Skin Horse

By Shaenon K. Garrity & Jeffrey C. Wells
By Shaenon K. Garrity & Jeffrey C. Wells
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2019-03-22
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2019-03-22

by shaenon on March 22, 2019 at 12:01 am
Chapter: Green Noah
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Discussion (62) ¬

  1. Robert Nowall
    March 22, 2019, 12:10 am | # | Reply

    Is the Mike any relation to the Dane?

    • jdreyfuss
      February 4, 2020, 3:31 pm | # | Reply

      Sounds more like the Rock.

  2. Moe Lane
    March 22, 2019, 12:15 am | # | Reply

    Genre Awareness. The most powerful superpower of all.

  3. emusam
    March 22, 2019, 12:16 am | # | Reply

    Nick seems to have an accurately located silliness benchmark; he just needs to keep orienting himself to it.

    • Mental Mouse
      March 22, 2019, 8:51 am | # | Reply

      Virginia can help him with that.

  4. Pygar
    March 22, 2019, 12:19 am | # | Reply

    Anyone *not* hear Mike in Fred Blassie’s voice?

    • LogicMouse
      March 22, 2019, 12:18 pm | # | Reply

      Personally I’m hearing him in the voice of “The Boulder” from Avatar: the Last Airbender.

      • Shaenon
        March 22, 2019, 11:16 pm | # | Reply

        I think it started out as, ahem, “The Boulder” in Jeff’s scripts, but I kept adding other rassling stuff.

      • jdreyfuss
        February 4, 2020, 3:32 pm | # | Reply

        Me too. And Shaenon has already shown an affinity for using Mick Foley analogues.

  5. awgiedawgie
    March 22, 2019, 12:20 am | # | Reply

    Just throw the mic on the ground really hard, then unplug it and tie the cable in knots. If you want to go real hardcore, break the stand over your knee.

  6. pdp15
    March 22, 2019, 12:22 am | # | Reply

    Objective is: drop the mike.

    • Sasha Honeypalm
      March 22, 2019, 4:22 pm | # | Reply

      *golf clap*

  7. Robert Nowall
    March 22, 2019, 12:22 am | # | Reply

    Can the Mike talk and chew gum at the same time?

  8. Jo Woodman
    March 22, 2019, 12:37 am | # | Reply

    Since it has a cardioid pick up pattern, if you walk behind it, it can’t sense you.

    • awgiedawgie
      March 22, 2019, 1:03 am | # | Reply

      You’re just assuming it’s cardioid. It could be omnidirectional.

      • Khno
        March 22, 2019, 6:20 am | # | Reply

        In an amphitheater…. Even being an omni, the shape of mic wouldn’t allow it to pick up everywhere. No the thing that would allow it to pick up in really all directions would be the articulation of the tripod stand.

        • awgiedawgie
          March 22, 2019, 2:49 pm | # | Reply

          You’d be surprised how well some omnidirectional mics pick up, even directly behind them. I have a couple that are so sensitive that they’re useless for anything other than studio work where there’s no possibility of feedback.

          • Khno
            March 22, 2019, 7:36 pm | #

            Then it has to have a different position, not? Like not pointed to the direction of Nick’shead? The last thing was quite my point: the result an omnidirectional in such a “room” would be… wild… or I may only have used too cheap ones and my ex-roomate was lying about their price 😉

          • awgiedawgie
            March 22, 2019, 8:32 pm | #

            Omnidirectional mics are rather wild, so to speak. They pick up far too much ambient noise to really be useful for any kind of live performance or public speaking, where the loudspeakers are anywhere near them. They have no focal point, as it were. They’re good sitting on a table in a board room, because they will pick up everyone at the table. If you want something that’s really going to isolate the person who is speaking, you need a good cardioid or even a super-cardioid. Some of them use the term “unidirectional”, but that’s a bit of a misnomer, since that implies a straight line. Even a good super-cardioid mic’s pattern isn’t a straight line.

          • Khno
            March 23, 2019, 2:31 pm | #

            And a Jeckel disk

    • Khno
      March 23, 2019, 2:40 pm | # | Reply

      sorry, Jecklin. I know it’z what it’s always used for, but that works pretty well to avoid parasite ambiance.

      • awgiedawgie
        March 23, 2019, 2:44 pm | # | Reply

        Yeah, but you’re not going to use a jecklin disk on stage.

        • Khno
          March 25, 2019, 6:30 am | # | Reply

          But… it would be perfect to hide embarassed faces!

          • awgiedawgie
            March 25, 2019, 11:59 am | #

            The solution to stage fright? Interesting idea.

  9. Bruce A Munro
    March 22, 2019, 12:39 am | # | Reply

    …and the comic lampshades itself.

    • Mental Mouse
      March 22, 2019, 8:50 am | # | Reply

      Wait, this mike isn’t wearing a lampshade… (unlike the one for which the trope is named)

  10. Frank
    March 22, 2019, 12:49 am | # | Reply

    okay, who put AI in a mic?

    …wait, that’s a stupid question

    • Jerry Aethers
      March 22, 2019, 10:19 am | # | Reply

      Answer: The scientist and engineers who wanted their leadership to sound smarter than they really were. Unfortunately it was a failed experiment and the mic went rogue.

      • Shadowmehr
        March 22, 2019, 9:03 pm | # | Reply

        Alternatively, it was a complete success, and was immediately booted out by an irate and of-course-I’m-not-jealous leadership. Politicians can stand anything except being laughed at, even if it’s just by the staff.

    • Danny in Canada
      March 22, 2019, 1:12 pm | # | Reply

      same people who’d put it in a water cooler?

    • awgiedawgie
      March 22, 2019, 2:40 pm | # | Reply

      IIRC, Helen gave the coffee maker AI because it made the vacuum cleaner happy. So finding out who did it and why may not help you understand it any better.

    • Frank
      March 22, 2019, 9:10 pm | # | Reply

      I remembered we actually have AI in our RL mics. It’s called noise reduction.

      • awgiedawgie
        March 22, 2019, 9:47 pm | # | Reply

        You’re implying that noise reduction is intelligent?

        • Frank
          March 23, 2019, 12:21 am | # | Reply

          It’s in AI textbooks, so … yes?

          • awgiedawgie
            March 23, 2019, 12:38 am | #

            Well, I suppose the word “intelligence” is relative, so okay.

  11. thedoctor55
    March 22, 2019, 12:52 am | # | Reply

    Release the UNITY! It’s a about time she had a nice “sound” snack!

    • OneUniverse
      March 22, 2019, 1:02 pm | # | Reply

      Is UNITY in the Machine Union? I think not, so she’s not invited.

  12. Schismatism
    March 22, 2019, 12:59 am | # | Reply

    Nick doesn’t exactly seem like he’s trebling in fear.

    • Khno
      March 22, 2019, 6:33 am | # | Reply

      He’s gonna look for a middle ground before deciding to if the mike is a dumbbass or just hyped for the equalization of being high. Not that would go top notch, but what other to scoop the intentions?

  13. rinku
    March 22, 2019, 1:20 am | # | Reply

    What IS Nera doing…?

    • Doghouse
      March 22, 2019, 2:28 am | # | Reply

      Indeed. I came into the comments here hoping someone else might have thoughts on that. It’s the same tongue-out-the-side-of-the-mouth look of concentration that she’s had in a couple of past strips (e.g. February 11); she seems to be doing SOMETHING on her phone, and I suspect that we’ll find out in the fullness of time that it was plot-relevant. On the other hand, she’s of the sort of age where she could simply be an habitual phone user. Doubtless we’ll find out in the fullness of time. Or not, as the case may be.

    • mickeyjf
      March 22, 2019, 11:01 am | # | Reply

      Base on where she’s holding it, I’d say using the camera/video recorder….

    • Robert Nowall
      March 22, 2019, 6:56 pm | # | Reply

      Probably livestreaming this event.

  14. Barbara K
    March 22, 2019, 1:23 am | # | Reply

    Just move the speaker closer to mouthy Mike until he’s snagged in his own audio-feedback loop.

  15. Adam Ek
    March 22, 2019, 6:45 am | # | Reply

    https://boingboing.net/2019/03/16/crowbar-wielding-unicorn-raids.html

  16. cjmaloof
    March 22, 2019, 8:46 am | # | Reply

    The Mike is really in no position to comment on anybody else’s neck size.

  17. Dr. Steve
    March 22, 2019, 10:12 am | # | Reply

    Mike just wants someone to listen

    • Efogoto
      March 22, 2019, 11:20 am | # | Reply

      Talk (in)to me, bro.

  18. John Doe
    March 22, 2019, 10:54 am | # | Reply

    I get the feeling Baron is trying to get Nick through without killing him.

    • OneUniverse
      March 22, 2019, 1:01 pm | # | Reply

      I get the feeling the Baron is pushing Nick from behind due and the position looks compromising.

  19. Robert Loughrey
    March 22, 2019, 1:03 pm | # | Reply

    It has a plug. Unplug it.

    • warpzone32
      March 22, 2019, 6:02 pm | # | Reply

      *Mike drop*

    • Robert Nowall
      March 22, 2019, 6:57 pm | # | Reply

      Be careful of The Mike. Remember what happened to Les Harvey of Stone the Crows?

      • awgiedawgie
        March 22, 2019, 8:52 pm | # | Reply

        This one might be dangerous, but honestly, I can’t imagine how. I don’t know if the other end of the cable is even plugged into anything.

        Even if the mic has somehow energized itself to electrocute an opponent, as long as Nick’s wearing shoes with rubber soles and not standing in water, he should be relatively safe.

        • Bruce A Munro
          March 22, 2019, 10:02 pm | # | Reply

          A pocket pet isn’t obviously dangerous either, unless it turns out to be a life-sucking vampire. Maybe this is a telekinetic mike or, like a Jojo character, it can summon Stands.

  20. =Tamar
    March 22, 2019, 4:34 pm | # | Reply

    Make friends with it? Maybe not. (In 1977 at the World Science Fiction Convention there was a spontaneous development of “Mr Microphone is your friend,” originally an attempt to get singers to stay close to the microphone. A song was written, sung once, and lost, about the microphone’s reaction.)

  21. warpzone32
    March 22, 2019, 6:01 pm | # | Reply

    Okay, this is just getting downright inefficient.

    Nick could win this thing decisively by beating up just one robot: Baron Von Mistycorn.

    • awgiedawgie
      March 22, 2019, 8:45 pm | # | Reply

      That could be why the Baron is pushing to get him back out in the arena so quickly.

    • Shadowmehr
      March 22, 2019, 9:06 pm | # | Reply

      Plus I wouldn’t put it past the Baron to install a remote to open Monstro’s crate in case somebody thought of that very thing, as well as give the “behemoth” some instructions as well.

    • Shaenon
      March 22, 2019, 11:38 pm | # | Reply

      Even if that were a legal way to win the tournament, Nick could never bring himself to harm a beloved Whimsy character. “Baron Mistycorn’s Loopy Labyrinth” is his all-time favorite Game Boy cartridge, and that kind of bond between man and corporate mascot can never be sundered.

      • OneUniverse
        March 23, 2019, 7:43 am | # | Reply

        Thank you for the insight! Not that I have ever been that attached to a corporate mascot….

      • awgiedawgie
        March 25, 2019, 1:26 am | # | Reply

        The more I think about it, though, that still shouldn’t stop him. I love my best friend, and I’d risk my life in a heartbeat if it would save his. But I also wouldn’t hesitate to beat some sense into him (or beat some nonsense out of him) if he was being a complete tool like the Baron here.

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