The Ballad of CuteArr: A QR Code Sea Shanty

Most software gets a feature list. This one got a shanty. It is sung in the old fourteener meter, the same long swinging line as Spanish Ladies, so it works for hauling rope, waiting on a build, or neither.

Everything in it is true. There is a plain-English key at the bottom pointing each verse at the thing it describes, so you can check the claims rather than take a pirate's word for them.

Chorus

So haul away, ye scallywags, and plunder what ye need —
a code that's free and never dies, no signup and no creed!
No tracker in the riggin', not a byte sent 'cross the foam,
for CuteArr keeps yer treasure in the browser that ye own.

Verses

I.
Come gather 'round the mainmast, lads, I've word of honest gain —
a chart-house on the internet that never asks yer name.
No email for the pressgang, not a penny for the crew,
just paste yer link and watch the black-and-white come true.

II.
They call her The Local Ghost, for she leaves no wake behind,
she makes no port, she keeps no log, no cargo left to find;
she sails the whole PrivaSea and she never signs the book —
what ye stow aboard stays aboard, wherever pirates look.

III.
She'll code ye up a URL, a message or a call,
a text, an SMS, a card wi' name and trade and all;
she'll hand yer guests the WiFi wi' a scan across the bar —
seven kinds o' cargo in the hold of ol' CuteArr.

IV.
Ye'll pick yer sails in any shade, wi' gradients if ye please,
square modules or the rounded kind, whatever suits the breeze;
set compass eyes upon her, fly yer Jolly Roger high —
and she'll warn ye if the contrast's poor before the code goes by.

V.
Then plunder her in PNG from small to four-oh-nine-six,
or take the SVG and scale her tall as any ship's;
print her on a barrel, on a banner, on a sign —
she'll scan the same in fifty years, that treasure map o' thine.

VI.
Beware the codes ye rent by month that vanish wi' the tide,
that die the day the billin' stops and leave yer patrons wide;
but static ink is honest — 'tis a promise, not a lease,
and CuteArr costs ye nothin', so yer codes shall never cease.

VII.
Ye may spend yer whole evenin' tryin' every port in sight,
where each one wants yer credit card or holds yer codes too tight —
so drop yer anchor here, where all the grog is on the house,
and buy the crew a tankard if she serves ye well, or douse!

VIII.
In a world of shifting channels where the charts are drawn to cheat,
where the free port turns to toll-gate once yer cargo's on the street,
she keeps her compass honest and she never moves the shore —
Cap'n CuteArr holds the true course: sail ye free forevermore!

Chorus — once more, and louder.

The key, in plain English

Verse VII is borrowed, more or less word for word, from a supporter named Andrew, who wrote in to say he had spent a few hours trying every generator he could find before landing here. That seemed worth setting to music.

Sing it badly. That is the tradition.