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Physical assault by McDonald's for wearing Digital Eye Glass

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Re: Physical assault by McDonald's for wearing Digital Eye Glass

#41

Post by ktizo »

heyrhett wrote: post #29
reso wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think he's well within reason. If you were assaulted by a cashier at McDonald's, would you just ignore it and continue on? I'm pretty sure I would try and get the perpetrators fired and possibly charged, and have the company pay for any damages to my property.

I agree, he is well within reason to get a lawyer and sue the pants off of McDonald's in civil court if his case is accurate as he describes it. He's not asking for that though. What he basically wants is a public apology and for McDonald's to FIX his glasses. This is laughable. Notice how all aspects of this story point to how awesome his glasses are: "they help with a medical condition", "having them fixed is more…

You are completely misreading him, as far as I can tell.

He says:

I'm not seeking to be awarded money. I just want my Glass fixed, and it would also be nice if McDonald's would see fit to support vision research.

Which means in any sane interpretation to be that he wants McDonalds to pay for whatever it costs to repair or replace his property, but he is not seeking punitive damages for the assault, he just wants his glasses fixed. And he thinks it would be nice if McDonalds made a gesture of donating something to vision research, to show they are actually sorry.

Re: Physical assault by McDonald's for wearing Digital Eye Glass

#42

Post by user49598 »

heyrhett wrote: post #11

I find it really hard to believe that Steve Mann would have some kind of medical condition that would lead a normal Dr. to prescribe that Steve Mann wears the computer vision glasses that Steve Mann invented. I'm sorry he was harassed, but this story really smells of one of the oldest ways to gain media attention on the internet: Step 1: Get screwed by a big company (this is the easy part) Step 2: Write a blog articl…

If you developed a solution to your own medical problem, why wouldn't you get a prescription for it? The prescription gives you the right to use it.

It's a bare website (not a blog post) with nothing but a story and some contact information. If you know of a way to make this not "smell of one of the oldest ways..." do let us know.

Obviously we need to keep that in mind, but you're talking about the difference between one man's photographically documented account of an event and a theoretical response form a multi-national fast food chain's Public Relations team.

He is coming to the internet because he can't get his case handled in the way he wants to.

Obviously they aren't qualified to fix his glasses and that was a cheeky way of saying he wants them to pay for it.

All in all, he is a respectable human, who has compelling evidence of assault, who has not gotten the justice he thinks he deserves. Would you like him to give up?

Re: Physical assault by McDonald's for wearing Digital Eye Glass

#43

Post by polyfractal »

heyrhett wrote: post #29
reso wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think he's well within reason. If you were assaulted by a cashier at McDonald's, would you just ignore it and continue on? I'm pretty sure I would try and get the perpetrators fired and possibly charged, and have the company pay for any damages to my property.

I agree, he is well within reason to get a lawyer and sue the pants off of McDonald's in civil court if his case is accurate as he describes it. He's not asking for that though. What he basically wants is a public apology and for McDonald's to FIX his glasses. This is laughable. Notice how all aspects of this story point to how awesome his glasses are: "they help with a medical condition", "having them fixed is more…

Agreed. This should be handled by lawyers and law enforcement. Not by panhandling to the internet about how awesome your technology is.

For the record, I totally love his research. When Google Glass debuted I said aloud "Wow! It's Steve Mann's EyeTap!".

Re: Physical assault by McDonald's for wearing Digital Eye Glass

#44

Post by AlexMuir »

pg wrote: post #26

No one at an ordinary McDonald's would even notice such a device. Ergo this was not an ordinary McDonald's, but one with security people looking for cameras. Why would a McDonald's have security people looking for cameras? Possibly because it was a mafia front. If you wanted to launder money, a fast food restaurant in a popular location would be a good place to do it. The way the employees behaved is consistent with…

Without further information I find this very hard to believe.

Laundering money through a fast food restaurant with a supply chain outside your control is a terrible idea. Franchises are required to purchase food centrally.

Q How much cash are you banking this week?

A 1,000,000 EUR

Q So you have sold 500,000 Big Macs.

A Yes

Q Can I see your invoices for 500,000 buns please?

The profit margin is not high enough for it to be worth ordering extra stock and throwing it out. The business would effectively be paying about 70% tax. That's not digestable, even to launder cash.

More plausible reasons: Running a McDonalds franchise and significantly and systematically under-reporting revenue using unauthorised suppliers. But to involve low-level staff would seem unlikely.

This isn't exactly covert surveillance. Some bored member of staff just didn't like the look of this American weirdo with a video camera for an eye, a piece of paper that he waves around and an attitude that he is entitled to buffer everything he sees anywhere in the world and then publicly blame an entire multinational for a minor, local incident. (Not my perception, but I think it likely that it was theirs.)

Re: Physical assault by McDonald's for wearing Digital Eye Glass

#46

Post by user49598 »

citricsquid wrote: post #36
pg wrote: post #26

No one at an ordinary McDonald's would even notice such a device. Ergo this was not an ordinary McDonald's, but one with security people looking for cameras. Why would a McDonald's have security people looking for cameras? Possibly because it was a mafia front. If you wanted to launder money, a fast food restaurant in a popular location would be a good place to do it. The way the employees behaved is consistent with…

I've looked into how McDonalds franchises work before and have learned about money laundering from Breaking Bad: how would using a franchise make sense? McDonalds (and most other franchise businesses) run very tight ships with stock (and marketing): if a business sells 100 burgers McDonalds is going to know, it seems that if suspicions were ever aroused with this McDonalds all the IRS (or whatever the french tax auth…

and have learned about money laundering from Breaking Bad...

...

Re: Physical assault by McDonald's for wearing Digital Eye Glass

#47

Post by [deleted] »

AlexMuir wrote: post #44
pg wrote: post #26

No one at an ordinary McDonald's would even notice such a device. Ergo this was not an ordinary McDonald's, but one with security people looking for cameras. Why would a McDonald's have security people looking for cameras? Possibly because it was a mafia front. If you wanted to launder money, a fast food restaurant in a popular location would be a good place to do it. The way the employees behaved is consistent with…

Without further information I find this very hard to believe. Laundering money through a fast food restaurant with a supply chain outside your control is a terrible idea. Franchises are required to purchase food centrally. Q How much cash are you banking this week? A 1,000,000 EUR Q So you have sold 500,000 Big Macs. A Yes Q Can I see your invoices for 500,000 buns please? The profit margin is not high enough for it…

[deleted]

Re: Physical assault by McDonald's for wearing Digital Eye Glass

#48

Post by gcb »

AlexMuir wrote: post #44
pg wrote: post #26

No one at an ordinary McDonald's would even notice such a device. Ergo this was not an ordinary McDonald's, but one with security people looking for cameras. Why would a McDonald's have security people looking for cameras? Possibly because it was a mafia front. If you wanted to launder money, a fast food restaurant in a popular location would be a good place to do it. The way the employees behaved is consistent with…

Without further information I find this very hard to believe. Laundering money through a fast food restaurant with a supply chain outside your control is a terrible idea. Franchises are required to purchase food centrally. Q How much cash are you banking this week? A 1,000,000 EUR Q So you have sold 500,000 Big Macs. A Yes Q Can I see your invoices for 500,000 buns please? The profit margin is not high enough for it…

unless they sell it all in soda. it's the highest profit margin you can find at such places.

but yeah, i don't think this is the best explanation. But now i can't stop picturing Ronald macdonald sitting at some backroom like vitor corleone.

Re: Physical assault by McDonald's for wearing Digital Eye Glass

#49

Post by simonster »

pg wrote: post #26

No one at an ordinary McDonald's would even notice such a device. Ergo this was not an ordinary McDonald's, but one with security people looking for cameras. Why would a McDonald's have security people looking for cameras? Possibly because it was a mafia front. If you wanted to launder money, a fast food restaurant in a popular location would be a good place to do it. The way the employees behaved is consistent with…

It's not an ordinary McDonald's; it's the McDonald's in Paris next to the Arc de Triomphe. Given its location next to one of Paris's largest tourist attractions, it probably serves a much larger number of customers per day than most other McDonald's locations, and it's a potential target for anti-American sentiment. These could both be reasons for enhanced security, although I'm not sure why they'd mind cameras. (OTOH, I'm also not sure why they'd mind cameras if it were a mafia front, since presumably all of the illegal things happen behind closed doors.)

Re: Physical assault by McDonald's for wearing Digital Eye Glass

#50

Post by chao- »

richardv wrote: post #35
pg wrote: post #26

No one at an ordinary McDonald's would even notice such a device. Ergo this was not an ordinary McDonald's, but one with security people looking for cameras. Why would a McDonald's have security people looking for cameras? Possibly because it was a mafia front. If you wanted to launder money, a fast food restaurant in a popular location would be a good place to do it. The way the employees behaved is consistent with…

Are you enacting Poe's law? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poes_law I seriously cannot tell, and you didn't wink at the end? Since McDonald's are easily franchise-able, I suppose they could legitimately be used as a Mafia Front... But really, Poe's Law? wink ;)

This is what came to my mind as well. I can't decide whether or not the comment is supposed to be serious.

On one hand, I can't think of many above-board reasons that a restaurant employee would tackle you for having a tiny camera, or rip up medical documentation. On the other hand, the jump straight to a mafia seems a leap too far. Yet if we are going to speculate, I don't see a criminal explanation as significantly more plausible than others.

To demonstrate one of my own: Perhaps they'd recently had a bad rating/inspection from the French/Parisian health department (replace with proper name), and were really worried about some undercover story by local news stations. A bit extreme to use physical intimidation, but perhaps the manager is on the verge of losing the place?

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