Post #1626275

2026-03-21 22:57 UTC

@cstross 😁 Ok, but, how do you improve a guillotine? You make it laser? But then you need electricity. You make it serial/self reloading victims? But then you'll miss the show. You make it self cleaning blood residue? It makes it less scary! It's such a perfect, simple, efficient, terrorizing machine...

Replies (2)

@graydon@canada.masto.host 2026-03-21 23:12

@lgsp @cstross You give the blade carriage bearings, you make the uprights actual rails and the blade carriage use the kind of multi-wheel interface a modern roller-coaster car does, and you use a pneumatic piston rather than relying on gravity. If you're feeling merciful, you stop using a blade at all and use a linear electric motor or an explosive charge to crush the person-being-executed's entire head at above nerve propagation speeds. 250 m/s would be plenty.

Open ##1626276
@isaackuo@spacey.space 2026-03-22 00:11

@lgsp @cstross A guillotine relies upon sliding motion, whereas a rotating blade can provide much more efficient cutting. Notice how we slice cold cuts with a circular spinning blade, not a sliding blade. An improved guillotine could use a circular blade attached to an axle. The axle rolls down a ramp. This ramp has a slot for the blade, and this slot is aligned with the victim's neck.

Open ##1626277