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Man Physically Assaulted At McDonald's For Wearing Digital Eye Glasses
RockoW writes "Steve Mann, a long-time researcher of computer vision systems, (i.e. Augmented reality, Digital Eyeglass) had an incident at a McDonald's in Paris, France. He was assaulted by three men during his visit to get food with his family. They had a problem with his digital eye glasses and tried to take them off his head. 'The eyeglass is permanently attached and does not come off my skull without special tools.' The men also tore up Mann's documentation and a letter from his doctor explaining the device's use. Fortunately, the rough treatment of the device caused it to keep recent images in its memory, instead of quickly overwriting them, so Dr. Mann has pictures of the men who assaulted him."
but just doesn't understand why they won't leave him alone
Subject says it all
the story sounds possibly untrue and slanderous, and the only source that everyone is retweeting is the same one linked here, from a blog on blogspot that has only one post which was recently created.
It's important to clarify (as I had to RTFA to realise this), that he claims he was assaulted by 3 employees of McDonalds
This wasn't a random assault by other customers at some shady McDonalds at 3AM, nor was it an assault by a typical skinhead -- from the photos the alleged perpetrators were McDonalds Management.
He's not the first person to claim McDonalds staff in France assault their customers.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
... and kudos for this guy trying to push technology (use) forward.
But bolting the thing to your head?? Seriously?? WTF?
That "recent images" in its memory explanation is bullshit. Just think about the logic in it. If it was built to record, why would it have storage for a few seconds but nothing longer? And why would it have code added to sense that it is broken and stop recording? Most likely the device stored everything just like a video camera. The men were bothered because they rightly thought that he was recording the place. Not that that is reason for anyone to get assaulted though.
Man travels to France. Chooses to eat at McDonald's. Seriously. Then COMPLAINS he gets beaten up!
Yeah, to hell with these so called "handicapped" people and their supposed "prostetics". Kick 'em in the nuts I say!
Two quotes:
"... in order to give our children the opportunity to learn true Parisian French..."
"...my wife and children and I went to McDonalds..."
he had it coming :/
"Upon ordering, McDonaldâ(TM)s employees at 140, Avenue Champs Elysees, Paris accosted Mann and tried to tear the glasses out of his head"
It does not sound like a random attack but employee action. Which brings me to think there was a prior history we were not told, for example he telling them it is a camera, them asking him to remove it, and not believing him when he refuses to switch it off or remove it. It does not excuse employee behavior if they assaulted him really, or manhandled him, but OTOH he cannot film random passerby or customer in a premise at will. And I am willing to bet that it was the bone the employee had. OTOH it could be simply dumb people doing dumb things, but I am always very very warry when somebody tell employee attacked them without reason. Random thug attack without reason. Employee not so much. (again i am not saying those reason were not valid, but that we hear only one side here).
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
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visit randi.org
This story is borderline plausible.
I can believe that some Parisians would vigorously defend against photos being take of the interior design/menu.
I can also believe that someone would wear augmented reality glasses. Furthermore, I can understand that (a) McDonalds employee(s) would automatically react strongly to the camera and try to remove them from someone's head.
However, what I don't understand is why the subject of the story just didn't leave McDonalds. Honestly, you're in a city full of excellent, and sometimes inexpensive, cuisine.
Why even go to McDonalds in the first place and why not leave when there's an altercation? Is the 20€ of McDs food worth the hassle?
Definetly not! Perp 1 might be an arab, but 2 and 3 are not. Beside your assumption on skin is wrong, because while north african arabs are dark skinned, middle eastern ( Palastenian, lebanese and Syrian ) arabs vary from dark skin to extreemly white skin. You'd be surprised by some of my blue eyed blonde hair arab friends!
carry fake notes should not be assasulted. At most they should be asked to leave the premises or detained while police are called if a crime is suspected.
Don't get confused, I am not being racist
Yes you are.
they are not foreigners as they are all born in France. The European low class immigrants are on the second or third generation already.
This is how it starts. The first blows in the war between Augmented Humans and the Naturals.
Keep humanity free from machines!
Be pure, be vigilant, behave!
He tried to order a Quarter Pounder with cheese and refused to call it a Royale with cheese.
Clearly it was his own fault...
That's a bit rough, mate! You obviously don't have kids, do you? "Mummmm, Daaaddddd, Can we have Maccas???? PPLLEEEAASSEE?????"
Besides, My folks used to take me to Micky D's all the time...and 15 years later I speak 3 languages. Not to blow my own horn but I turned out alright (and I'm not even overweight!....yet)
Why is facebook blocking this link for being spammy? Seems really weird seeing all the other junk that is postable there.
Arabs or blacks? They are always them in Paris in this kind of incident.
Don't get confused, I am not being racist, and I don't mean all the arabs or blacks do these things, what I mean is that the 95% of people who do that in Paris (in Paris, I don't mean other cities or countries, which I don't know), are arabs or blacks.
When I was there I saw lots and lots of incidents like that.
They are almost certainly Muslims, and naturally assume that the guy with glasses is from the security services and interested in their terrorist plots. Hopefully the real security services are monitoring them undetected.
So, it seems that not only does McDonalds in Paris have some strange issues with cameras, but judging from these comments, a surprising number of French people are racist.
This is an experimental device designed by and available to a single MIT researcher. The purported opinion of one medical professional carries little weight - assuming this opinion is even relevant, for it could have simply been "this device may help him see some stuff slightly better". Hell, I have RSI and an assistance monkey would help me carry stuff around, but I don't expect establishments around the world to admit an assistance monkey just because I can afford one.
In particular, the device has the ability to take pictures in a way which may be contrary to French law, something the OP took delight in (accidentally?) admitting on his web page.
However, what I don't understand is why the subject of the story just didn't leave McDonalds. Honestly, you're in a city full of excellent, and sometimes inexpensive, cuisine. Why even go to McDonalds in the first place
Well from the summary:
He was assaulted by three men during his visit to get food with his family.
Maybe his kids saw it and they wanted American food and it was too late and he was too tired to resist them? Just because someone has different food tastes than you doesn't make their story implausible. "So I was stopping at a Swedish place to get some lutefisk ..." who fucking cares where it was or what he was eating? Also, sometimes chain restaurants are much better in foreign countries. Try the Pizza Hut on Grand Cayman sometime, they are crazy amazing (I think because the food has to all be grown locally).
and why not leave when there's an altercation? Is the 20€ of McDs food worth the hassle?
I know, it's weird, it's almost like he thought he had a right to be there or something. Crazy fucking Canadians and their "rights."
"Hey dad how come you gave those men money and then they showed some muscle so we left without eating? Now I'm hungry and you kinda look like a pussy."
The conclusion from the reddit thread on this incident was that the attackers were McDonalds employees, and were reacting against community oposition to a McDonalds in that location. Apparently there are issues with local people using cameras to collect evidence and the McDonalds have a hair trigger response to that activity.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
Actually the fucking French can be quite fun, in particular the females. It's the non-fucking French that you want to stay away from.
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Undoubtedly brilliant but damn what a weirdo !! The whole tone of the blog is just weird ...
The strangest thing out of the whole story (to me at least) was that he is married and has kids !!!
I am not French, but I have lived there for 2 years. And if you lived there you would know what I mean.
For example, I have lived in London for 1 year, and there the problem are not arabs or blacks, the violent and problematic people are skinheads and chavs. Just to prove you that I am not racist. But there in America you think that saying that is racist, but it is not, as it is nothing related to the color of the sking but the culture I guess.
I have read somewhere that McDonald's is NOT a corporate entity. It is instead a trade mark and business model that can be licensed by anybody willing to become local McDonald's. If so, it's futile to look for McDonald's representative a.s.o. - they have no relation with this specific McDonald's except collecting the license fees. The local police is the only place to ask for help.
He is the guy who INVENTED wearable computing and all the technology behind Project Glass.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Not wanting to admit you is a bit different from assaulting you (assuming the story is true).
Hey AC ... you need to know what battle is worth fighting and this isn't one of them. Asserting your right to dine somewhere, when you have pretty damn unique glasses that look like a camera to most people (especially McDonalds employeed, which aren't so tech savvy) is "losing the forest for the trees."
I also have a very hard time believing that Pizza Hut on Grand Cayman is better than a real Pizzeria using the same locally grown stuff, but whatever makes you justify the fast-food experience is OK with me (not really)
If you're talking about Mohammed Merah, you dumb fuck, he was 'was shot in the head by a police sniper' (Wikipedia link). The RAID (equivalent of SWAT) assaulted him and neutralized him. How is that for 'dare not touch' ?
While it is true that there are suburban areas in France where cops cannot do much, because they are outnumbered (and outgunned !) by the residents -- but like every major city in the world, tell me it's different in New York or Miami -- the french police never, ever let a killer on the loose, especially when he kills kids.
Wow. Useful information. I was quite curious as to what the motivation might have been behind the behavior and I was less concerned about "who" or what "types" of who did the assault and property damage.
And now I see what was behind it. These guys were ALL seemingly of middle-eastern origins but that's NOT the issue. I think the more important issue was that they were defending something. I find it quite likely that these men had some stake in the success of their business and felt they were defending it in some way. Ethnicity or origins are not quite relevant to the story unless you are interested in painting a picture suggesting that "X people are violent" which is true... X people are violent... hell *I* am violent... or I have been until I learned to chill a bit more. The issue is what motivates violence.
And the motivation becomes more clear. They saw this guy as an assault on their unofficial camera ban and wanted the camera removed. Let's not go into the stpudity of trying to conceal truth as revealed by photons bouncing off of objects.
My vision is augmented.
If someone physically is present in Paris and still goes to McDonalds to get his meal, then he deservers to be assaulted :)
So he provided this information, sat down, and then, out of the blue:
Subsequently another person within McDonalds physically assaulted me,
This report sounds like bad fiction from someone with a gigantic ego and an armchair law degree:
Is McDonald's France trolling /.?
.... a McDonalds employee, and he asked about my eyeglass (digital computer vision system, i.e. EyeTap). ..... I had brought with me the letter from my doctor regarding my computer vision eyeglass, ... I showed this doctor's letter and the documentation to the purported McDonalds employee ....After reviewing the documentation, the purported McDonalds employee accepted me (and my family) as a customer, and left us to place our order. In what follows, I will refer to this person as "Possible Witness 1". "
Seriously I can't believe the number of AC commenters saying the most ridiculous statements on here.
If you took a minute to RTFA you would see he was stopped by employees early on, but they accepted the documentation he had:
"while we were standing in line at McDonalds, I was stopped by
I will say his writing sucks. It's written more like a police report than the blog that it is. He should really rewrite it.
And he should just show pictures of their faces, how are we suppose to identify them without faces?
my karma will be here long after I'm gone
This is an experimental device designed by and available to a single MIT researcher. The purported opinion of one medical professional carries little weight - assuming this opinion is even relevant, for it could have simply been "this device may help him see some stuff slightly better". Hell, I have RSI and an assistance monkey would help me carry stuff around, but I don't expect establishments around the world to admit an assistance monkey just because I can afford one.
In particular, the device has the ability to take pictures in a way which may be contrary to French law, something the OP took delight in (accidentally?) admitting on his web page.
What? You could have your own personal monkey butler? And you don't already have one?
The hell is wrong with you?
Admit nothing. Deny Everything. Make Counter-accusations.
I was wondering about that too. Cutting a long story short, someone has been assaulted. As far as I know, assaulting someone is not the standard greeting you ought to expect, especially not on company premises - I find that a rather worrying thing to happen, and in the unlikely event I find myself in the need of junk food it would make me wonder about visiting McDonalds.
On the other hand, we only have one side of the story - it appears they are rather sensitive to anything that looks like a camera, but where would that stop? Ordinary glasses? Hearing aids? Walking sticks OK?
The police not being interested is sadly not a new problem..
Insert
Clearly anyone eating a single meal ever at McDonalds is an unfit parent and gastronomical philistine.
It's not even possible that they just wanted some quick, familiar food on their way home after a full day experiencing whatever you think qualifies as "real" Paris.
Actually, it's not legal to videotape/shoot photos inside of a McDonalds and the employees overreacted to this ... that's my point ... and you missed it ... completely.
Funny that you seem to think of Miami as a major city, but that is not the only part of your statement I disagree with. It is NOT normal in major cities in the developed world to have areas where the police doesn't dare to go. If this happens in peace time, it is a serious breakdown in society. The fact that you seem to have come to think of it as normal is very troubling indeed.
If it is true that Arabs or blacks are responsible for most of the violence in Paris (I do not know if it is true) than it is a fact. If it is a fact, it is not a racism to mention it.
Racist would hate all Arabs or black.
Racist would never approve his child marrying an Arab or black.
But free man can talk about facts without being racist.
Personally, I like Arabs and their culture and as far as I know, they have nothing to do with the incident.
What kind of bullshit moderation is this? +1 Informative? And it's not just this comment. Throughout the comments on this story, I see ignorance, racism, and bullshit not only posted but modded up.
I guess I'll be meta-moderating more often.
Ok.
In this list of US urban areas, Miami comes as 4th. Not major enough ?
Please read again my statement. Where did I say it was normal ? I just wanted to express my opinion to the OP that it was not a France-related problem, but was, alas !, a global problem, not uncommon.
The fact that you seem to make bold claims without taking care to read the others' posts is troubling too.
And remember, one thing about the French is that they eat an awful lot of French food.. all the time.
Never email donotemail@WeAreSpammers.com
There is definitely a huge race problem in France, largely perpetuated by the minorities themselves, but this was McDonalds employees assaulting him. They should all do jail time and McDonalds should be forced to pay him a large settlement.
In principle, the French speak with people they don't know on the street because the French are a moderately sociable people. Anglophones are actually pathologically anti-social.
There is however an Arabic street culture that goes way beyond simply being sociable and quickly become harassment, usually harassment of women. France has this problem worse than most European countries because they took Arabic immigrants in large groups and confined them in ghettos.
You'll witness a tiny amount of harassment in Turkey or maybe Greece, namely the cabs obnoxiously honk at you, scary but no big deal. In Morocco, I've been followed for hours by a scary guy asking to be our guid.
In France, these Arab guys mostly just harass women on the street. You'll never even notice them if you're male and don't leave a bar with a woman. I've occasionally witnessed French Arabs trying to pick fights with non-Arab men, but overall they're probably less violent that Brits or Americans from Boston. Bostonians and Brits are by far the most violent men I've seen anyplace.
The Christian religion has been and still is the principal enemy of moral progress in the world. -- Bertrand Russell
The correct way to phrase a racist statement like this is as follows.
"I am not a racist, but..."
Please read again my statement. Where did I say it was normal ? I just wanted to express my opinion to the OP that it was not a France-related problem, but was, alas !, a global problem, not uncommon.
A global problem if you wish to compare your capital with the likes of Bogota, Lagos or Port-au-prince, perhaps, but do you think this could happen in Spain, Germany, Switzerland, Luxemburg, Belgium or the UK to name some countries in the same region? Think about.
Behold! Chrisq feels the need to tell everyone just how much of a racist fuck he is. You are the problem, not the Muslims.
Behold dave420 feels the need to show everyone what an idiot he is. I have not mentioned race at all. You don't even know what race I am. White Muslims are Just as Capable and likely to be terrorists as brown ones, and there are plenty of brown victims, the peaceful Coptic Christians for example
Absolutely! All restaurants are private premises, and the owners/operators *always* reserve the right to ask *any* customer to leave for a variety of reasons. Nobody has a *right* to be served in any restaurant, likely anywhere in the world I'd say.
Probably, it would be enough if the employees felt that he was causing a disturbance to the other customers, or was about to do so.
Have you ever been to France? They basically confined their Arabic minorities in ghettos for a generation, which prevented those minorities from acquiring French culture and turned their native north african street-harasment-of-women culture into something really nasty. It's still less nasty than Boston or England's bar fight culture, but it's still nasty.
I know about 10 people non-French who say they became racist by living in France. I've repeatedly explained that it really isn't race, but that does nothing once you've lived with rampant street harassment for six months.
In fact, the French themselves largely understand this isn't a racial issue, but an accident of history. That's why they pass laws like banning headscarfs in schools to try to force the immigrants they kept apart for a generation to integrate now.
The Christian religion has been and still is the principal enemy of moral progress in the world. -- Bertrand Russell
Où sont mes points de modération quand j'en ai besoin ?
There is actually a traditional french solution to this problem : Burn down McDonalds.
I'm disappointed that no McDonalds were burned while I lived in Paris. Where is their sense of patriotism?
The Christian religion has been and still is the principal enemy of moral progress in the world. -- Bertrand Russell
So you use a British Comedy to illustrate the fact that French are racists?
You may not be racist, but you are stupid for sure.
Write boring code, not shiny code!
Burkha ban. Look it up.
Burkha ban is a proof that the banners are racists? Since when?
Write boring code, not shiny code!
The dark side of Europe's suburbs.
In under one minute of Google search. Please.
It is not necessary to know the backgrounds or the ethnicity, it would be nice to know the addresses though, in case one needed a victim when abroad.
*Repent!Quit Your Job!Slack Off!The World Ends Tomorrow and You May Die!
Here's another link, with a picture of the perps. The comments suggest "The French hate paparazzi" as well. http://techcrunch.com/2012/07/16/augmented-reality-explorer-steve-mann-assaulted-at-parisian-mcdonalds/
Whoa, whoa, wait, it's become a crime to look like a dork and is grounds to be beat up at leisure by anyone who wants to? So all the schoolyard bullies we met during our time were right?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
So you use a British Comedy to illustrate the fact that French are racists?
You may not be racist, but you are stupid for sure.
No, (s)he pointed out that many people had the same experience as portrayed in the comedy.
Pay attention, Bond!
Note to ACs: I won't mod you up, even if you are being funny or insightful. So take a chance! It's not real life!
There is a solution that didn't quite make it out of beta, but seems to be the answer.
Let's give France back to Germany and apologize for the Normandy Beach misunderstanding.
"Où sont mes points de modération quand j'en ai besoin ?"
J'ai pensé exactement la même chose. Ils sont fous, ces Ricains. Dans 5 minutes ils vont dire que les garçons à Paris ne sont pas le comble de la politesse.
The fact that he blanked out their faces shows photography is a different matter legally than in the U.S. Hard to believe they are allowed to rip something off your head or even out of your hands though.
Would this be true in Greensboro, North Carolina? No idea what the French law is, but "anywhere in the world" includes lots of places.
They basically confined their Arabic minorities in ghettos for a generation
As always, it's a heck of a lot more complex than that. No, we haven't confined our Arabic immigrants in ghettos. Yes, there are ghettos. No, they weren't designed to be ghettos. No, newly arrived immigrants DON'T want to live anywhere else than in those ghettos.
I can too make uninformed and misleading catchy sentences. Look: Meanwhile, while we accept those immigrants in our land, they lapidate and kill christians all over northern Africa.
See? Sounds good, is punchy, makes an impression, and is utterly stupid. Just like your statements.
Write boring code, not shiny code!
Yes, race is irrelevant here. These were McDonalds employees trying to protect their McDonalds from journalists. They should be put in prison, their McDonalds should be closed, and McDonalds should pay the guy a lot of money.
It's true the Arabic neighborhoods are considered the most dangerous in Paris, but they aren't nearly as dangerous as an American or British city though.
France has a reputation for "turning foreigners racist" because many North African / Arabic French harass women on the street rather nastily.
This is really really obnoxious if you're either female or go out with women, but I've never seen a fight or stabbing in France. I feel more safe in a French ghetto than outside a bar in England or Boston.
The Christian religion has been and still is the principal enemy of moral progress in the world. -- Bertrand Russell
Unfortunately, the answer is yes.
This sig under construction. Please check back later.
That's pretty much what I wonder here, too. I'd be delighted to hear the other side of the story.
Don't get me wrong, I have been following Steve Mann for a while and we dream the same dream (with the main difference that he can actually pull it off while I lack the money and time), but somehow this story doesn't add up. People are irrational, yes, and they are often lunatics, yes, but we're not talking random hooligans here who could at worst face an assault charge (which the average hooligan responds to with "pick a number and get in line"), we're talking about employees at the restaurant he's been to which would most certainly lead to instant firing if there was exactly zero reason for their behavior. On top of assault charges which would nearly as certainly lead to them being pretty much unemployable in a similar environment.
What was Step 4?
I somehow think that there is some parts missing in this story, and I'd love to hear a statement from McD what's their side.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Assault is never good, but I can imagine the reaction, it will become a bigger problem, as people wearing 'camera's like and recording is an invasion of privacy.
No, (s)he pointed out that many people had the same experience as portrayed in the comedy.
Pay attention, Bond!
So the comedy was an illustration or not? You say I got it wrong, but the bottom line is that you agree with me...
I never said he used the Comedy to deduce of imply anything, just as an illustration.
Write boring code, not shiny code!
That area in Munich is only unsafe if you're afraid of Turks, it's not the kind of anarchy you describe. Are you claiming that these are areas where in your words "cops cannot do much, because they are outnumbered (and outgunned !) by the residents" ?
Wait and see they'll be endless screeds and hate speech about 'people using those damn things everywhere'. They'll be new laws preventing people from wearing them while driving. People getting banned from restaurants and movie theaters and endless endless articles about how Mother Government must crush them all under her boot heel forever.
These guys were ALL seemingly of middle-eastern origins but that's NOT the issue.
If they were Arabs, the most likely origin is Morocco, Tunisia and specially Algeria. These countries are in the Middle East just as much as France is.
Otherwise you're right, that's REALLY NOT the issue.
For the record, 'French' is not a race...
If the only way you can accept an assertion is by faith, then you are conceding that it can't be taken on its own merits
Take a look at the perpetrator #1. He is not some run of the mill McD dude, he is Gustavo Fring! No wonder our nerd glasses dude got little bit roughed there.
France is AWESOME. Unless you have to deal with the French.
If the only way you can accept an assertion is by faith, then you are conceding that it can't be taken on its own merits
I tried to post a link to the article on Facebook, but it refused, claiming it had been flagged as abusive, Wtf!
They also used to be banned in Turkey. I guess that makes them racist too.
Where did I say that he deserved to be assaulted? I questioned his decision making process, which is my prerogative as the person involved in the incident presented only one side/story/perspective to the public.
Have you ever considered brushing up on your reading comprehension skillset?
Since he got assault, he needed pepper (spray) as well.
WARNING: Smartphones have side effects--most of them undocumented.
All the comments seem to be focusing on whether this is even real. Am I the only one that expected this? When I read the first slashdot article talking about google glasses, that was my reaction. How could I circumvent all these wienies with cameras on their heads?! I see these types of troubles increasing as more people take these things out in public. I swear to never interact with anyone wearing those. If I have customers that walk into my store wearing those, they will be asked to leave immediately or the police will be called!
" They basically confined their Arabic minorities in ghettos for a generation, which prevented those minorities from acquiring French culture"
Bull shit.
They confine THEMSELVES! It is exactly the same here in Germany. The Muslim popular stays in their own areas. They choose not to integrate. The parents forbid their children from pursuing relations with non Muslims.
You cannot blame the local population when immigrants refuse to integrate. We all know how understand Americans are about this sort of thing. They love it when Mexicans speak spanish to them. They would never say something like, "learn English you Mexican".
man who was satisfied and went away was not one of the perpetrators
i spent five minutes thinking and all i got was this crappy sig
It wasn't so much that they were confined physically, as confined financially. To live in a good part of Paris you need at least a college or university education. Even then, you wouldn't be able to afford to buy an apartment, as everyone rents. The Arabic minorities didn't even get a college education, so that keeps them off the private property market. The only solution was to build apartment block housing in the suburbs of Paris. The other half of the problem is that you need contacts to get a good job. That's the second block. Some go to college and find they can't get an apprenticeship afterwards.
Ok, how about this one :
World's five most dangerous cities. In the top five, four are, in your words, 'the likes of Bogota', which I understand would be from emerging countries, and, guess what ? New Orleans. Are the USA an emerging country ?
Based on the pictures kindly provided in TFA, they were all boring-looking caucasians in generic 'knowledge worker' garb(complete with outward-facing photo-ID badge on belt in the case of the mental giant who decided to assault the guy with the camera attached to his head while wearing photo ID...)
While I recognize the (statistically, perhaps, er, 'tentitatively validated') American reflex to assume that 'assaulted' and 'mcdonalds' in the same sentence signals a wacky story about the violence of the degenerate classes, it appears that the French golden arches crowd is slightly different...
It's not the end of the world, but you can see it from here.
Only if you've augmented your vision
Well, obviously there's no law forcing them into ghettos - even France couldn't get away with quite such a blatent violation of US law. I have an odd feeling there are other, less codified ways in which they're excluded - probably home owners in white communities refusing to sell to Arabs, agents dissuading them from considering those houses and redirecting them to ones in the ghetto, that sort of thing.
Up or down, though, is a different matter. Because as far as I'm aware the French who don't baiser are either underage or incapable. The first sentence might be seen as insightful, but the second is a gross libel on most French people over 90.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
assaulted by 3 employees of McDonalds
This story would be definitely more interesting if the man assaulted 3 McDonald's employees with his Digital Eye Glasses.
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
1) He thinks that "a letter from my doctor" is some sort of do-anything-you-want card in private establishments across the world.
no he doesn't. where does he say that anywhere.
i would hope a letter from my doctor might help some crazed nutjob understand he is being completely irrational and does not need to assualt me just because i've decided to do something meaningful with my life and actually pursue the betterment of man........you know the note explaining what i'm wearing might actually come in handy.
. Hey, look, I have a letter here which looks like it's signed by a doctor, I can come into your establishment wearing whatever I want!
note or no note i wouldn't kick you out for wearing what you want. i'd likely kick you out for being a dick though.
2) He thinks that the correct thing to do when you are "assaulted" is to write a report for the Internet and to supply random pictures, calling lots of people "perpetrators";
no he thinks the correct thing to do is contact the relevant authorities (police and the store) which is exactly what he did.
3) He says that these "perpetrators" caused the pictures because his system automatically takes pictures when it is knocked to the floor. Unless you're a lawyer, buddy, don't try to lawyer an argument;
rationally explaining a situation in full != lawyering an argument.
4) He claims that he "contacted the embassy, consulate, police, etc. without much luck". In what way did he lack "luck"?
umm, in that they were of absolutely no assistance. it's kinda self explanatory. i would think you simply didn't understand the meaning of the phrase 'not having any luck' if it weren't for your next sentence.
I've got several family members living in France and they've never suffered from lack of "luck" when reporting a physical assault.
lucky them
Maybe he doesn't know how to speak French and refused to accept a translator or find his own. Maybe he presented this weird page instead of stating that he had been attacked, answering the inevitable questions concerning what happened, and leaving the law to do its work.
Maybe neither of these things are the case. in fact there's absolutely zero evidence that either of these things happened (in fact based on everything he's written in that blog-post i would doubt he cannot speak french, let alone refuse a translator)
i spent five minutes thinking and all i got was this crappy sig
Absolutely! All restaurants are private premises, and the owners/operators *always* reserve the right to ask *any* customer to leave for a variety of reasons. Nobody has a *right* to be served in any restaurant, likely anywhere in the world I'd say.
Probably, it would be enough if the employees felt that he was causing a disturbance to the other customers, or was about to do so.
Yup, but even if you are on private property they have to ask you politely to leave first. They are not allowed to lay a finger on you unless you refuse to do so or ignore them. Even then they are only allowed to use reasonable force to remove you from the premises, and that does not involve trying to take your property from you, especially if it happens to be attached to your head.
I dont read
Unfortunately they'd retaliate by giving America back to England and apologizing for the whole revolution misunderstanding.
And believe me, nobody wants an English-inspired McDonalds.
Why would you question his decision making process? He's with his kids. His kids are hungry. They want food ASAP or they won't stop nagging. The staff initially seemed to accept the letter. You must be thick to think there's something wrong with his decision making progress. Get kids and get a clue, then return to the discussion.
Clever signature text goes here.
Is his right eye damaged somehow? If not, then how is the doctor's note supposed to explain his use of the device?
Why do people say "minorities" instead of "non-white" or "darker-skinned people"? In some areas, these people are not "minorities" and yet are still referred to as such.
I wish people would get over politics and political correctness to get to the real meaning. How many times will "mentally retarded" be redefined before people give up with the name changing? How many name changes for "negro" will we have to suffer before people just let the thing being labeled define itself? (What I mean about mentally retarded is that we don't "say that" now... it's special, challenged and even gifted. Their classes were "special education" and "life skills" and all that. And about negro? "Nigger" is more of a reflection on the lack of education of the user than the people labelled. But "colored people"? As in NAACP? Or the original negro as in UNCF (United Negro College Fund)? And "African-American"? Wholly crap! They aren't African! They are just American because they were born here *and* usually not %100 black!)
Sorry... I just don't think it's enough to say "why can't we all just get along?"
No, you are blaming the victim. All the victim did was to visit the place, show the note from his doctor, and order food when they seemed to accept it. When the thugs came to assault him he once again showed his doctor's note, and then they proceeded to viciously attack him.
Clever signature text goes here.
No, (s)he pointed out that many people had the same experience as portrayed in the comedy.
So the comedy was an illustration or not? You say I got it wrong, but the bottom line is that you agree with me...
I never said he used the Comedy to deduce of imply anything, just as an illustration.
Err, yes, you got it wrong, IMO. I think that the reference to the comedy was not stupid. I don't think you can deduce from what I say whether I agree with you or not on the bigger issue, but you were wrong to say slim is "stupid" for making the post.
Note to ACs: I won't mod you up, even if you are being funny or insightful. So take a chance! It's not real life!
The underlying question is why, for the love of all that is good in this world, would you eat at a McDonald's in France?
Returned Peace Corps IT Volunteer
Once, just once in my life, I ended up in a McDonalds in Frankfurt after my companion had rejected every possible variety of German, Turkish and Greek restaurant and cafe. It was, quite simply, a "starve in the gutter before I do that again" episode. I fail to understand how an educated man, a professor no less, could conceivably end up in an American fast food joint in a city where sticking a pin in the map will possibly still give you too many choices. It's like visiting Niagara Falls and spending the entire time watching the toilet flush.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
"Hi, I'm a dude wearing several thousand dollars' worth of electronics on my body, see, everyone, see?"
I don't know the circumstances of this assault, but I know that in the last several weeks I've heard about several construction sites broken into and robbed of as little as a couple hundred dollars' worth of copper. This morning was $20,000 in damage to the site, for $2000 in copper (new light rail construction vandalized).
Personally, I think it would be very...trusting... to advertise to the public at-large that you have valuable electronics in your pockets. Particularly if you are distracted looking at online porn while you're standing there.
-Styopa
It was his own mistake to take the Vision Enhancement as his first augmentation. Should have chosen Microfibral Muscle or at least Speed Enhancement first.
It was racist even to bring race up.
Here's a person who, upon hearing about a crime, thought "Oh, I know, I'd better post about what race they're likely to be."
If you've spent some time in a Maghreb country like Morocco, you'll have noticed that most North African Arabs are just as light skinned as Lebanese, Syrians and Palestinians. Not to confuse them with the Berbers, who are more diverse (from very dark up to blonde with blue/green eyes).
cpghost at Cordula's Web.
No he used British people's response to a situation to illustrate that they perceive many French people are willing to admit openly to disliking arabs. How you expressed your nonsense point is even more dissapointing; but I suppose congratulations are in order, there's a dilbert about you
wait, wait, wait.
I have not read TFA.
Are you telling me this is some sort of french geek on geek violence?
It's kind of like when the Amish gangs cut off old Amish guys beards, sad, but what can be done?
-- Sig under construction...
It's probably so he can make it though security checks.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
I should have made that distinction, thank you!
Bradford.
In the 2001 census: 26.1% Asian -- the only places in Britain with a higher percentage of Asians are Leicester and Tower Hamlets.
The same census says 69.3% white.
Thanks a lot for clarifying my point. It's much clearer as you stated it (no sarcasm).
Dude, we're nowhere near nanomods yet. He should've gone with CASIE or perhaps a skullgun. If he could kil just by thought, it would be beter.
USE HOT GRITS WITH STATUE OF NATALIE PORTMAN (NAKED AND PETRIFIED)
But it's not a real McDonalds it's just some franchise with the name over the door. Is this the normal experience for McDonalds customers? I've never been to one myself, but it doesn't make me want to try it.
Korma: Good
While I can't say it's wrong to try to show someone assaulting you a letter from your doctor, it's a desperate move that may be the only choice available, but which you should expect probably won't work. Writing about it as if he expected it to work and that this criminal is especially bad for refusing to read it shows a lack of common sense. And a lack of common sense is likely to increase your chances of getting assaulted in the first place, if only because you don't avoid bad neighborhoods or take other common precautions.
I've actually started checking "African-American" on all surveys now, even though I'm "white," because we all came from Africa - everybody in the human race. So, technically, I'm an African-American, too. They never specify how far you're supposed to go back when they ask that question.
For the same reason you'd eat at a McDonald's elsewhere: You hate decent food.
USE HOT GRITS WITH STATUE OF NATALIE PORTMAN (NAKED AND PETRIFIED)
Don't get confused, I am not being racist
I do not think that word means what you think it means.
They basically confined their Arabic minorities in ghettos for a generation, which prevented those minorities from acquiring French culture and turned their native north african street-harasment-of-women culture into something really nasty.
Sorry but I don't believe that explanation. In many places of Portugal, including the capital, we also have many different types of emigrants, mainly from the African colonies (Christians), but also a lot of Gypsies and Muslims. And guess what, most of them, except for the Gypsies, live right in the center of the city.
Nobody is putting anyone away from society, at the most, the Gypsies keep away by themselves, although the government tried to pass laws to make their children go to school with the rest of the kids, but well... they don't want to. They also don't want to get a job because "it's against to their culture to receive orders" (No, I didn't say it, it was the head of the Gipsy Gulture Defense Association, that said it in a TV interview to try and justify the high unemployment rate and criminality related to them.
The Muslims, although a more recent arrival, keep themselves away from the rest of society as well and follow their own laws... at least when it comes to the way they threat their woman and daughter.
The only nice ones are the Chinese, they may not integrate much as well, but they follow the laws, their kids go to our public school with ours, and they are hard working.
If he caves in to a nagging kid, that only reinforces the habit. That alone is a serious issue. I have two children you imbecile (5 and 2) and they've never eaten at McDonalds and I'd be quite surprised if they didn't travel MORE than the children in the original post (at least 6 weeks per year).
Oh there you are kettle!
I've got a pot I'd like you to meet!
In what way isn't 'French' a race?
I'm not condoning physical violence, but I think wearable recording devices _should_ be resisted by the general public. I would have sided with the victim except for the fact that he has presented these (crystal clear) images that he saved onto the device. His defense is that the device is for improved vision, yet improved vision does not require images to be retained. Retaining images is the part I am against. Of course, with a wearable device like that nobody can tell whether you're "saving for later" or not, so an outright ban isn't out of the question.
It is true that most of the prisons in Europe have a considerable non-European population (in fact here over half the prison population is foreign or of second generation foreign descent). A lot of it being made up out of (former) citizens of African or Middle-Eastern countries. Saying that will get you called a racist but it's simply a fact. The real question is what you do with that information. So yes it does mean that if a crime is committed that has a jail sentence attached to it is statistically far more likely that it's a person that came from one of those particular geographical areas. But you can draw this conclusion out further: they don't adapt well to local customs and do commit criminal activity, the police force is racist, etc. But this is getting rather off-topic I think. And it's a pointless argument anyway
It's simply a fact that many shop keepers and restaurant employees in France aren't very nice people. I stopped visiting France not cause it's not a nice country, and most people are friendly indeed. It's just that all the people who should be happy to get tourists in their business treat them like they're a disease. Going to Germany or the UK is far more pleasant in that aspect.
And McDonalds should very much apologise for this and repair the damage done to the device and in my opinion they should also refund part of the trip cause I doubt they had a pleasant stay afterwards.
All who like France, please raise your hand. If you are French, please raise both hands.
Most British people understand "Asian" to mean Indian/Pakistani/Bangladeshi/thereabouts. We would normally refer to Chinese/Korean/Japanese/etc. as "Oriental". I appreciate that in the US "Oriental" isn't PC. That is not the case in Britain.
I'm not sure whether the 26.1% covers both Indian and Chinese people - but realistically, the East Asian population would be a statistical blip compared to the Indian/Pakistani/Bangladeshi population.
22.1% of the census population (included in that 26.1%) was "British Asian", suggesting that 4% were 1st generation immigrants.
The reason blacks in the United States and scholars of race are particular about naming is because historical usage is often inaccurate and/or racist.
Negro is a mistaken identification of race, and scientists are in general agreement that race has no biological basis.
In the contemporary context, "black" is perfectly acceptable as is "African-American", though "black" has problems with precision and specificity as does "African-American". For example, many "black" people are actually less black in their skin-tone than some non-blacks (including some whites). African-American confuses nationality and obscures color in order to be historically accurate and, for better or worse, is the term generally accepted by educated and cultured people in the United States.
The real issue is that racism is often not even conscious. People don't even recognize how they have been subtly trained by media and culture to hold a racist bias.
What I find curious is how you mush together a discussion of how to refer to mentally impaired people and people of black African ancestry. Why these two? Why not Jews and blacks, or Indians and blacks? What are your unconscious presumptions about these populations that makes you link them together when thinking about how to name them?
blog
only an American could be so racist.
Colonial Africa would beg to differ.
What political party do you join when you don't like Bible-thumpers *or* hippies?
If you think the golden arch crowd isn't rough in the states, you obviously haven't been to an inner-city McDonald's.
In what way isn't 'French' a race?
In the sense that two French people can have different races.
The things is, it was indeed a historical issue : those gettho as you call them were not really arab gettho. They were place (mostly bar buildings) with very low rent (HLM=habitation à loyer modéré=Housing with limited rent). Those became inhabited with a high proportion of north african and central african people, but there is a lot (and initally a majority) of non-african people in them. But due to the fact that most immigrant at least initally had low pay job, there was a concentration which happened. So it was NOT that arabic minority were confined intentionally, it just happened that they went to the lowest rent. Heck, my mother told me when those HLM were started , she went in with my father, arab was a minorities. When they moved onn 20 years later Arabic/central african were the majority in the particular building. But then again which gettho is initially intended ? probably not many.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
Because "French" is a nationality. The French people are a mix of races. The original Gallic peoples, some Romans, some Normans, some Germanic mix, and more recently, many people of Arabic or North African nomad descent.
Saying that "French" is a race is like saying "Canadian" or "American" is a race.
Official Heretic from the "Church of Global Warming". Proven right thanks to whistle blowers. AGW = Flat Earth Theory
Be pure, be vigilant, behave!
Actually, if the naturals want to win, shouldn't they misbehaving... a lot.. and winning by force of numbers
What kind of bullshit moderation is this? +1 Informative?
Generally I'm a pretty liberal guy. But go to Europe sometime. The first time you encounter Arab immigrants you'll get some insight into what the OP meant. I was in Germany, and the Turks there made the pricks on Jersey Shore look like a bunch of polite, level-headed pacifists.
In what way isn't 'French' a race?
Most ways. In what way ís 'French' a race?
All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. Time to die.
Does anyone else find it a bit too convenient that the camera the guy is wearing only kept the images of all perps (even the attempt to hide the name tag), witnesses, etc., exclusively "as a result of Perpetrator 1's actions"? I call BS.
The events he describes took place over at least 5 minutes and all the images were stored only because when "the computer is damaged, e.g. by falling and hitting the ground (or by a physical assault), buffered pictures for processing remain in its memory"? Complete and utter bullshit.
I bet there is more story than what he is willing to say (e.g. there was probably at least a warning and a request to leave the premises before he was attacked).
His choice of establishment to get food has no bearing on the events or himself. It does, however, have a decent bearing on how much of a pretentious douchebag you make yourself out to be by bringing it up. No worries though, there appear to be quite a few of you out there who want to pick on the guy for being at a McDonalds, as if that somehow legitimizes the assault or otherwise matters one whit in the events that happened (hint: they don't).
And in the 2001 census had various options, including 'Other Asian' under the Asian category but had Chinese as a separate (not under Asian) option.
Their commercials are funnier too.
Please do not read this sig. Thank you.
Are you implying that some of us are descended from some other species of Homo Sapiens (if that's not an oxymoron) that didn't evolve in Africa?
No. Well...maybe. Actually, yes. It really just depends.
Whilst I don't doubt for a moment that Parisian fast food operatives can be rude and physically pushy, it does appear from TFA that he had communication issues and a tendency to be rather arrogant (the whole article starts with "DON'T YOU KNOW WHO I AM? I'M AN ACKNOWLEDGED GENIUS!" and works its way from there).
McDonalds in France (and in the UK and many other countries) do not allow still cameras, video cameras or other recording equipment to be operated inside their restaurants without explicit permission from the managers.
This is clearly labelled on all the doors as you go in, not just in words, but a picture of a camera crossed out.
If you don't agree, go elsewhere, problem avoided.
What seems to have happened is that an attention-seeking American ignored these notices. He was then asked to put away the recording equipment, and he didn't comply. At that point he was probably asked to leave, but from TFA I'm not convinced he knew enough French to realise what was being asked of him. A scuffle then broke out.
It's important to note that on private premises, the staff can ask you to leave for any reason (it's their shop, not yours) and if you refuse, they can legally use reasonable force. Same anywhere in Europe. In larger cities where they have lots of troublemakers they will even employ professional bouncers (doormen, security guards) to enforce this, but anyone acting with the owner's consent can chuck you out, physically if need be. My first wife was even directly instructed by the police to physically manhandle unruly customers out of her amusement arcade rather than calling 999 (911/112), which seeing as she was a 6'2" amazonian and her customers were weedy videogaming teenagers was rather one-sided, and probably not the Xena experience they had fantasised about. Point is, shop staff can ask you to leave, they don't have to give you a reason, and if you don't comply, they can physically chuck you out perfectly legally.
Now there's clearly a question about whether the amount of force used was reasonable, but that question only arose because he ignored or refused to comply with what is a very, very reasonable request: People in restaurants generally don't want to be filmed. If he's too ignorant or arrogant to deal with that, then scuffles such as the one he described are entirely predictable.
As if to reinforce people's view of him as arrogant and out-of-touch, he appears to have looked up American contact information on WHOIS rather than using the phone number on a French-language website; seemingly he thinking a bunch of IT infrastructure engineers 8,000 miles away are going to be able to do anything about bouncers in a fast food restaurant in a foreign country.
In short, the moral of the tale is: If you're in a foreign country and you're pissing people off, consider the possibility that the foreign country has different social norms than what you're used to, and adapt appropriately. If you're not prepared to accept that, rip up your passport and stay at home.
I mean, heck, I'm not a fan of Catholicism, but I'm not rude or arrogant enough to expect to be able to visit French cathedrals wearing beach shorts without getting an old lady jabbing a sharp, painful and accusing finger into my hide, and even if I did, I'd take it as an indication that *I* was the one doing something wrong.
People are trying to relax and eat, put your recording equipment away dude!
(And I don't for a moment buy the argument that the digital glasses aren't recording equipment. Exhibit A, the still photos on the chap's web page.)
The bloke was being a dick.
Andrew Oakley - www.aoakley.com
... to eliminate all inferior beings who need prosthetic devices. Next up, an assault on those who use crutches. We'll clean up that genome, yet. And as for those foreign-born cripples ...
What is this, high school?
Here is the contact info from the McDonald's website for the French office. Perhaps they should hear about the bad press they are receiving from this incident.
McDonald's France S.A.
1 Rue Gustave Eiffel
78045 Guayancourt Cedex
France
Phone* : 33-130-48-6000
Fax* : 33-130-48-6300
* U.S. customers, dial 011 + before an international number, except in Canada, dial 1 + number.
I think there is something missing in this story. Personally, if I was wearing something that does not offend the people and I was asked by some McDonalds employee (not using any adjectives here :) ) to explain what I am wearing - I would just leave the place immediately. There are so many restaurants in Paris (!!!). Side note: going to McDonalds in Paris is very American ;)
Unless the question was out of curiosity - otherwise it is not your business. If an employee is asking this question - he/she does not respect me as your customer. And I am not eating at the place where I am not shown at least minimum level of respect. Period.
I agree with the other person who replied to you: it must be highly variable. I speak passable French and Parisians have always been jerks to me. On the other hand people elsewhere in France are normal. If anyone else out there has had the same experience with Paris we have and needs a rec for a place where people are friendly, I vote for Turkey. Kindest. People. On. Earth.
Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.
I was wondering the same thing. We're given the impression that this all happened in silence, which it obviously didn't. Presumably the employees said something. Presumably this was in French. No idea how fluent the blogger was in French, whether the letter was written in English or French, and whether the McDonalds Employees spoke English.
My speculation is that the employee was sent by the manager who felt that this unusual behaviour was a bit weird.. Was asked to ask about the headgear. He asked. Reported back. The manager wasn't satisfied, and felt he needed backup, and decided to confront the odd person.
Here we have the mysterious step 4.
Why do people say "minorities" instead of "non-white" or "darker-skinned people"? In some areas, these people are not "minorities" and yet are still referred to as such.
In Europe, I believe there are no cities in which whites represent less than half of the population. The area with the largest proportion of non-whites in the UK is the London borough of Tower Hamlets which is ~56% white. Obviously if you draw small enough boundaries you can isolate areas with strong non-white majorities, but I don't see how that's helpful.
In the US, it's different. Atlanta, GA, for example, is 61% "Black or African American". It would be technically wrong to describe a black person living in Atlanta as a minority. But then I'm not sure anyone does - do they?
The term "minority" is useful, because being in the minority puts you in a position of weakness.
That branch is well know for peddling. Their employees make next to nothing and so like to augment their income... ...just like in casino's and certain street corners photography is not welcome.
I don't understand why he didn't take this to the police.
It was assault on him, he has pictures, witnesses. Looks bad on France when tourist are getting attack.
But I don't know, I'm not stupid enough to go to France.
Unless of course, the people that attacked him were cops, and they just react like American cops when being filmed.
Be seeing you...
Perpetrator 1, what you can see around the white square, is so obviously not white it's painful. While I recognize the liberal reflex to assume that everyone who refers to the color of the skin of a perpetrator is lying, but that doesn't absolve you of not even bothering to look at the photos.
had an incident at a McDonald's in Paris, France.
He was assaulted by three men during his visit to get food with his family.
Huge hole in the story.
You can't get food in McDonald's :)
they were all boring-looking caucasians in generic 'knowledge worker' garb
American reflex to assume that 'assaulted' and 'mcdonalds' in the same sentence signals a wacky story about the violence of the degenerate classes, it appears that the French golden arches crowd is slightly different
Someone who so readily assumes that a white collar worker is less "degenerate" than a blue collar worker is quite a degenerate himself. Suits are the colors worn by the most dangerous gang in the world.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
As a European I'm going to have to show a bit of prejudice here and say that you really shouldn't encourage the Germans. It's still a running joke around here that any day now all those German tourists that show up every summer are going to pull out machine guns and start annexing stuff again.
Greylisting is to SMTP as NAT is to IPv4
That's an interesting statistic. You know that France has a higher suicide rate than all of those place, with the possible exception of Somalia, which we can make up things about because we lack the data for either one of those stats there:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_suicide_rate
... scientists are in general agreement that race has no biological basis.
Poppycock!
If race isn't a biological manifestation, then what could it possibly be? Environmental? Chance? Of course there's a genetic difference between various groups of people who share certain distinctive features (e.g. skin colour, nose shapes, eye shapes, lactose intolerance). That doesn't mean that any of the groups are any better than another, that particular individuals always conform to their parent's genotype, or that these genes don't get endlessly mixed and remixed as time goes on.
It seems to me that "race" is just the informal word* we use to talk about these different groups. It's certainly a concept that has started a lot of wars throughout history, and perhaps for that reason it's becoming increasingly politically incorrect to use. But the word does mean something, and that meaning is inextricably entwined with biology.
------
* Perhaps we use "race" for human beings because we would be offended if we used the same term that we use for other animals: breed. But that would definitely be politically incorrect!
No. Well...maybe. Actually, yes. It really just depends.
I think the scientific consensus is that all women have DNA passed down from a Mitochondrial Eve who lived in Africa.
Of course he is.
He saw an article about a crime in Paris. Of all the things he could have posted in response, the first thing that came to his head was "hey, nobody's speculated about the criminal's race yet! I'd better post with my guess."
That is the action of a racist.
yeah, and in Africa, Asia, Mid East, and South America there is no hate or violence or murder or etc. Only white people do that kind of thing. Now ethnic cleansing is necessary for all non white populations and is not at all violent or hateful.
Most McDonald's locations are franchises. Even here in the US. They buy their supplies from McDonald's and buy the rights to use the name. They can threaten to revoke their franchise license. Not much you can do with a building built as a McDonald's without a franchise license - except spend a lot of money to make it into a different restaurant. It would be cheaper to address the victim.
The underlying question is why, for the love of all that is good in this world, would you eat at a McDonald's in France?
Unlike elsewhere, you know that a Big Mac won't contain snail, horse, or frog.~
Finally had enough. Come see us over at https://soylentnews.org/
Maybe he's Mormon and believes we're all descended from Adam and Eve, who lived in Jackson County Missouri
I have proposed, on many occasions, a new framework for identifying people by physical attributes, while remaining utterly politically correct. Here it is, for your enjoyment:
"All people are people. Therefore, all people shall be referred to by their name, or as 'person'."
"Who put these reports on my desk?"
"A person."
And nobody was ever offended.
Finally had enough. Come see us over at https://soylentnews.org/
Well, obviously there's no law forcing them into ghettos - even France couldn't get away with quite such a blatent violation of US law.
Are you implying that France has any obligation in regards to US law? I genuinely don't understand your point.
I have an odd feeling there are other, less codified ways in which they're excluded - probably home owners in white communities refusing to sell to Arabs, agents dissuading them from considering those houses and redirecting them to ones in the ghetto, that sort of thing.
We've been meddling with the Arabic world for far longer than the US, and their feeling about France is at best ambiguous. We've fucked with Algeria pretty badly actually. We've tried to make amends by opening our country wide to a huge flow of immigrants and we've been giving them a lot of incentive to come abroad, financial and with a lot of "rights" that if they're not written are at least well understood. We've also made a lot of promises about the integration of immigrants.
As a result, they come abroad full of expectations, which aren't met in real life. This creates a problem in and of itself. First off, they (a majority of them at least) come with the false expectation that they won't have to work their butt off to have a nice way of living. In return we offer them the RMI (Minimum revenue of integration). So yes, they don't have to work to earn a basic income, but no, this basic income is not enough to afford a nice way of living. And of course, the rest of the French population doesn't feel it's right to offer these people free healthcare, free transportation, an income for basically no return from their part. Not mentioning that they can make anyone from their family come abroad for free healthcare. Of course it's not legal but it's a well known fact. As a result, they are de facto excluded from other communities where people work their butt off to make a living. You can imagine the result after 30+ years of such policy.
This has nothing to do with their race or religion. The fact that most of these immigrants are in fact arabs doesn't help either to make a nice image for them.
All in all, it's a complex problem, and there is no simple solution. But the people that are excluded by the means you describe are excluded by their way of clothing and their way of speaking French in other words by their manners and education, not by the color of their skin or their accent. Not mentioning they are nowhere near rich enough to buy a house because earning money while doing nothing doesn't motivate them to actually try to work.
Write boring code, not shiny code!
Oh right, those same French ghettos where there was recently a spate of rioting and setting cars on fire on the sides of the street for months on end? Sounds lovely. You only feel safer in a French ghetto than you do in Boston because of your own psychological biases, not because of the facts.
The underlying question is why, for the love of all that is good in this world, would you eat at a McDonald's in France?
There are a number of reasons, but the most likely one in this case is his kids wanted to eat at McDonalds. The parents then decided fine, it's a known food item that the spawn like and we can treat them.
> In a McDonald's in Paris
Actually they were beating him up because he ordered a diet Coke instead of the nouveau beaujolais.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
Get nearly everyone to wear them and connect them live to the net. Then when anyone does anything "wrong", it will be captured by everyone around them and immediately routed to the authorities.
There are a large amount of Caucasian people in South America.
He effected a bored affect.
Sure, you could instead have essentially an uncooked McDonalds beefburger with a raw egg on. Much yummier!
No, your justifications for violence cite defense. Initiated violence, (should you need the clarification) solves nothing. Walk softly and carry a big stick? Sure. Violence in defense is no crime, no immorality. But violence with arson? A boor's choice, and the stuff of cowards.
---- Teach Peace. It's Cheaper Than War.
McDonald's actually changes their menu based on the local cuisine. I had a huge craving for a McMuffin while in Italy and they didn't have any. In fact their breakfast menu consisted of coffee, croissants and some strange items like fried olives and pickles.
Think globally but act within local variable scope.
"knowledge worker" != geek
That would be more like "corporate drone", which just couldn't compute when he saw the outfitted professor.
I'm not a lawyer, but I play one on the Internet. Blog
Much of Europe went ballistic over Google's Street View. They are suing Google over privacy invasion and made a big thing of it the press. Perhaps any strange camera devices triggers angers people now.
Or just stay out of Europe. In case you've not seen the news lately, the EU is turning into a pretty violent place with citizens attacking police & vice versa.
Funny how the last McDonalds story led to many posts about "dumb Americans" and "typical American behavior". But when the Europeans act stupid suddenly there is silence.
My AC stalker: " I personally agree with your posts most of the time, but that won't keep me from modding you troll"
If you want to evict a customer, you say "sir, we will not serve you. Now leave."
You do not assault him.
Q: Why are German soldiers not allowed to wear uniforms in France?
A: So the French won't accidentally surrender.
Colonial Africa would beg to differ.
I know exactly what you mean. While living in Japan, I met a man from Tanzania who said of the Japanese, "These people are crazy! They don't even speak English!"
Use of the words "good", "bad" or "evil" is almost invariably the result of oversimplification.
Yeah... read some hostel reviews in just the shady parts of Paris (not the ghettos) and you'll see stories of muggings, pick-pocketing and stalking. I also took a hike to Sacré-Cur and felt unsafe passing through a very well maintained park where a bunch of black people were doing drugs in the middle of the day; I do have a natural tendency to distrust black people though due to being from Oregon where black people basically don't exist. I also saw a guy a vandalize a car using an ice-pick just a few blocks from my hotel in a good part of town. I managed to have both of these experiences while being there for just four days.
Think globally but act within local variable scope.
Sorry but I don't believe that explanation. In many places of Portugal, including the capital, we also have many different types of emigrants, mainly from the African colonies (Christians), but also a lot of Gypsies and Muslims. And guess what, most of them, except for the Gypsies, live right in the center of the city.
(Aside: I know English is probably not your first language -- an emigrant is someone leaving; an immigrant is someone who's come in. One country's immigrant is someone else's emigrant)
Paris is not Portugal. From what I understand, in Paris due to their planning decisions, the centre is full of expensive property that only rich residents and high-end businesses can afford. Those homes and businesses need low-paying labour though -- cooks, cleaners, security guards etc. -- and those people have to live somewhere. So there is a ring of deprived areas a certain distance from the centre. They become ghettos because the only people prepared to live there are the ones who can't afford to live anywhere else, within reach of jobs.
Other cities avoid this by planning affordable housing.
I'm guessing you're not from the U.S. (or France, apparently), but people are pretty ruthless here if you're "different." Homosexuals are regularly committing suicide for being tormented. We also have 4chan.
My mother works at a nursing home where some of the "adult" staff make fun of and harass the mentally challenge volunteers. My mother tells them to basically fuck off and grow up, and they just laugh at her because they think it's funny.
I'm not sure why we're so insecure. We pretty much do whatever the fuck we want.
Why would they need machine guns? The power of their economy and stranglehold on the Euro seems to be doing the trick this time around.
Never start vast projects with half-vast ideas.
The underlying question is why, for the love of all that is good in this world, would you eat at a McDonald's in France?
Because you're getting tired of Quarter Pounders With Cheese and you wanted to experience the Royale With Cheese that Jules and Vincent were talking about?
Demanding constant attention will only lead to attention.
Well, it's a population of people with a distinct geographic ancestry (France), ethnicity (French culture and language) and social status (French nationals presumably have citizenship, right?). I think that's "most ways" already covered - now, why do you think they should be disqualified? I'm not trying to be snarky - it's just that your answer hasn't clarified anything and I really would like to understand what you mean.
There is a solution that didn't quite make it out of beta, but seems to be the answer.
Let's give France back to Germany and apologize for the Normandy Beach misunderstanding.
Fine, but first the French will have to take back Lousiana and of course turn back the rest of the US to the british.
This is how it starts. The first blows in the war between Augmented Humans and the Naturals
Puny human, BWAHAHAHAHA! You will be assimilated. You will not resist, you will beg to become a cyborg like us. Just wait until you need a pacemaker or a cochlear implant or an artificial hip or other body part.
Free Martian Whores!
Doesn't Steve Mann record audio too? The way his page explains it, it feels like strange mute men assaulted him and tried to forcibly remove his glasses. Surely those men weren't mute. They must have said something. Of course, they were speaking French, but Mann's daughter understands French. It would be nice to get her point of view, so we could get a better grasp on what happened. There's something missing here. It's like a silent movie.
'The eyeglass is permanently attached and does not come off my skull without special tools.'
What the... I mean how does that work? Has it been implanted into his skull bone? I hope he isn't a Borg drone.
Is that a quote from Starship Troopers?
I second that.
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for nature cannot be fooled." Feynman
Not poppycock, but a matter of semantics.
The point that people who say this are making is that "black people" aren't particularly similar to each other genetically, or in terms of any other biological characteristic except skin colour. Same with white people or brown people.
Having said that, I'm not opposed to using skin colour to differentiate people. It would be pretty stupid, if I want to point out the only white guy in a group of black guys, to try to avoid referencing skin colour (nobody is going to say "the tall guy on the left with the red shirt" when "the white guy" will suffice). But don't pretend that skin colour makes you more of a "race" or "breed" than hair colour, height, etc.
It is tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail. - Abraham Maslow
Being a millionaire does not give you the right to assault people.
L. Long. Paraphrased.
Do I need to post the list of things violence has solved?
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
I didn't ask for this!
Violently assaulting someone is the French equivalent of the waiter coming over and asking 'is everything alright with your meal?'. It very slightly more irritating too.
Another one. I have not mentioned race at all. You don't even know what race I am. White Muslims are Just as Capable and likely to be terrorists as brown ones, and there are plenty of brown victims, the peaceful Coptic Christians for example
I don't know the laws in France, but I doubt that a Canadian citizen is subject to them, if not in France.
He should unmask the people on his blog who he's labeled Perpetrators 1-3. Why would you give them the courtesy of anonymity?
Also, seeing as McDonalds originated in the US, I'd be filing any complaints with corporate HQ in Oak Brook, IL. I'm pretty sure corporate HQ can exert pressure on affiliates/franchisees outside the US.
Do any damn thing you want.
Aggression is the last resort of the thwarted. You'll think yourself to be proud to cite how uncivilized people can be. How it's somehow the wiser choice. How moral it was. "The right thing to do". And in each case, I can tell you that barring defense, it was the wrong thing to do. And we'll argue, but in the end, it's a line that you believe can be crossed, and that I argue must not be.
---- Teach Peace. It's Cheaper Than War.
Actually, it's not legal to videotape/shoot photos inside of a McDonalds and the employees overreacted to this ... that's my point ... and you missed it ... completely.
I don't know about the law in France, but in the United States it is perfectly legal to photograph in any public place. That said, most citizens and law enforcement are ignorant of this fact, and people are routinely hassled for photography. Sometimes their photos are forcibly erased (which actually _is_ against the law). Places might have a "no photography" policy, and if they tell you to leave and you don't, then you are trespassing, but that is usually their only remedy under the law.
Besides, under normal circumstances this device does not save any information, and is not "videotaping" or "shooting photos". It's a bit like assaulting someone at a concert for wearing a hearing aid.
Nursing home orderlys are barely above mentally challenged themselves. It is a shit job that nobody wants.
For real bullying (bullying doesn't cover it) look at what the high functioning 'mentally challenged' do to the low functioning. An associate that used to be a psych nurse referred to them as the 'mongoloid mafia'. Rape is routine on these wards.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
The problem is that "race" was typically associated with skin color, and even now that idea tends to persist.
If we really must categorize people based on their genetic origins, let's use haplogroups or something.
Check out my world simulator thingy.
I was speaking in generalities; I'd hardly comment on racial crime stats for a sample size of 3!
Also, working in a McD's is not the same as owning one... At least in Canadian franchises, the manager and the owner are completely different people. While the manager is an adult, it's not unknown for them to be barely older than the teens manning the cash registers.
And *I* wouldn't look down on either of them based on their country of origin or the wage they earn.
The major admixture to the French ethnicity is actually way older the Gallic element (a civilization that came from the Alps), although everyone seems to forget it for the reason that Gauls were our first ancestors recorded by writings.
It is my understanding that most French people are nothing like the stereotype, they are decent hard working people.
Parisians on the other hand, are the stereotype. Festering assholes!
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
He might scare somebody who feeling they were defending themselves pull out their gun and shoot themselves a borg.
Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
The first battle between augmented and not?
Bzzzzt! Sorry, thanks for playing.
The first battle between an augmented human and not was when someone picked up a branch to augment the human's clownish teeth and nails. I believe 2001 has one artist's conceptualization.
Kzinti: What are those flat teeth for?
Human: Chewing bugs and nuts and leaves.
Kzinti: What are those claws for? If you can call them that.
Human: They are scoops for digging up bugs to eat.
Kzinti: You suck!
Human: Feeling jumpy, froggy? Jump. We are good at augmentation.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
This depends again on how you define the borders of the region. The proper city of Atlanta is a very small area, and it is predominantly black, although there are a lot of whites moving back. If you meet someone on a plane who doesnt feel like diving into the local specifics of their address, they may tell you that they are from Atlanta, when they are from a part of the 14 ( I think?) counties that make up the metro-Atlanta area. There was significant white flight to these counties in teh 70s and 80s, at the same time that the city was growing very rapidly ... or I should say the metro area , as the city was shrinking in population. Until very recently the city was nearly dormant at night, as the people who worked there drove and hour or two back home every evening. This is now changing back to being a living city.
The majority black citizenry of the city has allowed the expected control of local politics, and the response from all the white flighters has been to attempt to avoid allowing state funds into the city as much as possible. The isolated area of majority population still suffers from the same minority status issues this way, so my point on defining the borders of the city still stands.
Tourists are endured as a disease because they behave as such. Especially Americans (Chinese may prove annoying because of the size of their groups). I'm getting tired of seeing my land invaded six months a year by individuals always expecting you to speak THEIR language (which I do for most of the nations visiting us, although speaking the visitor's language is not an honour given lightly), taking photo shots as if you're a zoo animal and not carrying the least for anything except seeing their cravings for clichés fulfilled.
I sometimes wonder how the politically correct would think of Elon Musk as African-American. Technically in terms of birth place in the same sense that you have Chinese-Americans and Mexican-Americans and other such nonsense, he really is African-American, just not so much in terms of skin color. In his case he was even born in Africa and a citizen of an African nation before becoming a naturalized American citizen.
Skin color is just that, the amount of Melanin that is within the skin cells of the person being described and perhaps some other elements to their skin as well. While there are some other genetic traits that can be described jointly with the skin color, it is pretty shallow and doesn't really matter.
Besides, there has been so much inter-breeding between peoples of the Earth that I dare anybody to say they are 100% of any ethnicity or 0% of some other ethnicity. If they think so, they have likely been lied to by their parents or simply are clueless about their ancestry. More likely simply clueless I might add. Heck, there are still descendents of the Neanderthals running around (likely whose genes have spread throughout the entire human gene pool), and that is a readily identified different species, much less a "race". Yeah, cue the jokes if you will, but it is true none the less.
Because you can?
No one cares what your captcha was
Houston TX, USA
Perhaps the summary needs augmented reality glasses because it missed some things.
...Anyway, reading his account of it makes me want to hit him due to his unbearable writing style and attitude and I'm not even staring into his robo-glasses, getting photos randomly taken of me.
Now son. Your mother and I keep telling you, "use your words." Apparently, you're not the only one who hasn't learned that lesson.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
Well, obviously there's no law forcing them into ghettos - even France couldn't get away with quite such a blatent violation of US law.
Are you implying that France has any obligation in regards to US law? I genuinely don't understand your point.
Isn't France one of the American states?
'
'
'
It is a joke, get over it.
The fact only has relevance in a racist context, specifically one where people are judged according to their racial group rather than on individual merit.
Support NRA, America's oldest civil rights group.
There are active campaigns in the form of TV commercials here in the US that place an emphasis on these two.
No one cares what your captcha was
Houston TX, USA
>So, there you are in a new country with a different culture
Are you talking about the American tourist with the science-project band-aid spectacles who can only afford to eat in fast food restaurants whilst visiting the greatest gastronomic city on Earth, or the third-generation Parisian restaurant owner with the native passport?
Knowing what the cost of living in Paris is, versus the squalid living conditions of many minor American academics and generally hilarious wages in the USA (from which you then have to subtract heath insurance and vacation days... LOL), I know which one I'd be looking down on. It's half a million Euros minimum just to start a McDonalds franchise in one location in Europe; in Paris, a shedload more. That chap with the tie in the photos, he's probably the franchise owner, he's probably a millionaire.
First, Dr. Mann is Canadian.
Second, McDonalds franchises work similarly in the US. They require large amounts of startup capital and they employ lots of low-wage workers to run the store. The "chap with the tie" in the photos is very likely to be an assistant manager making a few bucks an hour, or at best the store manager making €30k/year. I would be surprised if one of the franchise owners sets foot in the place more than once a month.
And I don't care how goofy or socially awkward the guy was, it doesn't justify thuggery from these low-lifes, especially store employees.
I dont think you have been in many major cities. I know for sure there are areas in LA, NY, detroit, toledo, chicago, San Francisco that police are very wary about going.
Good-bye
"when the Europeans act stupid suddenly there is silence"
They were not Europeans; they were French. Even worse they were from Paris!
1. You are being racist. Saying you aren't doesn't change facts.
2. If you had looked at the story, you'd see photographically that all the involved people were white. Not only that, but they were well dressed.
For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
Refusing service because of a MEDICAL device, would be grounds for a serious ADA lawsuit in the U.S.
Good-bye
I'm gonna take a wild stab and guess that it sounded like a decent joke in your own head?
Well, obviously there's no law forcing them into ghettos - even France couldn't get away with quite such a blatent violation of US law.
Damn right! Those frogs better not violate US law! It's not like they're a sovereign nation with it's own constitution, government and legal system. USA! USA! USA! Oh wait...
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
Heilein said settled, not solve. The quote you gave isn't a rebuttal to GP.
Dilbert RSS feed
But don't pretend that skin colour makes you more of a "race" or "breed" than hair colour, height, etc.
No one is. People differentiate races based on hair colour and height all the time. I'm not sure what your point is.
I would disagree. You're citing testosterone driven, aggressive behavior which knows no geographic or ethnic bounds. Violence is the choice of idiots.
Actually, it's "Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent." --Salvor Hardin
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
That, too.
---- Teach Peace. It's Cheaper Than War.
I've never stayed in a shady hostel in Paris. I've stayed with friends in the shady-but-not-bad neighborhoods, like the 11th.
Afaik, American cities usually have murder rates around or over 20 per 100,0000, but Paris has only 2-2.5 per 100,000 overall and around 5 in the bad St Denis neighborhood.
Yes, you should avoid the neighborhood with double the murder rate of the rest of the city anywhere, but it's probably no worse than the neighborhood where you go clubbing in your home town, assuming you're American.
The Christian religion has been and still is the principal enemy of moral progress in the world. -- Bertrand Russell
So, it seems that not only does McDonalds in Paris have some strange issues with cameras, but judging from these comments, a surprising number of French people are racist.
Burkha ban. Look it up.
Actually, you're not allowed to wear a burqa there *irrespective* of your race, not only if you're an Arab. There's nothing racist about the ban.
Ezekiel 23:20
[1] "Man Physically Assaulted At McDonald's For Wearing Digital Eye Glasses"
[2] "Mann Physically Assaulted At McDonald's For Wearing Digital Eye Glasses"
Their they're doing there hair.
Ein volk, ein Reich, ein Euro.
The underlying question is why, for the love of all that is good in this world, would you eat at a McDonald's in France?
Perhaps he wanted to get a decent amount of a familiar food for a reasonable price.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
Preemptive defense is still defense. If you wait until you have exhausted all your options you aren't going to be able to accomplish anything with the violence you finally resort to, especially if your opponent knows you can be delayed by lack of clarity.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
You're American aren't you - only an American could be so racist
Oh, the irony, it burns when you touch it!
Free Martian Whores!
African-American ... is the term generally accepted by educated and cultured people in the United States.
Don't equate PC mainstream media with "educated" or "cultured". I'd say maybe 5% of the people in the US use the term "African-American". "African-American" is the term used by those that like to think they are better than the culture. This does not make them cultured.
Saying that "French" is a race is like saying "Canadian" or "American" is a race.
Or "African-American".
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
You can call it pre-emptive defense, but civility mandates the exhaustion you appear to abhor. I understand inevitability, and I also see the rampant abuse of the excuse..... daily, in headlines across the world to local newspapers.
There are no absolutes, but there is the bravery of striving to achieve a more peaceful world. For some, dogma and orthodoxy and just plain sociopathy dictate their readiness to use violence. It's instinctive. And for that reason, it's necessary to advance the cause of peace and non-violence.
---- Teach Peace. It's Cheaper Than War.
the EU is turning into a pretty violent place
no it isn't. Keep in mind the 99% of places in the EU (literally) where there is no increase in violence don't make for a good news story.
Ah yes, the problem with that being that I speak fluent French and didn't even have a camera with me. So what were you saying?
I've encountered the same behaviour in every single French city I've been to.
So you believe the doctor is lying about his opinion?
Note that the device is bolted to his skull. I do hope you don't plan to bolt a monkey to your skull. (Perhaps you should get DirecTV?)
Have you ever wondered about the fate of our species?
We exist in a time unlike any other; a time where man can go beyond the tyranny of flesh and embrace a new tomorrow.
We share the belief of a manifest destiny for our species, a future where human instrumentality evolves into a form beyond our crude flesh and blood.
The next evolution is near, A coming together of man and machine. A synthesis greater than the birth of the human organism.
This is the Singularity. The God in the Machine.
Many cultures predict an end to humanity in the near future, a final Armageddon that will end the world; but we disargee.
We know the future of man.
Join us. Understand the path that unfolds before our species.
Grow beyond the bounds of flesh and blood.
Embrace the Singularity!
TL;DR: Mod parent down.
Since the GP was obviously joking, and you are... not obviously joking, I'm going to guess it's you ("Zaphod The 42nd") who are the asshole here. You might want to think a lot more closely about what you post online in the future. I wouldn't even bother replying to such obvious idiocy if it hadn't been modded up.
P.S. <joke-with-a-care-of-truth>If my parents had tried to take me to McDonalds as any time I was over the age of 6 and knew what food should actually taste like, I'd have assaulted them myself!</joke-with-a-cor-of-truth> Seriously, it's not exactly child abuse or anything, but it certainly isn't behavior I would encourage in any parent... especially if the kids' taste *was* already picky to the point of insisting on junk food.
There's no place I could be, since I've found Serenity...
I was reacting to the "disease" qualification of tourists, not to your own story (for which I don't care). As for the shopkeepers and restaurants employees, every French knows that in Paris those are particular cunts. Can't say the same for the rest of the country. On another unrelated matter : it's easy saying "McDonald's shit, why the hell not some real food ?!", but the truth is unless you get a table in some very expensive place, most of what you find in bitros around Paris is utter crap by now ; frozen food cooked by the microwave and sold for the cost of a kidney. It's a city that made a specialty of scamming the tourists (even nationals) and mistreating its patrimony at the same time. The same go for all major French cities, at a lower scale.
I would have to agree that a great part of the problem is that new immigrants anywhere prefer to live with earlier immigrants of their own culture even if conditions are horrible in that location. It just compounds the issue that things are usually harder for immigrants anyways, as they are unfamiliar with the systems already in place in the country they have moved to. But humans prefer the familiar rather than the strange, and just make things harder for themselves in this case.
Civility does _not_ demand exhaustion of options vs. violence. Once it becomes clear that it's going to happen only a fool would allow their opposition to set the time and place. That will guarantee loss.
Read 'The Art of War'. Ether version, Chinese or Italian will tell you the same. Think of it as cultural relativity. (Facts that are true, regardless of perspective.)
The cause of non-violence is not served by losing to an aggressor. If someone says they are going to kill you and they are working on an atom bomb, only an idiot would pass any chances to stop/delay them.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Care to explain??
Take off every 'sig' !!
"Anyone who clings to the historically untrue - and thoroughly immoral - doctrine that "violence never solves anything" I would advise to conjure up the ghosts of Napoleon Bonaparte and of the Duke of Wellington and let them debate it. The ghost of Hitler could referee, and the jury might well be the Dodo, the Great Auk, and the Passenger Pigeon. Violence, naked force, has settled more issues in history than has any other factor, and the contrary opinion is wishful thinking at its worst. Breeds that forget this basic truth have always paid for it with their lives and freedoms"
echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
Lutefisk is Norwegian, you RACIST
Take off every 'sig' !!
Indeed there are choices. Impatience versus inevitability are two completely different characteristics that imply differing choices. The Art of War is a book of aggression and suppression. It posits choices that are based on false assumptions, IMHO.
Has India dropped the bomb? No. Pakistan? No. Israel? No.
As I believe you're referring to Iran, I will concur that their intentions are plainly evil. These are the intentions of its leaders, not its general populace. How many might die so that the leadership is stanched? How much violence incurred?
This isn't Chamberlin and appeasement. Tehran could be wiped from the map should they try something. Violence? On an incredible scale. Needless.
---- Teach Peace. It's Cheaper Than War.
Tehran will be wiped from the map if they use an atom bomb (even if it's not clearly from them. e.g. TelAviv just blows up one day).
A preemptive strike is relatively non-violent. Assassinating key people is almost care bear. Computer virus' based attacks are care bear.
Both 'Art of War' books are simply pragmatic guides to military conflict. Curiously both thesis' appear to be 'the art of war is the art of deception'. Cultural relativity (means the opposite of cultural relativism). Given the level of deception going on nobody can ever say that something is 'inevitable'. This is the category of problems that need to be addressed with incomplete and inaccurate information. If you wait for something to be clearly 'inevitable' you have already waited too long.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Eat a Big Mac.
-- I ignore anonymous replies to my comments and postings.
The strong implication in TFA is that the perpetrators were McDonald's employees. Perp 3 was sweeping the floor while wearing a McDonald's uniform, and from the description of the incident the other two were likely some sort of managers who apparently decided he wasn't allowed to wear his digital glasses.
I stole this Sig
I'd like to bring this little nugget to all of those commenters who seem to imply "well it says no camreas its his own fault.
http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/132918-the-laser-powered-bionic-eye-that-gives-576-pixel-grayscale-vision-to-the-blind
What about a sign make assault acceptable? Perhaps if the persons in question didn't want to be seen my someone else, they should return to their caves. This behavior is indicative of people who only deserve to live in a cave, and do not have a place in modern society.
PS : I guess blind people in France will have to remain blind if they don't want to run the risk of being beaten to death.
Mon aéroglisseur est plein d'anguilles.
For those who might not understand why this is funny here is a link the OP forgot to include explaining CASIE.
-- I ignore anonymous replies to my comments and postings.
>>A preemptive strike is relatively non-violent. Assassinating key people is almost care bear. Computer virus' based attacks are care bear.
Tell that to the families of the dead and the injured.
I've read Sun Tsu's works, and many others. The premises for action are based on tribal behavior, which in a civilized world, we should rise above. Practically speaking, it takes courage and trust and admission that sociopathic tendencies are common place, must be identified, and mitigated.
The itchy trigger finger pulls from weakness, not from strength. We fight the wars of our ancestors for the rich of the world. Neither quality is worth it. Since the beginning of time, our instinct to fall behind leaders full of pugnacious qualities has thwarted humanity.
Indeed, there are clearly places where these leaders need to be stopped. Instinctively, we pull triggers, drop bombs, poison, whatever. There are other ways, principally based on usurping power. Read Gandhi and learn. Sun Tzu was astute, but lived in the context of a warrior.
---- Teach Peace. It's Cheaper Than War.
What I take away from this is that discrimination against cyborgs is a problem in the world. Accordingly, I will refrain from getting any cybernetic replacements until such point that a full-body prosthetic (a la Ghost in the Shell) is available. Because bullies may beat up a wimpy-looking researcher with fancy glasses, but they'll think twice before messing with Batou.
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for nature cannot be fooled." Feynman
Unfortunately they'd retaliate by giving America back to England and apologizing for the whole revolution misunderstanding.
And believe me, nobody wants an English-inspired McDonalds.
Steak 'n kids meal, anyone?
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
They also used to be banned in Turkey. I guess that makes them racist too.
Do you really need to have someone point out there is a forest in front of you when all you can see are trees?
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
Well... It almost is...
He's getting rather old, but he's a good mouse.
Actually, you're not allowed to wear a burqa there *irrespective* of your race, not only if you're an Arab. There's nothing racist about the ban.
Really? Does your brain really work that way such that you can't see the utter hypocrisy in what you just wrote? Here's a clue for you - if they banned wearing a crucfix, that wouldn't be bigoted either since everyone, not just catholics, would not be allowed to wear a crucifix. Or how about the yarmulke? Banning that wouldn't be racist either since it would apply to everyone, not just jews.
Still don't get it? Then the only reasonable conclusion is that you are a bigot.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
Isn't Greylisting a lot more like port-knocking than NAT?
Awesome furniture, accessories and cabinetry in Santa Rosa, CA: http://humanity-home.com/
In either case, they are more competent than the majority of Europe.
Europeans could learn from this if they cared.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
"Islam" is not a race.
It is a Middle Eastern superstitious ideology.
Ideology /= race.
Stop confusing superstition with biology.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
Really? Does your brain really work that way such that you can't see the utter hypocrisy in what you just wrote?
What hypocrisy? Since when is claiming that (a burqa-wearing ban blind to race isn't racism) is hypocrisy, and not a simple statement of a fact?
Here's a clue for you - if they banned wearing a crucfix, that wouldn't be bigoted either since everyone, not just catholics, would not be allowed to wear a crucifix
So true, and the burqa ban isn't bigoted for the same reason, since I'm not allowed to wear it as well. FYI, the crucifix as a religious symbol is banned in the same context that burqa is banned in, namely in public schools ("Loi encadrant, en application du principe de laïcité, le port de signes ou de tenues manifestant une appartenance religieuse dans les écoles, collèges et lycées publics.")
Burqa is additionally banned in public by a *different* law ("Loi interdisant la dissimulation du visage dans l'espace public") as an illegal form of covering your face, which can be used to, e.g., commit crimes while hiding your identity. Allowed forms of covering your face include, e.g., motorbike helmets, which have a distinct technical purpose. Both allowed and illegal face coverings include multiple kinds of items.
Ezekiel 23:20
Is fashion the only thing the French are willing to fight for?
scientists are in general agreement that race has no biological basis.
Not so. Sociological concept of race actually correlates pretty well with certain genetic markers - in other words, there are some which cluster in ways that directly correlate to traits that we commonly identify as "white" and "black" and whatever. Those traits are not necessarily related in any meaningful way - it's just a random aggregation - but you can certainly tell one's race from his genetic markup with high confidence.
I'm not a racist, but I might bring up facts and stats that showcase various racial biases that exist in different fields in real life. If you choose to consider them racist, it makes you racist, not me. Racism is discriminating on the basis of race, not discriminating on the basis of other traits that sometimes happen to correlate with race.
If it's not solving your problem, you're not using enough.
(I kid!)
Don't get confused, I am not being racist
Yes you are.
Technically, just talking about races is not racist. Prejudice + power = racism.
Just because the U.S. is a republic does not mean it is not a democracy. Democracy/republic are not mutually exclusive.
So you'll wait until a major US city is leveled first.
Just because it CAN be done, doesn't mean it should!
Ooh pedant for the fail. Substitute bigot for racist and go drink your milkshake.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
So true, and the burqa ban isn't bigoted for the same reason, since I'm not allowed to wear it as well ... Burqa is additionally banned in public by a *different* law.
Lol, did that red herring taste good? "same reason " != "different law." And, as far as I can tell, the law against religious parphenalia was invalided in the 90s becuse of selective enforcement which let the crucifixes pass.
Burqa is additionally banned in public by a *different* law ("Loi interdisant la dissimulation du visage dans l'espace public") as an illegal form of covering your face, which can be used to, e.g., commit crimes while hiding your identity.
Yes, because there has been such a crime-wave of burkha wearing bandits, it was absolutely necessary to get this law passed right quick.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
Study what Gandhi did when he had power and had to deal with Muslim insurrection. Hint: It wasn't non-violent.
War is competition for limited resources. It has _nothing_ to do with 'tribalism'. Only fools think we are 'past' limited resources.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Got to correct myself : not rue Saint Antoine but rue Saint Honoré
Sounds a big bit more dangerous American city I live in.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
Talk about a subject change!
I find the term "African American" extremely stupid and even offensive, because the same people using the term would not give me the same courtesy and call me "European American" (which would be equally stupid, BUT AT LEAST IT IS EQUAL).
It is 2012. Why is it we still have to invent all these stupid labels? People's ancestry and skin colors have a HUGE variety and it will continue to get more muddled and confused. Case in point- President Obama is neither "black" nor "African American". He is just an American. Isn't that enough? What if a 10th generation "white" South African becomes an American citizen? Is he "African American"? What if a "black" Haitian becomes an American citizen? Is he "African American"? Ignoring ancestry, then at what point in the skin tonal scale does someone magically become "African American"?
If they sort out the banlieues it's probably worth it.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
I forget the exact wording, but it's something like:
Strikes twice as hard the man whose cause is just - yet thrice the one who gets his blow in first.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Good for you, wee laddie. Perhaps one day you'll understand them as deeply as you do the lyrics to Kumbayaa.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
I've studied Gandhi and many, many others. We know, you and I, what Gandhi was about.
War is about greed. "Competition for limited resources" is a weasel expression. In the Afghan war, it was about the need for revenge. In Iraq, it was the need for oil.
Are there justified wars? Yes, of course. But this also has to do with leaders and followers, and the spoils, the power, the dominance. The costs are outrageous. The religious will tell you that their reward is in the next life. They were fooled into believing there was a next life for just this very purpose.
We started this because we were, 3000 years ago, tribes, and today, we are still tribes and behave tribally. We belong to lots of them, whether cheering for a sports team or fawning over the latest operating system release, political party, or new BBQ restaurant. We are animals, and there is a thin line between us and animals called civility. Unless we can stanch the urge to annihilate, we are no better than they are, and given the damage to the planet, far worse.
---- Teach Peace. It's Cheaper Than War.
I know that computers are made of binary logic and that many Slashdotters are in the computer industry, but there is a great distance between Kumbayaa and believing that we're capable of stanching war. It's called a scale, and you put me at one end without even knowing me. That's called prejudice.
You'll be angry now, thinking that I've tried to provoke you. But that's not true, either. It takes a lot of bravery to stand up and say you'll renounce violence and seek peaceful solutions, instead of using your gonads to make your decisions for you. There is every so much strategy out there, skullduggery, and machinations regarding war. We used to have a War Department in the US Presidential Cabinet; we needed a Peace Department. It's cheaper.
---- Teach Peace. It's Cheaper Than War.
Personally I utterly avoid expats from my own country. If they pine for home so much then they can go back there. Problem solved.
You've obviously never been to Paris if you think there are any French people (forgive the oxymoron) there.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
If McDonalds counts as "familiar" then yeah you are a gastronomic philistine.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
News reports that filter to the US based on rioting in Paris. Thought skinheads were restricted to Germany and points east.
Nice to be modded down for a sincere misunderstanding.
Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
I would disagree. You're citing testosterone driven, aggressive behavior which knows no geographic or ethnic bounds. Violence is the choice of idiots.
Actually, it's "Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent." --Salvor Hardin
And don't forget "It's a poor atom blaster that won't point both ways"
"The greatest lesson in life is to know that even fools are right sometimes" - Winston Churchill
Get over yourself, please. Let's see how free and open you are with your body parts when a beat cop decides you might have hidden something in your rectum.
I've lived in Paris. I've also commuted there on a weekly basis. Over two years, total. I'd say he's not far off the truth.
This may or may not tally with the week you spent there on a GCSE student exchange last year. Perhaps if you'd stuck out the whole fortnight instead of crying to go home to mummy you'd have got a less touristic view.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Is his right eye damaged somehow?
His eye is okay. But he's a researcher in device which can be also used to help people with reduced vision.
He's also "eating his own dog food" and actually uses the device he develops.
If not, then how is the doctor's note supposed to explain his use of the device?
The device is surgically fixed to his skull. He can't remove it or shut it down "easily". The only way to remove the device would be using proper tools to carefully unscrew it from its skull-grafted mount points.
He has probably a doctor's note explaining that the mount points are indeed grafted onto his skull, and that the device is securely fixed to them and there's no easy way to remove it.
Also keep in mind that:
- this device is supposed to be used as a viewing aid for people with viewing disabilities. the target audience for this device is people who can't do without it, and it thus makes sense that the device is bolted in place instead of wearable. it's akin to a body prosthetic. it can be removed or put back, but it's not designed to do that on a whim.
- he's been researching such kind of augmentation FOR MORE THAN THE LAST 30 YEARS. He's been spending more than half of his life with this kind of devices. At that point of time, it kind of makes sense that he has mount point surgically grafted onto his skull: you pretty much now he's not suddenly stopping to wear such kind of stuff any time soon.
Also by having it grafted on him, that helps him being able to constantly field test his reasearch project in real world situation. He'll have them constantly on, and he's also testing the permanent mounts that the potential patient will be using one day.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
Even if it was contrary to French law, which I strongly doubt, that doesn't justify them taking the law into their own hands.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
What's that say?
Oh, I give up.
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
How silly.
---- Teach Peace. It's Cheaper Than War.
Well I live in one of the safest cities in the US so I really don't have safety problems where I live but the murder rate in my favorite bar hopping city (Portland, OR) is 4 per 100,000. I've spent more time there than in Paris yet have seen no crimes in Portland which makes me think that murder doesn't necessarily correlate with crimes against tourists or near areas of interest for tourists.
Despite my experiences in Paris I would still tend to agree with you that it's a very safe place to live/visit as long as you know which areas to avoid.
Think globally but act within local variable scope.
Everything past basic shelter and survival calories is greed. Resources (energy, water, land etc) are limited. Attempts to deny these basic facts put you firmly into fantasy land.
Real causes of war are not discussed openly. We are/were in Iraq to fuck with our nominal allies as well as our nominal enemies. You shouldn't expect to hear 're-starting the sunni/shei war will drain blood, energy and money from the Saudi and Yemeni wahabists and the Iranians' on CNN. Getting two enemies to fight each other is as old as the hills.
Finally at least give 'The Art of War' by Machiavelli a skim. (Much of his advice is formulaic and relates only to war at the time, skip that part.) War is never as simple as you make it out to be.
We are still tribal. But we don't fight wars based on tribe. ([ Cartman ] I do hate the 'deadhead' tribe though, they suck. My tribe dances in Mosh pits, not fluttering around like an aquarium weed. [ /Cartman ] I digress.)
Before you can get past being an 'animal' you have to satisfy the animal needs. This is impossible to do for everybody. Animal needs are irrational so that will always be so. Capitalism works because it works with our natural impulses, like greed.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Be pure, be vigilant, behave!
Actually, if the naturals want to win, shouldn't they misbehaving... a lot.. and winning by force of numbers
The only thing the French are good at hosting, is an invasion.
The mind conceives, the body achieves, the spirit manifests.
He wasn't filming, and they didn't ask him to stop - they kicked seven shades of shite out of him.
Well take comfort in the face that only you get to fuck them.
Rest binned unread, just in case stupidity is contagious.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
So unfair generalizations about Americans are wrong but unfair generalizations about Europeans are ok? Yeah, there are some messed up people in Paris, so they represent all Europeans?
He probably had one, but was tired of cleaning up after it.
So the Germans work in factories making Porsches and BMWs and send them Greece where they're bought by people who have never done an honsest day's work in their lives.
When I say "bought", I mean that they pay for them with money borrowed from the Germans, that they then refuse to repay.
Those evil fucking Nazi bastards! What Teutonic cunning came up with the duplicitous plan of giving people stuff for doing nothing? It's 1940 all over again.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
We must continue to disagree. Quality of life is different for different people. Using your simple metric doesn't speak to the issue that humanity has endless curiosity.
Animal needs are entirely rational, and we are animals. We're really deadly, too. Civility requires, even mandates that we find those ways needed for cogent survival. The Prince was a sociopath, just as Ayn Rand is. Capitalism is an expression of value. It doesn't have to be greedy, but it can be. Like most tribes, there are leaders, followers, shamans, and they interact that way today, both wittingly, and unwittingly. It is, who we are.
We can rise above violence. It takes guts and courage and patience and other things that are non-reactive, non-provocative. The rewards can be tremendous. The tensions among Islamic and neo-Islamic, Jewish, Christian, and non-monotheists are going to be pretty high. We can thank the Alewi and others whose philosophies are tolerance. If it weren't for some strong Turks, the eastern Mediterranean and Gulf of Aqaba would run red.
---- Teach Peace. It's Cheaper Than War.
Collectively we humans are a primitive bunch. We can't even handle differences in skin color without inspiring murder and war.
Imagine increasing numbers of privileged people with the resources for self-augmentation actually wandering around with pieces of metal and electronics permanently protruding from their faces (especially hardware that gets in the way of eye contact). I could see a bit of a problem with societal acceptance, especially if there's no way to know if they are recording your interactions with them.
Until such self-augmentation becomes invisible in casual encounters I'd say it's a really bad idea to make them permanent.
I think you just got voted -1, Slashdot moderators don't get satire about French politics.
sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f(q{sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f});
Considering all the campaigning the guy has done about privacy rights, it's totally bizarre that he's recording 24/7, even when he goes to private businesses with a reasonable expectation that you wouldn't be recording. Then when somebody attacks him for it, he mails their photographs and id cards to all the national embassies he can, and posts face-redacted photographs to the internet.
I guess when the shoe's on the other foot, he's actually opposed to privacy rights.
Slashdot: providing anti-social weirdos a soapbox, since 1997.
Since most of the French population is white, then there's a good chance the attackers were white.
Except where it doesn't work that way. This summer in Chicago, IL, ~180 gun deaths so far this year. In a 32% white city, somewhere north of 80% of the victims and perpetrators were black or brown.
We can argue cause (genetics, aftereffect of slavery, social standing, etc.) but what can't be argued are rather black and white statistics showing that blacks are disproportionately victims and perpetrators of various crimes. (This is US, FR may be different.)
Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
Evidence please, references? or just a racist rant?
Well, we do have his post as evidence of his expectations. That seems rather straightforward.
Ignoring ancestry, then at what point in the skin tonal scale does someone magically become "African American"?
You've never heard of the 'paper bag test', have you? (A black coworker told me about it. Get off my ass mods.)
Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
Most of those US murders are drug related. One gang moving in on the territory of another or some such nonsense. Remove those numbers from the equation, and the results are staggeringly better. The odds of a tourist catching a bullet, while not non-zero, are much lower than your statistics indicate.
Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
I've encountered the same behaviour in every single French city I've been to.
That doesn't necessarily mean the problem is them...
Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
I have an animal need to be the alpha male. (To attract females, don't ask me why anybody would want more then one. It's how our minds are wired.) So does everybody else. All these animal needs can't be satisfied at the same time.
Calling aspects of human nature Sociopathic doesn't change them. You can't escape your own inner animal. Resource remain limited. We aren't going to forming 'Internationals' and singing 'Kumbia', ever. Human societies are always competitive as well as cooperative. Pretending there are no winners is foolish, dismissing them all as sociopaths sounds like a religious position.
You have to put Rand in context. She was a child during the Russian revolution and saw Marxism's inescapable flaw play out (concentration of power, same as any planned economy). Government minding it's own business could be a third leg of a mixed economic philosophy (add the principle of 'when in doubt mind your own business' to modern capitalism/welfare state dualism.).
You need to talk to some Greeks/Kurds/Armenians regarding the Turks. They are bastards like the rest of us.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
The glasses are bolted to his skull. Mann cannot remove them. Technically, a prosthetic leg isn't 'medically necessary' either, it's just that a lot of amputees find them more functional (and dignified) than scooting around on the floor.
Do you know what it's called if you grab a guy who is acting like a dick? Assault!
As for taking photographs, what is the threshold there? Is it OK to assault a man using a JORDY
How about those few people using an implant into their visual cortex and a head mounted camera? Shall they be blinded again?
No, it's the supersonic sheep that's in French. But top points anyway! Fetchez la vache!
No, they should apologize to the Kingdom of Great Britain and offer to pull the arrow out of Harold's eye...
Understanding sociopathy is one of my research areas. Gotta call them as I see them. Rand qualifies; it's all about Rand with no remorse for the rest of us. Circumstances can bend you away from humanity; it happens too often. Violence is one of these circumstances. Survivors of violence have trauma that can change them forever. Some were predisposed, others made.
I have no misgivings nor praise for the Turks; but the Alewi broke much ground. Yes, there have been horrible factional genocide attempts against Kurds, Greeks, Albanians, Armenians, Yezidi, and others. The remarkable thing is that Turks aren't really Turks, they're many factions and the Alewi and Sufi-ish like factions took control and bred a forceful tolerance with lots of blood on the way. Ugly way to get there. The effect is: what now remains after horrific struggle is a probable and usable model for Middle Eastern tolerance.
Tolerance is often absent, and the Lebanese version almost succeeded, then failed. The Druze have also been a peaceful factor in the maelstrom of conflicting ideals.
Alpha male is a tribal hold-over. Except for loners, alphas need betas, etc. There is an instinctive component to this. It can be learned, but it's often deeply limbic. And I don't care. We need leaders, but we also need ethics and pride in them. Causal non-violence is something to aspire to. The survivors remember you longer.
---- Teach Peace. It's Cheaper Than War.
I recall the tale of a friend of mine who lived in southern California in the early 80s. He lived a few blocks from one where a mental case shot a bunch of people up.His brother were skinheads who robbed Mexican drug mules and got him hooked on Heroin. His father threw him in rehab, then moved him to Phoenix to get him away from the bad element. Must've worked, he was a methamphetamine addict when I met him. Likely graduated to dead by the late 80s. He was 17, he looked in his 40s.
Yes McDonalds (in large cities),makes me think of drive by shootings, ethnic violence, hard drugs, this is America. What is happenin' at your local McDrugheads tonight? The rest of the time McDonalds is selling garbage to kill the masses and control population worldwide like a responsible, green, Fortune 500 overlords.
Then there's the tales of LSD at the burger clown drive thru, or what you do to waitresses in the walk-in freezer, when there's no customers around...
*Repent!Quit Your Job!Slack Off!The World Ends Tomorrow and You May Die!
The underlying question is why, for the love of all that is good in this world, would you eat at a McDonald's in France?
To have real FRENCH fries of course.
What about the Tour de France?
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
You're imagining a difference where none exists.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
French people are people that have a French passport. So citizenship and ethnicity, yes, but ancestry or culture, no. There is the distinction of "culturally French", meaning needing little time to adjust to French society, for instance coming from the former colonies or the French-speaking part of Belgium.
[QUOTE]USAGE In recent years, the associations of race with the ideologies and theories that grew out of the work of 19th-century anthropologists and physiologists has led to the use of the word race itself becoming problematic. Although still used in general contexts (: race relations,: racial equality), it is now often replaced by other words that are less emotionally charged, such as people(s) or community.[QUOTE]
And as to quote the Argentinian wife of the Dutch Royal heir: "There is no such thing as a Dutch/French/Argentinian identity."
All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. Time to die.
Mann claims that the device stores images in a ring buffer. Unless the device stops working, they'll get overwritten.
Ok, the device got damaged, so he can show some interesting last pictures. It seems to be a reasonable large buffer, with pictures showing the cashier and the incident (even the guy flipping his name tag).
I wonder if there are good algorithms to process several minutes of visual recording in real-time in order to enhance the user's current vision? Like identifying/tracking persons or SLAM?
Then do explain to me why I never run into problems like that anywhere else?
Seriously, one would think that putting a McDonald's in Paris would constitute an assault all by itself.
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
Try reading my comment next time rather than assuming the first random comment that pops into your mind is apropos (hint: I chose my words quite carefully).
Perhaps the food served in McDonalds US, France, Canada is different to that in New Zealand. Here it's pretty damned nice. The people who rag on McDonalds here are generally hipsters who don't like anything "mainstream", or vegans.
"Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
Lebanese also speak french and come to France...
120 characters ought to be enough for anyone
You know what this would lead to, that the Danes would like to have a word about who are the rightful owners of England.
What the hell. Anyone one would travel the world, choose to give their children an opportunity to learn Parisian french and would then choose to go to a Mc Donalds, in Paris, in France, the home of gastromomy deserves to get smacked upside the head. geez.
Quite true, Paris has wonderful places to eat. However the problem was that he was smacked upside the head for the wrong reason and by the wrong people.
Also McDonalds should not employ thugs, or allow any of its franchise's to do so. That is seriously bad for the company image.
I'm reminded of this picture: http://im.glogster.com/media/13/41/16/62/41166214.jpg
You have that wrong. A racist is anyone who states or in any way implies that all races are not identical. The truth value of any statements made by the supposed racist have nothing to do with it. See the endless flame war on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_and_intelligence for more information.
Racism has a very low burden of proof because essentially everyone is guilty, it is also a very serious crime. That makes it a convenient tool to attack people with even when race has nothing to do with the situation.
This story is about thugs who work for McDonalds assulting customers. Race really isn't involved anywhere.
In Germany it's fairly obvious that the economists are right: McD's and BK's business concepts revolve not around being cheap or good but around being ubiquitous. Subway, kebab shops and Chinese takeaway shops (to name common options in Germany) are all usually better and the latter two are also cheaper. But wherever you are there's always a McD or a BK nearby.
And so you pay five bucks for a not very Big Mac that's virtually taste-free even with salt and pepper, some mediocre fries and a coke while the same money could've bought you a tastier doner kebab where the salad component alone packs more nutrients than the entire McD offering. Plus the same coke. Of course it depends on whether you like cacik.
A German public-service TV station recently did a little report where they had test persons exclusively eat at one certain kind of restaurant for... a month, I think. The guy who went to the burger chain ended up paying the most and being the least enthusiastic about his next meal while the guy who went to eat Chinese every day paid comparatively little and was much less apprehensive.
This matches up with my experience: My workplace lies next to a small mall that has most of the above options plus two bakeries. Generally speaking the Chinese is cheap and okay, the doner stall is slightly more expensive and good, the bakeries are again slightly more expensive but are great if you don't mind a cold dinner and the BK is utterly bland and almost twice as expensive as the Chinese. It also has the distinction of keeping you sated for the shortest amount of time.
No matter what the ads say, the big burger chains don't even try to compete on quality or price. At least not anywhere I've ever been.
USE HOT GRITS WITH STATUE OF NATALIE PORTMAN (NAKED AND PETRIFIED)
It is not necessary to know the backgrounds or the ethnicity, it would be nice to know the addresses though, in case one needed a victim when abroad.
Ummm, the address is right there in the article. Perhaps you need to augment your vision.
Or just stay out of Europe. In case you've not seen the news lately, the EU is turning into a pretty violent place with citizens attacking police & vice versa.
No kidding.. I'd say that the EU is self-destructing.. from the inside..
Well, yeah, saying some *group* is "all like" something-or-other is pretty much the definition of "bigoted". Most especially a group people are born into rather than self-selecting; at least MENSA people mostly *are* smart.
Yeah, the irony that Germany seems to be annexing Europe due to an economic disaster caused by a global conspiracy amongst bankers is amusing.
...sometimes, in order to hurt someone very badly, you have to tell that person terrible lies. - PA
Hey it is the "permanently attached and does not come off my skull..." part that I would be worried about.
let them at it, after that the teeps just have to clean up and take over, sounds like a plan
Free speech was meant to be free for all... how can anyone grow up in a nanny state ?
Your post is rated "Funny", but I fear that it has te ring of truth to it. Maybe a lot more than you realize
Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that.
...and have no truck with the alien too!
-- Cisk for the Cisk God
This is a message directed to Steven Mann:
In the article u asked: "I don't have the resources to take on a branch of a large multi-national corporation operating in a distant country, but I could use some help and advice as to how to resolve this matter, how to ensure it doesn't happen again to me or anyone else wearing Eye Glass"
You need to sue McDonalds if you want to ensure the safety of future consumers. It is your responsibility to contact a lawyer who is willing to make them pay financially for this act of prejudice. No change will occur unless you do something to make them notice. McDonalds will only notice if a significant amount of profit is taken from them.
Even if you do not wish to be personally compensated for this public assult, you still need to find a lawyer who is willing to take money from McDonalds in order to have them notice. If you dont do this, nothing will happen and prejudicial treatment and possibly assult will occur to others less strong then you.
Please step up and make a difference. Contact a lawyer. It is not bad or evil thing to make them pay for this. This behaviour needs to change and McDonalds has no business defending such behaviour at any of their establishments.
A policy that requires no cameras in an establishment cannot be enforced due to the previlence of cell phones. I do not think they have a requirement that no cell phones are allowed to be used within McDonalds... how could they? The demographic is too large. Simply because you stood out as "different" they treated you differently then the thousands of others who take photos with cell phones and are not so obvious. They should have called the police to remove you from the estabilishment since they had already taken your money as a customer while the camera was in full site and the employees were already aware of its usage. To take ur money and then refuse to provide you with the opportunity to eat the food is not fullfilling the contract you estabilished when u gave them the money and they provided the food.
Well Im not a lawyer, but I think this is something for which they are totally liable. They damaged your equipment so it will be apparent that physical force was used. You have their pictures and location so the parties involved can be held accountable. They destroyed personal property including a note from a doctor.
I believe u have a case and if so it should be easy to find a lawyer to assist you in holding McDonalds financially responsible for damages. Please do the right thing here and contact a lawyer about suing McDonalds in general and this establishment and the employees who assulted you.
But it's not a real McDonalds it's just some franchise with the name over the door. Is this the normal experience for McDonalds customers? I've never been to one myself, but it doesn't make me want to try it.
Most McDonalds are francised I believe. Wikipedia states that only 15% are owned by McDonalds corporate. So what exactly are u saying? That you should only expect quality service 15% of the time and the other times you should be treated in random and prejudice ways?
I cannot believe the number of people who are choosing not to hold the restaraunt liable for this. The way he was treated was wrong and the way they handled it was wrong. The establishment took his money in a contract of sale. They could have refused him service since they already had knowledge of the device and its purpose. Instead they took his money and subsequently treated him as if he was not a welcome customer. It doesnt matter whether one guy said it was ok to be a customer and later some other employees decided it was not ok. They should have called the police instead of taking physical action on an established customer after the contract of sale was completed. They should be held fully accountable and forced to answer for this rediculous rule about cameras and how they enforce it. From the tone of most replies here, I tend to think this article is being replied to by McDonalds staff.
Mr Mann should sue mcdonalds. Even if Mr Mann only wants to be rembused for physical damages I should hope that some lawyer will put a significant financial dent in this establishment and mcdonalds corporate. Even if he doesnt do this for himself, he should do this for others after him. This is a stupid policy and even stupider enforcement. McDonalds will only recognize this when it costs them money. Please sue this establishment, those employees and mcdonalds. It is the right thing to do.
Well well, isn't someone the white supremacist? AKA douche.
Ello, ello, ello, ello white America assassinate my characta.
Although the French attacking McDonald'sis a nice thought, eventually they'd lose the war and we'd have to bail them out...again.
On the other hand, we only have one side of the story - it appears they are rather sensitive to anything that looks like a camera, but where would that stop? Ordinary glasses? Hearing aids? Walking sticks OK?
It should stop at damaging ones personal property for no reason. Mann handed them a note written by a doctor. What possible reason would there be to rip it up? It seems like pure intimidation by staff acting like security without any training on how to do it. If I were a judge, this would be enough to cause me to believe that the staff were not treating Mann fairly in their attempt to eject him from the premises. They really should have just stuck to physically removing him from the restaraunt instead of damaging his personal property for no reason except to inflame the situation.
Also, the restaraunt could have refused to take his money and conduct business with him while the unit was attached. Instead the staff choose to take his money and provide him with food in a contract of sale. Its unlikely that the sales agent didnt notice his prostetic. The contract of sale could have been refused, but it was accepted. So the subsequent ejection appears to be a breach of contract. Especially since ever mcdonalds I ever went to asks whether the food is "to go". If such a question is usually asked of each customer, then it will be difficult to defend the subsequent actions by staff.
only 15% of mcdonalds restraunts are owned by mcdonalds corporate. Are u suggesting that 85% of the restraunts are "not real" and that we can expect "random ejections" most of the time?
In the article, he posts images from what seems to be very far back in his narrative of events. He shows the 'Possible Witnesses' as he described them well before his assault. If his visual system only stored images after or as it was damaged, I could accept images of the attackers themselves.
This whole story seems to be missing something.
Maybe ur right. Maybe the device records all the time. So what. They can not have known either way. Wat we do know is that mcdonalds took his money while wearing it. We know that after mcdonalds had his money that the same device was such a problem that he had to leave. You cannot deny that money was taken from MrMann and that this money could have been refused prior to the assult.
..... I do not need to be tracked by any person with digital eye glasses. How do I know what they record and what they do with it..... I say digital head mount glasses should be banned in general since it is an intrusion on privacy for all those who walk on the street!
I say... all people that wear Google glasses or any other like device should be sentenced to death for ignorance and being an idiot!
Yes, there should be a ban on cell phone usage in public. Cell phones should only be used at home where the camera is safely pointed away from my children. I just know all those people "talking" on the phones are really recording my kids and digitally pasting their faces to make kiddie porn. When will citizens realize that everyone deserves privacy while in public? Its self evident that people who take pictures in public are sickos. But the worst offenders are businesses with their so called "security cameras" pointed out into the storefront sidewalks and streets. You just know they are doing all kinds of horrible things with the video they collect 24/7. When will public space be private again? When will our children be safe?
Pray for Mojo
Stranglehold meaning they "hasnt managed to run their economy into the ground yet", of course.
. I appreciate that in the US "Oriental" isn't PC
Im not sure that its "in the US" that its not PC; ive heard from folks who live there (as well as folks who are themselves Chinese) that the term is indeed insulting, on the level of calling a Scotsman Irish.
I'm saying I don't go there.
Korma: Good
Or just stay out of Europe. In case you've not seen the news lately, the EU is turning into a pretty violent place with citizens attacking police & vice versa.
I heard the US is full of mad people with big guns who keep going to McDonald's and make the larger carnagge ever.
There, are we done with stupid stereotypes? Or should we Europeans continue counter-attacking with the stupid lost American tourist?
Only on slashdot - stupid and desperately misinformed stereotypes modded 5 insightful.
Incorrect. Americans were the only group of people to nearly wipe out an entire indigenous ethnic group. In colonial africa they were merely suppressed. And to bring an ethnic group to the brink of extinction in a land mass the size of north america is quite a feat.
My favourite French expression. Haven't met a French person who gets it though.
Slashdot: Where nerds gather to pool their ignorance
Yes. Yes, it is. You can't set up a device to break the law somehow (the clasical example is the booby trap) and then claim that it's not your fault because someone else triggered it. Arguably, because it was already recording images, it was already breaking the law. That it's just a "buffer" may or may not be relevant.
You are not allowed to bring dogs into some public (and private) facilities. But if you are visually impaired, there's a exception for you.
Anyway, your interpretation for "recording" can be challenged. What's a recording? If instead of storing the temporary images, they were kept in RAM, that's recording too? If so, these new laser prostectics will render the users locked in home!
Lisias@Earth.SolarSystem.OrionArm.MilkyWay.Local.Virgo.Universe.org
Culture indeed, us Northern European/White folk are more reserved and tend to err on the side of being non confrontational and/or apologising when things weren't even their fault (especially us english). Arabs and Africans tend to be direct and to the point, which isn't to say they're Aggressive, quite frankly I prefer it, the western Passive-Aggressive society in which I've been raised is in my opinion illogical (captain).
So yeah, when a bunch of Arabs start yelling at you and you're used to the White approach of the manager having a word with you off to the side you're going to get a culture shock.
If you don't risk failure you don't risk success.
Personal home ADDRESSES,plural, perhaps you should give your vision augmenters a bit of a wipe.
*Repent!Quit Your Job!Slack Off!The World Ends Tomorrow and You May Die!
There is actually a traditional french solution to this problem : Burn down McDonalds.
Oh! I thought that it would be more appropriate to cut off their heads!
Aside from a proclivity to fart in my direction, what is so disgusting about French men?
They feared that it could be used to suppress protest or support unpopular rule.
Statistically most Americans do come across as "dumb" or "ignorant" to other countries. For whatever reason most Americans seem to be very uneducated about the rest of the world. I am not saying Americans are less intelligent, just uneducated about other countries compared to European's, Canadian's, etc. Plus being the only country in the world still clinging to an antiquated Standard Measurement system doesn't help, lol.
Are you implying that France has any obligation in regards to US law? I genuinely don't understand your point.
Sorry, EU law. Not sure why I wrote US (though I think the US does have laws against that too). Technically I think it might be something that the European Court of Human Rights would deal with rather than the EU itself, but signing up for that is a mandatory part of EU membership.
Typo. I actually meant to write EU there. The EU's human rights framework is actually stricter on human rights in some ways than the US constitution, and anti-discrimination law is one of them. (They're not nearly as rigid about free speech as the US' First Amendment is though.)
I don't know Mann, of course, but I wonder if it wasn't enough to ask him to leave?
Normal adverse customer handling starts with a polite request to address whatever is causing the adversity, followed by a request to leave if the desired correction is not forthcoming. AFAIK, only if you follow that process you are in a sensible legal position - but I am unaware of any situation where subsequent use of violence is permitted (I don't think you can call the events just physical removal - damage occurred).
Your point of accepting his money is a good one - at that point it is reasonable to assume there was no adversity, which then sets the handling by a subset of staff apart as possible personal assault.
Not that it matters much if the police isn't even remotely interested.. That is a very corrosive thing to happen to any society.
Insert
the singularity is upon us!!
Transiently implies that the image data would fade/dissapear passively over time. No, the images are written into a (circular) buffer for processing. The images he takes would not dissapear unless they were over-written by subsequent images.
No, you're being too narrow. Transient only means that in the context of physics or math. In English it simply means temporary, and a circular buffer is exactly what I meant when I used the term. No semantic games please.
Also, you have no insight on how his device actually works. Your statement also shows a complete lack of understanding of how digital image/signal processing work.
Wrong again. I'm a senior software developer for a company that builds medical image processing software. I am intimately familiar with both digital imaging and signal processing. You need to be careful about your assumptions.
How can you assert that the device was clearly running fine after the initial impact. It could have loosened some pins or wires to the power supply, causing juice to drain out slowly, but still allowing the data acquisition part of the device to collect more data.
Perhaps "fine" was a too ambiguous, but this is exactly my point, the device was still running and did not come to a "hard stop". In his post he makes it sound like the latter situation occurred, which it clearly did not. I could understand how recording could be called accidental if the device suffered a complete failure, and later he went in and retrieved the photos from the circular buffer. However, this is obviously NOT the case because many of the photos are from *after* when the impact to the device occurred, if the above "circular buffer" scenario were the correct one, it would only have images from *before* the impact.
The scenario you suggest is, I believe, precisely what actually happened. If so, then the recording cannot be construed as "accidental". If the damage was minor (e.g. loose cable disconnecting data acquisition from data processing as you suggest), and the system records images in this condition for later retrieval - THEN IT HAD TO HAVE BEEN DESIGNED THAT WAY. Since he designed the system, he would have known that it would be recording after the impact. As such, he cannot claim that the images were captured accidentally. It was entirely deliberate and intentional on his part because he DESIGNED THE SYSTEM TO DO SO. In this circumstance, most systems I have ever seen with a similar feature will record the images to a more permanent backup location until connection to the data processor is restored. They certainly *don't* record them to the transient circular buffer used for processing during normal functioning.
Now, that is actually funny! 8-)
I've got a better idea: just avoid McDonalds.
Look into the ties between American and British banking, and you might decide that the word "back" is inappropriate.
Orwell: "In a Time of Universal Deceit, telling the Truth is a Revolutionary Act"
So the Germans work in factories making Porsches and BMWs and send them Greece where they're bought by people who have never done an honsest day's work in their lives.
When I say "bought", I mean that they pay for them with money borrowed from the Germans, that they then refuse to repay.
Those evil fucking Nazi bastards! What Teutonic cunning came up with the duplicitous plan of giving people stuff for doing nothing? It's 1940 all over again.
You have no idea what you are talking about
you gotta let the insults slide. If every dumbass stereotype on Slashdot gets you upset, you'll either have to stop reading, or be upset all the time.
"Competition for limited resources" is a weasel expression.
...until those resources start running low.
It's easy to preach 'peace at all costs' with a full belly and from a warm armchair.
A quick mental peek at history pulls up the Maya: self-annihilated by civil war thanks to a long drought, which in turn cut short the amount of food and clean water they needed to survive in the numbers they had when it began.
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
Not if our government keeps bending over when the other EU states scream for bailout money. A few more years of that, and Germany will be as bankrupt as Greece. That will be the end of German economic domination in the EU.
A disgruntled German who really dislikes his government's policy of trying to keep the Euro intact at all costs :-(
C - the footgun of programming languages
Yes, because the locals would be known, so they hire traveling Canadians to spy on their behalf.
Learn to love Alaska
2012-07-17
2012-07-29
You must be some sort of slashdot archaeologist.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
The official definition in the US is you are what you claim to be. Given 5th generation white South Africans may identify as European, I'd say that there's no issue in the Politically Correct world (a world created by the non-PC people to make fun of those who told them they can't call blacks niggers anymore).
Learn to love Alaska
Have you ever been in a McDonald's in Paris? It's filled with locals. Apparently, they think it better than the local fare.
Learn to love Alaska
Nah, just a full time worker with 2 children. I get around to Slashdot on the weekends, often reading last weeks stories for the first time on a Saturday or Sunday, or the one following.
Learn to love Alaska