It’s nice when things just become quietly, abundantly useful.

QR codes have gone from something people plastered over business cards and adverts in failed attempts to appear cutting-edge, to the default pattern for moving information along the following interaction:

a web transaction → time passes → queuing up for something → human interaction → scan → some sort of change of state.

Quickly thinking back over the past year I’ve:

• Printed a paper ticket and had it scanned using an abnormally large laptop in a rainy queue at The Fall gig at Electric Brixton.
• Had a PDF scanned to get on the Amtrak Coast Starlight.
• Had a printed ticket scanned using adapted phone scanner in the queue for some club in Portland and Bob Mould / Liars at Village Underground.
• Waved a code embeded in an app against an entry gate to the Eurostar.
• Printed out a label and stuck it to a package to Amazon via Collect+
• Had a an email scanned on my phone queing to see a film at the Ritzy.
• Had a ticket in Apple’s Passbook scanned on the way in to see a baseball game
• Scanned my laptop screen using my phone to load a TOTP security token to a Yubikey