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  Is there a QR code generator that 1. is a website 2. is free, no account needed 3. is not secretly also a link shortener (no “dynamic QR codes”) 4. does not look like a scam 5. does not include extra branding (the way the Chrome one does) a friend just asked me this and I really could not find one (edit: many people are recommending https://justaqrcode.com/ which looks great, gonna mute this conversation now)

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  replacing the old battery on rechargeable bike lights https://jvns.ca/blog/2026/09/27/replacing-the-old-battery-on-rechargeable-bike-lights/

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  poll: when you run `git pull`, do you pass the name of the remote/branch (like `git pull origin main`) or just `git pull`? (you can pick more than one)

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  poll: in Git, do you ever use any of the references `MERGE_HEAD`, `REBASE_HEAD`, `CHERRY_PICK_HEAD`, `ORIG_HEAD`, `FETCH_HEAD`, or `REVERT_HEAD` etc? (and if so, what do you use them for?)

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  Are you interested in learning how to use Git for the first time? (or almost the first time) we're looking for Git beginners to give us feedback on a Git tutorial! The tutorial will be open source when it's released, so you'll be helping many future beginners! Sign up here: https://forms.gle/zgubUXvFZKRALefWA (i realize my Mastodon followers are pretty unlikely to be total Git beginners, but I'm putting this out there anyway 🤞)

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  out of curiosity, when did you first start using unix systems? (please no replies with details on this one, if none of them fit exactly that's ok, just trying to get a very rough sense)

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  if you're dealing with a merge conflict in Git like this, how do you figure out which side the of the conflict comes from which branch? (you can pick more than one) FRUITS = [ "apple", >>>>>> add-fruit "orange", ]

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  big news about the Wizard Zines store: print orders from Europe now ship from a European warehouse in Germany!!! We've been having a lot of issues with duties & fees for European customers because of shipping from the US so I'm very excited for this. get your zines here: https://wizardzines.com/ (and here's the shipping FAQ with all the details: https://store.wizardzines.com/pages/shipping-policy)

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  been making a single-page app with https://pocketbase.io/ this week and it's been a nice experience. I like making single-page JS apps with a Go backend API and this means that I don't have to write the Go backend. Really impressive project given that it's built by one person in their spare time.

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  it's happening! "The Secret Rules of the Terminal" is coming out tomorrow! (update: it's out now!! you can get it here: https://wizardzines.com/zines/terminal/) here's the table of contents:

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  if you could wave a magic wand and improve one page in the Git documentation, which one would it be?

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  what makes CORS hard to use?

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  cool to see that the ICFP programming contest this year is focused on systems programming https://icfpcontest2026.com/ (via @lindsey@recurse.social)

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  some more things about Django I've been enjoying https://jvns.ca/blog/2026/07/21/more-nice-django-things/

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  Every so often I consider self-hosting my own website, but I'm feeling more and more like I do not want to do that, I want an organization that I can trust to take care of things so that I do not have to. And enough control and open standards so that if something goes wrong, I can migrate. the idea of doing everything myself so that I don't have to trust anyone to manage it for me just does not feel viable (I am not looking for web hosting suggestions)

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  learning a few things about running SQLite https://jvns.ca/blog/2026/07/17/learning-about-running-sqlite/

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  is there a good website with stats on who owns ipv4 addresses globally? (like which countries have the most IPs?). i know it's sort of a poorly defined question

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  TIL that a) if you're running a process in a VM (like on shared hosting) then the process's CPU can be "stolen" by other processes on the host b) htop can show how much of the CPU is "stolen" with the "Detailed CPU time" setting c) htop has a settings menu if you press "S" https://serverfault.com/questions/180711/what-exactly-do-the-colors-in-htop-status-bars-mean

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  I've been trying to improve my French recently and I'm really appreciating this Quebec french dictionary https://usito.usherbrooke.ca/ it's amazing to be able to search for a slang term I hear and find it in the dictionary under (QC, fam), unlike with most French dictionaries which don't have any info about Quebec-specific terms

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  something I'm finding frustrating recently is a) I feel like LLMs have helped me learn some programming things that were hard for me to learn previously b) I'm tired of LLMs being relentlessly pushed on us and do not want to participate in that by talking about my positive experiences c) there are also lots of hazards associated with using LLMs to generate code that are not that easy to avoid

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  just noticed "how integers and floats work" came out 3 years ago today originally this this was a zine about "how computers represent data in binary" (what's little endian? big endian? what's struct alignment? why do 32 bit integers cause so many problems? how do we represent strings?) but we ended up running out of space after we explained integers and floats so never got to struct alignment and null-terminated strings :) get it here: https://wizardzines.com/zines...

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  @ericholscher@fosstodon.org i’m using them for a few sites and storing them in 1password. sometimes it doesn’t work but i can always just use a password in that case

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  i'm learning more about css grid this week (like `repeat(auto-fit,`, `minmax(___, 1fr)`) and it's so cool, grid is not easy but it's amazing

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  right now I'm doing what I thought would be a very tedious task (moving a bunch of CSS from Tailwind to using vanilla CSS) and actually it's helping me learn me some things about structuring CSS that I've wanted to learn for a long time. it's a lot of fun even though it does take time

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  git worktree (this is #bonuscomic #3 for "How Git Works" https://wizardzines.com/zines/git, covering some topics that I didn't talk about in the zine) Also I don't use worktrees much, so please reply with gotchas/tips about worktrees if you use them more! https://wizardzines.com/comics/git-worktree/

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  also the #1 thing I miss from Linux while using a Mac is strace and recently I found out about `fs_usage` that does part of what strace does and I was so happy (I’ve also tried dtruss/dtrace etc and a couple of other things which I have failed to get to work, I'm not willing to turn off SIP) for example here's me looking at what config files `fish` opens

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  i started trying out https://helix-editor.com/ and I've been liking it more than I expected to, it's fun to have an editor that Just Works without any config going to stick with it for a bit even though there are some things I don't like compared to neovim (different syntax, it crashes sometimes, it doesn't auto-reload changed files, no GUI, I don't like the way :reflow works compared to `gq, I think `Ctrl+C` for commenting code is weird)

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  testing Vue components in the browser (another entry in my "how to write frontend JS without using a server JS framework, but still have nice things" series) https://jvns.ca/blog/2026/05/02/testing-vue-components-in-the-browser/

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  just preordered @grimalkina 's The Psychology of Software Teams from my local bookstore! i've been really enjoying her podcast about the psychology of learning, like this one on what it means to be good at math https://www.changetechnically.fyi/2396236/episodes/18400124-math-is-for-girls & I'm really looking forward to the book

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  excited to announce that Wizard Zines is now shipping Canadian orders from Canada! now shipping is cheaper & there's no risk of being hit with duties get your zines at https://wizardzines.com