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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

#461

Post by tripzilch »

drostie wrote: post #349
sylvinus wrote: post #326

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a fellow Frenchman I can confirm everything bambax said! Maybe one other explanation for this incident is the amount of hidden camera documentaries airing on national TV recently. I can imagine these security agent being briefed to avoid at all costs having another Super Size Me shot at their location.

Can either of you explain why the French police does not get involved? It seems like vigilante justice would be something they'd want to stamp out.

> Can either of you explain why the French police does not get involved?

Steve Mann says it was a factor of luck: "I also contacted the Embassy, Consulate, Police, etc., without much luck".

But IMO it could also be that he didn't have a clue what he was doing. What was he expecting to accomplish with the embassy or the consulate??

You're not going to have much "luck" with an embassy unless you're being arrested or personally held at the police station.

And you're not going to have much "luck" with a consulate unless you need assistance with formal documents regarding international relations such as passports, visas or permits for international trade.

And the police. Correct me if I'm wrong but if I'd be in New York City, say in a posh area near Wall Street, and I get into a scene in a McDonalds where somebody physically assaults me. I go to the NY police and try to explain, either in French or in broken English with a very thick French accent, how much "luck" do you think I would have?

I would go to the police for one thing and one thing only, which is to file a report so I can make an insurance claim. Because that's the only person who speaks your language and gets paid for helping you and has a 24/7 worldwide hotline: your travel insurance agent! Not to mention they have a lot of experience with exactly these kinds of troubles.

Especially if it's about damage to his important medical aid, which surely the same anonymous doctor that wrote the letter that supposedly explains he requires it for medical reasons, told him he might want to consider insuring separately before travelling abroad.

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

#462

Post by tripzilch »

Kell wrote: post #442
bambax wrote: post #434

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wasn't talking about the law, but about customs; and the letter of the law doesn't mean much anyways -- what matters is how it's enforced. But according to the letter of the law you appear to be mistaken: article 222-13 of the Penal Code says the exact opposite of what you make it say. Article 222-11 says that acts of violence resulting in more than 8 days of "ITT" (incapacité totale de travail) carry a penalty of…

Yeah, I know you're speaking of customs. But customs never should be used as an excuse for illegal behavior. Its like saying, yeah there was a lot of child abuse in the seventies, but it was the custom back then (I'm not comparing child abuse complacency and over-reaction to photography, I'm making a point about the structure of your argument). And, plus, your lecture of the French customs is radically different from…

> And yes, you can come up with a lot of stories of people who had terrible experiences with them (but yeah you know what, no one who had good experiences with the police brags about it)

That is exactly the reason why I always make a point of "bragging" about having a positive experience with the police. Which has been about 2 or 3 times (fire, mugging, and a local robbery I happened to witness). Glad to have them. Even though afaik they never caught those responsible for the last two, it's how they dealt with the victims that makes it count.

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

#463

Post by tripzilch »

Kell wrote: post #425
SilasX wrote: post #405

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>They felt entitled to prevent the taking of pictures in the restaurant and felt they were being played with false official documentation. I naturally assumed that if Mann was going to offer the documentation to defend his wearing of the special glasses, to someone in France, then he would have been prepared with a notarized official French translation (heck, he's from Canada...). If he seriously tried to give Englis…

He should not have needed papers at all to convince people of anything. Wearing this kind of glasses, or bearing a photo camera, in public places, like restaurants is totally legal. And actually, official translation are horribly expensive.

You're right about not having to need them.

But as far as the translation goes, you can get forms for the country you're going to. That's how it was for Turkey, anyway. I don't know about France.

The form is multi-lingual (English/French/Turkish, in my case). The doctor fills in the forms and as long as he pays attention to the proper medical Latin words (and stamps it!) it should be fine. At least for border officials.

Still, from the lack of details in the blog post--he only refers to it as "a letter from my doctor"--whereas he painstakingly mentions every irrelevant detail in the story, I'm guessing that letter wasn't very complete, official, or even partially translated.

And while you are right that he shouldn't have needed it, trying to calm down an angry and aggressive French person by showing them a letter written in English is not very likely to improve the situation, and is indeed likely to get torn up in the process.

Which may not be right, but it's also not very smart.

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

#464

Post by tripzilch »

rmc wrote: post #327
bambax wrote: post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As I said above, you can take pictures of monuments, outdoors, and of people you know, indoors, where it makes sense (a restaurant, people at your table). But if you try to take pictures of strangers -- anywhere -- you will generate a very aggressive reaction. These rules are not written down so they're hard for strangers to understand; it's very possible for a tourist to feel photography is totally "free" in France…

The funny thing with these kinds of "rules" / customs is that you internalize them; I can't even imagine myself taking pictures in the subway... I suppose a UK/US person would never consider it apporpriate to take photos in a bathroom for example.

> I suppose a UK/US person would never consider it apporpriate to take photos in a bathroom for example.

Tell that to all the kids on Facebook ;-)

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

#465

Post by tripzilch »

hexagonc wrote: post #101
CamperBob2 wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Page is down, but doesn't Occam's Razor handle this situation adequately? He ran into a random violent asshole. It can happen anywhere at any time to anyone.

But it wasn't a random violent asshole. It was three violent assholes which doesn't seem random to me.

Actually Perp-3 wasn't violent, as far as I could tell from the story. I think he mainly called him "perpetrator" because he was close, stood around, didn't do anything and seemed to be okay with what happened.

And of the other two, Perp-1 seemed to have been the manager, while Perp-2 was a customer (judging by the shades in his hair, and the "meal" in front of him).

I'm guessing the customer felt paranoid from the camera and complained to the manager.

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

#466

Post by tripzilch »

robomartin wrote: post #396
sesqu wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree that you can't go videotaping people in semi-public areas without someone getting annoyed, and that you can't take up pitchforks after hearing only one side of a story. But beyond that, I think you're being a jerk. You criticize his 13-year-old contraption for not being as good looking as Google's last iteration of a product not yet launched. That sounds incredibly discriminatory. You claim you'd treat his ri…

A few points: Do you have to resort to personal attacks? Really? Look/feel: If you are going to use intrusive tech in public you need to make the tech non-threatening. That's basic UI design. The Google device is easy to ignore. His rig is, well, look at the pictures. I also imagine it having a bunch of wires hanging off of it going to a backpack or something. If he was blind he'd probably have a cane (well recognize…

> The fact that the embassy, police and consulate seem to have ignored him is a very interesting bit of data. I don't know what it means.

Well for the embassy and the consulate it just means they were doing their jobs despite someone trying to waste their time. They have nothing to do with situations like this. He might as well have called his senator, NASA, the TSA or his personal hairstylist or whatever.

That he "did not have much luck" with the police is very telling, however. Because, if we are to believe the story in the article, the whole scene started when this guy assaulted him out of the blue trying to rip the glasses from his face. A lot of things happen afterwards (tearing up documents, another attempt at removing his glasses, and being pushed out of the door), but if that first thing is strictly true, there's no way he would have had "no luck" at the police.

That either means Paris police are actually not doing their job and ignored him as he tried to file a report for physical assault. OR much more likely: We're only hearing half the story, many other things took place before and after the first guy suddenly jumped him, the whole scene did not, in fact take place in complete silence, words were exchanged, maybe they asked some pointed questions and mr Mann lost his temper ... I don't know it's all speculation.

And even then, that's no reason for the police to ignore a report of physical assault. "An employee of the McDonalds on Champs-Élysées assaulted me and damaged my expensive glasses" is something that no police would ignore, regardless of which side "started it".

Really, the only explanation for that is that he didn't really try and that "without much luck" refers to the fact that the Paris police does not speak English over the phone.

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

#467

Post by tripzilch »

scotty79 wrote: post #432
robomartin wrote: post #398

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where did I say that the attack was justified? I only said that it is quite possible that he is being inconsiderate and inviting friction due to his insistence in forcing his tech upon everyone around him. What we don't know is what really happened between him and the staff other than his account of it. I very seriously doubt that someone resorted to physically attacking him out of nowhere (as he seems to present it)…

> Where did I say that the attack was justified? Where did I say that you've said that the attack was justified? I just commented on your claim (if I got you properly) that him potentially being a jerk has any relevance to the judgment about what happened. > I only said that it is quite possible that he is being inconsiderate and inviting friction due to his insistence in forcing his tech upon everyone around him. He…

That story isn't remotely similar.

The woman did not in fact come out of nowhere. McDonald's wouldn't employ mentally ill people in one of the busiest and most famous streets of Paris. And your friend did in fact immediately call the Police and informed them about the assault situation--I'm not sure what Mr Mann did do, but "help me I just got assaulted" is in every "What & How in French" tourist language guide and no way that the police would ignore that. If I'm to take his story at face value he had "no luck contacting the police", which might as well mean the number was busy or something.

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

#468

Post by student12383947 »

part of the problem might also be McDonald's nazi-like controlling strategy - in our business class a McDonalds owner came in couple months ago and told a lot about his 2 McDonalds locations in New England. Basically, owners of McDonalds don't own real estate, so that if McDonald's corporation doesn't like the owner they can make the owner out and change owner through an auction. McDonald's can send undercover people to check quality of service at any time, and if they don't like something - number of checks double and warning to owner is given, so that if owner doesn't improve, the headquarters will change the owner.

McDonalds is very very dependent on its reputation, because if there are problems with one location, other locations suffer as well. So, spreading this case more would allow him to get remedy.

I believe that it is possible to sue McDonalds headquarters for such shit. One woman successfully sued McDonalds for a few millions for spilled hot coffee.

Please look for a free consultation from a good lawyer, who might want to work for a percent from the case remedy.

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

#469

Post by AsylumWarden »

Natsu wrote: post #383
chris_wot wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Parisians are famed for their rudeness. Whether that is fair I cannot judge, when I went there we didn't seem to have any problems!

Except for one rude shopkeeper, everyone I met in France was nice.

Were you in Paris? Seriously, we had no problems anywhere else we went. It was just Paris. We visited Nice, Lyons, and Toulouse on our trip and had lots more fun in those places.

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

#470

Post by blaines »

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…

Was reading wikipedia and found this article, which reminded me of this post.

The transfers were small, equivalent to about 12,000 to 24,000 Philippine pesos (500 to 1,000 US$), and would be handed over each night at a Wendy's or a karaoke bar.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Bojinka#Financing

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