'm on the unpopular side, but I prefer QR menus to physical ones. We don't have that surge price thing here, prices are pretty stable usually.

Printing several menus and having to replace them when they get dirty and stuff is such an unnecessary waste.

I'm not trying to touch a poorly laminated menu with the last guys spilled salsa on it that's been wiped "clean" by the hostess with a rag in some bucket of water that's been sitting there for god knows how long. Minutes before I touch my food.
- If they're following food safety laws, that bucket of water is likely bleach water or a similarly potent sanitizing agent...
  If it were plain water, do you think they'd go through the effort to make a separate bucket of it? Also, if they're not rinsing off crud before putting the rag back in the bucket, they're doing it wrong.

OK listen hear me out. Perfect opportunity for guests to learn how to ssh tunnel to port forward to their local device 😅

I'll save noobies some time.

for (( i=1; i<65536; i++ ));do for (( j=1; j<256; i++ ));do ssh -L $j$i:127.0.0.1:$i -N 192.168.1.$j & done done
What could go wrong?
Okay clearly this won't work because there aren't enough local ports to match to 16 bits of ports on potentially 255 machines, but with some slight modification I could add in a test to only increment the local port if the forward is successful and thereby create the dumbest-ass port forwarding script ever.
- ip a a 127.0.0.2/8 dev lo
  You have a whole /8 subnet of localhost, do it.

Would this probably work if you connect to their Wi-Fi?

EDIT: I am smart, I promise

Probably.
But ugh. What’s wrong with a printed, laminated menu‽
- IT technician here, without modifying the hosts file on your computer it won't work.
  You can assume that this will never work on anything other than the development box, regardless of what network you are connected to.