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avalanche , in TIL the design of the guillotine was intended to make capital punishment more reliable and less painful in accordance with new Enlightenment ideas of human rights.

I'm not for capital punishment (because there is always a chance justice failed), but if you are going to do it, might as will do it in a way that is quick, accurate, reliable, will cost little, and have few complexities. Lethal injection is a mess. Electrocution is ridiculous. Hanging is not super reliable. Gunshot it not quick. Maybe we need guillotine 2.0. Like, if we were to create a modern version of it, what would it look like? What would be the improvements to the design? Hell, there is probably a simulator on Steam for this question already. lol

Hudsonius ,

The modern version just made the news. Death in 20ms by the abyss

saplyng ,
@saplyng@kbin.social avatar

Well, I suppose you first need to consider what's doing the work on a guillotine; as far as I can tell it's only using gravity to drop the blade. So we'd want to reduce any friction caused by the rails, it'd be easiest to upgrade to aluminum and get some sort of ball bearings or something to keep it as low as possible. Obviously we want a sharp a blade as possible - considering our lack of sustained killings it might be best to move to a one use blade mechanism to keep it pointy since we probably don't have to worry about durability with sustained beheadings.

Hmm, after that we should probably try to introduce more energy into the system since we're still just using gravity. Adding more weight would probably help but wouldn't ever make it go faster than terminal velocity. Maybe the cheapest option would be spring-loading the top of the guillotine so after the lever is pulled it shoots down. Or if you want more future-y could try to make some sort of magnet railgun to propel the blade down at increasingly fast speeds.

For the bottom it seems pretty good, though you'll want to make sure you have the executioner line up the blade to be in-between the vertebrae (gotta try and make it as swift as possible). Then maybe add a pillow, because it doesn't look super comfy there.

aeternum , in TIL the design of the guillotine was intended to make capital punishment more reliable and less painful in accordance with new Enlightenment ideas of human rights.

Now we have lethal injections where it takes hours to die and they're in pain the whole time. How about we don't kill people?

bane_killgrind ,

So it's a bit of a privileged position to say that.

Has nobody committed acts against you that you could defend yourself from if they were dead?

dr_scientist , in TIL that the BBC had no archival policy until 1978, and many of its old broadcasts were only aired live. A number of BBC broadcasts are lost, including a show featuring a then-unknown Bob Dylan; 97...
@dr_scientist@lemmy.world avatar

I was watching the Monty Python documentary and they mentioned this. I think one of the Terry’s bought the episodes, which were scheduled to be erased. Otherwise, no Monty Python for America. What was remarkable was many shows that the Pythons had written for, and the ones that had influenced them, At Last the 1948 Show or the Goon Show were gone. So in an alternate timeline, we might be huge Spike Milligan fans.

livus , in TIL the design of the guillotine was intended to make capital punishment more reliable and less painful in accordance with new Enlightenment ideas of human rights.
@livus@kbin.social avatar

Yeah there were some very botched beheadings.

200ok , in TIL a full-grown person can eat 70 to 80 hot dogs in a 10-minute space before their body starts to shut down

How many bananas, for scale?

Cortell , in TIL the design of the guillotine was intended to make capital punishment more reliable and less painful in accordance with new Enlightenment ideas of human rights.

I’ll take guillotine over hanging any day

Thorny_Thicket ,

I believe it’s still among the most reliable tools for the job and actually quite humane. Just a bit messy.

Scrof , in TIL the design of the guillotine was intended to make capital punishment more reliable and less painful in accordance with new Enlightenment ideas of human rights.

It’s still is the most humane and reliable form of the capital punishment. Electric chair and lethal injections are a stuff of nightmares.

001100010010 , in TIL that the BBC had no archival policy until 1978, and many of its old broadcasts were only aired live. A number of BBC broadcasts are lost, including a show featuring a then-unknown Bob Dylan; 97...
@001100010010@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

Technically not lost. Some alien civilization could’ve recorded it and we might some day be able to retreive it.

hitmyspot ,

If it’s not yet found, would it not be lost, until it is found.

chris2112 ,

In the lost media community there is a distinction between things that are known to be lost forever (baring some miracle) and things that may still exist but either no known copies have been found or the owner refuses to release a digital copy (usually due to copyright reasons). For example most of the early seasons of Doctor Who were lost due to the BBCs policy but over the years copies of the film and even some rudimentary at home recordings have been found, allowing for them to be archived and preserved

Hooloo , in TIL that the BBC had no archival policy until 1978, and many of its old broadcasts were only aired live. A number of BBC broadcasts are lost, including a show featuring a then-unknown Bob Dylan; 97...

There’s famously several missing Doctor Who episodes as well.

TheDoctorDonna ,

They are still finding new ones though! We may never see all of them, unfortunately, but we can see a large chunk of them. That’s something to be grateful for considering the circumstances.

munkisquisher ,

The found ones pop up in the basements of New Zealand, South African, Australian TV stations that were sent tapes to play.

VioletRing ,

A lot of the 2nd Doctor is missing, some of the 1st. Some episodes have been animated, but some are only audio and still frames. It's a bit rough to get through.

LasVenturas , in TIL the design of the guillotine was intended to make capital punishment more reliable and less painful in accordance with new Enlightenment ideas of human rights.

What else did you think the guillotine was? Like it’s not talked about alot but if you get beheaded it didn’t always go well or in one swing.

Melatonin , in TIL the design of the guillotine was intended to make capital punishment more reliable and less painful in accordance with new Enlightenment ideas of human rights.

It was way better than some drunk guy in a hood with a dull axe. I think I remember reading about some teen who suicided themselves with a homemade guillotine in the woods. I don’t know why I’m mentioning that.

a253040 , in TIL: The Greek intellectual Hypatia was accused of witchcraft in March 415 CE where a mob seized her from her carriage, dragged her into a church, carved out her eyes and her living flesh with oyst...

Far away from the stench of the heavens

nothingcorporate , in TIL: The Greek intellectual Hypatia was accused of witchcraft in March 415 CE where a mob seized her from her carriage, dragged her into a church, carved out her eyes and her living flesh with oyst...

And she told Chidi to call her Patty.

tinwhiskers , in TIL bee suits are customarily white because by wearing white, a beekeeper can approach and open the hive without the bees becoming defensive and attacking as bees dislike dark coloured animals.
@tinwhiskers@kbin.social avatar

They're also cooler to wear. Bee suits get surprisingly hot even when white. The heat in the suit on hot summer days was the worst aspect of beekeeping for me. Bees show a lot of interest in blue anything so you don't wear blue overalls as you also tend to get more accidental stings (crush injuries to bees and things like that), and once one bee stings the pheromones released makes the hive more on edge. Mostly, the odd accidental sting won't rile the hive too much if they're a good breed and/or handled often but it does kinda tend to snowball.

White is the biz.

IndisposedShakerCup , in TIL that in the 1980s, Tom Fogerty, rhythm guitarist for Creedence Clearwater Revival, underwent back surgery, and was given a blood transfusion that was not screened for HIV causing him to become ...

Wow, that sucks. Poor dude

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