Show HN: A device that only lets you type lol if you've truly laughed out loud | Hacker News Reader

Show HN: A device that only lets you type lol if you've truly laughed out loud

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321 pointslanewinfield85 comments

Back in my youth, I had a friend on AIM who excessively typed “lol”. We ended up talking on the phone once and I was surprised to learn that (a) she actually did laugh out loud approximately that frequently and (b) it was more of a nervous giggle, and not so much a full-throated laugh.

oh man, i used to ask people if they were really laughing when they said "lol"... thanks for resurfacing this memory... ugh lol

> ugh lol

:wink:

Conversely I used to have a friend who actually said "lol" instead of laughing - I guess that was lololing?

I have friends who use say the word "LOL" as well, but as a sarcasm.

Larry David covered this: https://youtu.be/DAwlx0aTBi4

This isn’t just normal?

My group of friends started doing that after they were introduced to the Pure Pwnage web series back in 2004. Classic.

That takes me back.... World of Warcraft is a feeling :-D

Are we still pretending "lol" is not just a piece of grammar now?

How did it come to replace the period as the marker for the end of a sentence?

It doesn't mark the end of a sentence. It marks that the sentence is not to be taken with the utmost seriousness.

If you put it like that, the marker would only make sense in an otherwise serious conversation. But when it's used as a stop marker for every other message in a texting app, that's already a very casual and light-hearted environment, why do some people feel the need to reinforce it again and again? Maybe I'm overthinking it lol

lmao

Because human communication involves redundancy of information.

It's also interesting, i frequently use `lol.` as a sort of combination emotion, where i'm signalling laughing but also abruptly stopping. Meaningfully different than a `heh`. Likewise `heh` and `heh.` have a very distinct feel.

Language is weird, it just comes naturally and organically and i go with the flow. Though i find this style of writing mostly done in texting. Long/medium form doesn't benefit as greatly from it.

I've indeed seen it used to mean basically 'this is serious but don't take it too seriously' if that makes sense, in the way that someone might say: 'university education is useless for the current job market lol'. I guess there are levels to this thing.

It'll be really disturbing when execs and legal departments start using it to soften bad news.

> Due to macroeconomic headwinds, we’ve made the very difficult decision to reduce our workforce by about 40 percent lol

> How did it come to replace the period as the marker for the end of a sentence lol

FTFY

I am still trying to get over someone actually loudly saying "lol" while laughing

omg wtf. irl?

I don't believe it's happened yet; Merriam-Webster still has it as an abbreviation only spelled as LOL whereas in practice it's already used as a verb.

This morphing of LOL is used as an example in the very interesting and enjoyable book "Words on the Move: Why English Won't – and Can't – Sit Still (Like, Literally)" by John McWhorter.

https://bookshop.org/p/books/words-on-the-move-why-english-w...

All of McWhorter's material is great. Highly recommend his audiobooks.

It has always been, in Dutch (it means 'fun'). And the Dutch have been very early and influential on IRC (where the acronym stems from).

There was a time when we used to reserve these kinds of jokes for April fool's day.

I hate April fool's day but if it was these kinds of jokes, I'd be very amused.

But does it work for ROFLMAO?

Roflcopter

You will need a special mat for that, sold separately.

The last couple letters sounds like a bio hazard.

Can we expect ROTFLMAOAHAHA to include Holter device?

Lol!

For me at least, it's more like "slight exhale through nose"

... but " snort " might be misinterpreted.

I absolutely love this. I'm glad that local machine learning is within reach for everyday hobbyists and not entirely limited to big organizations with deep pockets or experts. This may be a dumb joke, but the tech is there to make loads of useful things.

It reminds me of a more tech-oriented version of the hilarious 'Unnecessary Inventions' guy who makes great unnecessary (not: not useless) inventions - you may enjoy his channel if you like this:

https://unnecessaryinventions.com/

Cool. How about a device that gives you a mild jolt if you write that you are "shocked, shocked" to discover something.

Related: when doing proofreading, whenever I got a press release that quoted Person X as saying Y, I tried to track down Person X in the hallway and ask him/her to utter the quote Y, so that writing the press release would not make me a liar.

I love this idea. Concepts like this is useful for making a tighter connection between the real world and the online world.

How would this tighter connection be useful? The whole internet became/is a creative slate because the two worlds aren't connected

Connecting them would mean less privacy (or even lack of)

if you exclaim 'lol!' it lets you type 'lolol'

Offtop

lol doesnt mean just laughed...

It also means being shocked or surprised "lol?"

For some reason people who try to define lol often miss that 2nd, popular meaning

Maybe I'm an exception, but I have never ever seen lol used with that 2nd meaning.

lol?

For me, when I see 'lol' used like this I read it as quite aggressive and offensive. I don't see it really an expression of surprise or shock, but with its original meaning used in a sarcastic way: 'I am laughing with incredulity at the fact that you actually think that'.

I once proposed to some people I know getting started in app development an idea: the app would listen to what you say and if you said the word "güey" more than five times in a 24 hour window it would give you an electric shock.

I was only about four fifths joking.

This is pointless because the code should be verifying the expression IALOL'd., as LOL is not intended to express actual laughter. Just saying.

OK I wouldn't lie, I didn't LOL but I chuckled pretty loudly.

What if I said LOL for "lots of love" instead?

Like in "your uncle died, LOL" ? Guess you'd have to train the ML model on cries instead of laugh, simply.

ML based on "Live, Laugh, Love". Oh, the horrors!

Relevant Greg Giraldo bit: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=NMQDVhoGHak

My beard just got some grey in it when I laughed in my head and didn’t reply “rol”, the entirely opt in lol-verifier that we all used to treat as sacred.

Can it differentiate laughing and crying?

Haha! Brilliant. Next is to configure based on "highness"....

> Haha! Brilliant.

Real "Haha" or faked?

But can you type "vexillology" without laughing?

...some men just want to watch the world burn

Shout out to, "bahaha".

Hehe

how about LMAO thogh?

Let's be honest, in most contexts lol is just a smile and a good feeling.

When I was at school around 2003 I actually heard someone yell out across the cafeteria "you're so f*king lol!", in swedish. It was used as a verb.

Classic. Best (and commonly?) delivered in a thick Skane accent.

That's not a verb, that's an adjective.

LOS

lol

The crystalologist wept, for they had dropped their lollipop on the floor.

Crystahaogists love that’s funnylipops.

The clbuttic problem

An intercoursing persistent problem.

Now do one for the French equivalent MDR.

but you really have to die for the thing to let you type it

(MDR stands for "mort de rire", or dying of laughter in english)

That makes more sense than my thought of medical device regulation.

Now make one that shocks you when you don't literally laugh your ass off.

Lol

that's funny

I don’t know why but I actually lol’ed when I reached this comment. True out loud laugh attested here

Video doesn’t play - is HN capable of breaking Twitter now?

Twitter managed that on their own; is down in Australia at least.

Yeah huge Twitter outage today, no one's talking about it I'm assuming because far less people care about Twitter anymore.

Crazy, another hour gone by and it's still down (in Australia, at least).

Works here in the US, maybe try holding your phone the other way round?

Tried that, just gave a Tasmanian devil cancer

Hey guys, it's me Elon. It's working for me. I don't know what you are talking about

ok, boomer.

lol today means "yeah, rigth"

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