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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

#61

Post by gcb »

TazeTSchnitzel wrote: post #37
alex_c wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The doctor's note is presumably to explain that the glasses cannot be removed easily and are actually implanted in him. A few years back he had airport security physically pull out wires out of him. http://www.nytimes.com/2002/03/14/technology/circuits/14MANN... (apparently "a few years back" is 10 years ago. Yikes.) Edit: a link to an old (1997) article about his glasses: http://www.wearcam.org/ieeecomputer/r2025.ht…

Wow, that's dreadful. Having security guards rip electrodes off someone's skull making them bleed is no way to treat somebody.

you say that until some terrorist screw a bomb to his head and kill YOUR CHILDREN!!!!1!!

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

#62

Post by kghose »

A few people have voiced concern that this is a made up story. I have to admit that I belong to that bunch.

I would imagine that if a store had a concern that this was an ... odd individual, carrying a video recording device, recording customers, employees and the store itself, I would send out security to escort the person out. But I would do so with a great trepidation, because of lawsuits.

There MUST be something missing in this story. It would take great recklessness and lack of ethics to completely fabricate the story, but it is possible.

More likely is that there were some leading events that we have not been told about.

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

#63

Post by pessimizer »

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…

There's a lot of money-laundering fast food franchises. I remember a KFC in Baltimore where the skeleton crew that manned it were barely familiar with the menu, and maintained a largely empty parking lot at all times in what I would imagine to be prime chicken-flogging real estate (it was my neighborhood.)

They got a bit of unwanted attention a few years after I moved away when a junkie died in the single-occupancy bathroom and nobody noticed for three days.

edit: found it - http://articles.baltimoresun.com/2000-12-19/news/0012190192_...

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

#65

Post by ktizo »

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…

Attacking people with cameras in a McDonalds, at a popular tourist trap, is not how any mafia front would behave if they wanted to last more than a week.

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

#66

Post by SilasX »

chao- wrote: post #50
richardv wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Most sensible explanation so far. It accounts for why they would be worried about hidden, automatic cameras much more than the ones regular tourists have, where you can see when they're taking a picture or getting a good video angle. Also, most tourists don't take pictures of what's going on behind the counter, so you can catch someone trying to overtly do that, but a hidden camera would make that harder to spot, leading management to be more paranoid about built-in cameras.

On top of that, "concern about the health department" has a much higher prior probability than "mafia collusion with major fast food chain".

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

#67

Post by pessimizer »

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…

>The profit margin is not high enough for it to be worth ordering extra stock and throwing it out.

You wouldn't have to throw it out. Sell it on to other businesses.

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

#68

Post by hristov »

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 is possible. There are many reasons people may have been nervous around cameras. They may have been doing a number of illegal or semi-illegal things, like dealing drugs, embezzling something or other, or even cheating on time-sheets.

And none of the above are that hard to believe. Drug deals especially happen all over the place and all the time.

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

#69

Post by ChuckMcM »

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…

What I don't understand why clearly things have been manually blacked out (or whited out in this case). Why not show their face?

I agree this story smells in a dozen different ways. Rather than the mafia I'm wondering if Steve Mann is perhaps seeking to establish some documentation in order to assert IP rights against a very wealthy company which has made very public announcements about glasses that augment your vision and take pictures of what you see.

For that reason I think we'll see more on this story.

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

#70

Post by akoumjian »

kghose wrote: post #62

A few people have voiced concern that this is a made up story. I have to admit that I belong to that bunch. I would imagine that if a store had a concern that this was an ... odd individual, carrying a video recording device, recording customers, employees and the store itself, I would send out security to escort the person out. But I would do so with a great trepidation, because of lawsuits. There MUST be something…

The biggest red flag for me is how he is suddenly assaulted without any warning or prior dialogue taking place. That doesn't mean that any assault was justified, but it means we are not being told something.
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