Slashdot Mirror
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
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.
It is for those that want the extra special TSA experience.
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!
"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:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
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?
Don't get confused, I am not being racist
Yes you are.
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!
yes, this is probably fake, why didnt he went to the police and press charge? Why didnt he called the police and identified those persons? bullshit, this is
From the article:
I also contacted the Embassy, Consulate, Police, etc., without much luck.
Him being a foreigner, I'm frankly not too surprised that the police were not helpful.
He tried to order a Quarter Pounder with cheese and refused to call it a Royale with cheese.
Clearly it was his own fault...
Can't believe some of the comments so far. This guy has been strapping computers to his body for 34 years, by his own count. He's been on slashdot many times in the past, and had run-ins with airport security a couple of times before:
http://it.slashdot.org/story/02/03/14/2051228/airport-security-vs-cyborg-steve-mann
http://hardware.slashdot.org/story/01/10/05/2237200/a-computer-display-in-ordinary-sunglasses
http://linux.slashdot.org/story/00/08/08/1256229/more-on-the-linux-wrist-watch
So it's very unlikely to be a fake. According to the article, he's contacted the police and Mcdonalds' with out any response. Based on his past experience with these types of situations, I think he knows exactly what he is doing in seeking some publicity.
Well, he's doing research on becoming a cyborg. The Borg didn't take off their gear before going to bed, and I can see how it just wouldn't be realistic if you could take your augmentations off whenever you wanted. And after all, glasses with built-in screens have been available for years now, so he would be rather behind the curve if he was simply wearing them occasionally.
I seem to recall a story about Steve Mann from many years ago (but can't find it any more), where he similarly bumped into society's expectations of what a human is supposed to be. He was refused entry to an airplane unless he turned off his wearable computer. He at least initially refused, arguing that since there was a heart monitor connected to it, turning it off could result in him having an undetected heart issue, so that turning it off meant risking his life.
It's not quite the same as here, as there were probably very valid safety grounds in that case, but it does show that the idea that a computer can be part of a person is still alien to us. At the same time, we are moving closer all the time to that scene in Accelerando where Manfred Macx is robbed of his computer and barely knows who he is anymore. Interesting times, and as you said, kudos to dr. Mann for pushing the envelope.
Assuming the blog post was indeed written by the real Steve Mann, a guy who has been doing this wearable computing stuff for a while, I think we can trust that it's true. (And if he didn't write it, I would expect to hear something from him, saying that it's a fake.)
It's also not his first altercation related to his wearable stuff. See, for example, this Slashdot story from 2002.
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.
Slashdot social media options: AIM, ICQ, Yahoo, Jabber and Mobile Text. Why no MySpace?
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).
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.
Well He's been doing this "digital eye glass stuff" for over 15 years now, and invented Wearable computing. you know those professors gotta get their faces in the news! Damn attention whores!
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
If someone physically is present in Paris and still goes to McDonalds to get his meal, then he deservers to be assaulted :)
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.
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.
Just pointing out, what he in fact says is As McDonand's does not publish any direct contact email information,. The page you link to contains no email information. He also says I tried on many occasions to contact McDonald's but have not received any response and details attempting to call their US 800 line.
On the whole, I find that I prefer Slashdot posts to twitter ones because I don't get limited to 140 chars before
How could he not order a Royale with Cheese?
http://michaelsmith.id.au
Dashboard cameras in cars do the same thing - if there's an impact then they save the current video clip and do not overwrite it. Not so difficult to do.
Never email donotemail@WeAreSpammers.com
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.
McDonald's France is mostly a branding entity, and that the restaurants themselves are franchised. Most of the restaurants are small limited-liability, self-owned enterprises that lease out the brand, inner organization + recipes, and general appearance. They do have a deep, continued relationship with the brand itself, through the regular auditing, the training of employees and the management courses provided along with the branding. The branding entity does own some corporate restaurants, and apparently the Champs Elysées venue is among them, so this contact information may not be useless in this particular case.
As a side-note, a simple web search turned out this french newspaper article about the director of this particular restaurant, Khader Aissani, who happens to look closely like the "perpetrator 1" identified in the original article's photos.
Maybe we deserve this world ?
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
There's this thing you can do where you print the content of your email on a piece of paper and put it inside a thing called an envelope. If you then write the address in the parent's link on the outside of the envelope and give it to your local postal company, for a small fee they will have it transported to the address you have written on the envelope.
If this guy was serious, he'd have done that as well as writing the emails.
I notice there's also a published telephone number. He could also have tried that, but he'd probably need good French to make that work.
All I want is a secure system where it's easy to do anything I want. Is that too much to ask ~~ Randall Munroe
And based on my past experience, as a french citizen, of being assaulted and turning to the Police for help, I find his claims of getting no useful response completely realistic and plausible.
However, once this incident becomes more widely known in french-language blogs and media, it'll quickly attract a lot of attention and will probably elicit an official (outraged) reaction of McDonald's France, and maybe cause a few interviews of politicians trying to look like they're concerned. That's how it works here.
Maybe we deserve this world ?
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
Not directly, I just happened to have read that story earlier in the day (I'm British myself) and was reminded of it by this case where, apparently, the police also weren't very interested. I would like to think that the police in general, whether in Paris or London, would investigate this sort of thing when there's some evidence to go on, but clearly that doesn't necessarily happen - and so their supposed lack of response here doesn't seem as out-of-place as I'd like it to be, since there has been some discussion over whether the story sounded legitimate.
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
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.
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
So, if Gates or Linus were to write something like this, you would say that it was untrue and slanderous? Because Dr. Mann is well known in his field. This man did not attach a perm. eye piece to his head just to cause some nutjobs to attack him so that he could NICELY try to deal with this. And yes, I would say that he is dealing nicely with it.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
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.
And it's on: famous french blogger Maitre Eolas relayed the news much earlier this morning (does the guy even sleep ?), which then was picked up by L'Express (national newspaper) half an hour ago. It will be all over french social networks for the next couple days. Apparently the restaurant is not owned by McDonald's, it is a franchise owned by the limited-liability society Elyrest.
Maybe we deserve this world ?
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
" 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".
But now, with this incident, he can really claim that he is on the bleeding edge of technology.
What? Too soon?
WARNING: Smartphones have side effects--most of them undocumented.
I completely agree with this assessment. I'm not French and I've never even been to France, but I saw 'Taken' starring Liam Neeson and the french police are total useless twats. You really have to take things into your own hands and kung-fu some bitches.
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
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!
For the local police it is a hassle and a insuficiently documented event, it would be the same in about any country.
The only way to progress (unfortunatelly) is to contact a local lawyer, or the local Bar association http://www.avocatparis.org/
And come back with the lawyer, explain that you want to sue for :
- damage
- discrimination (a latter to the HALDE) (the anti discrimination authority in France)
- moral pain
Seek cost of trial + damage + punitive damage, let's say (since it's not quite as expensive in France) 100 000 €
And the answer will be quite different.
And it has nothing to do with France as such but everything with the mindset an international Franchise breeds in the loosers who have to work for them.
The "Garçons" in a local Brasserie might be haughty and unhelpful, they might speak no or little english, but they couldn't care less if you have a gizmo on your head or not, they are not afraid you will "copy" the "secrets" on the price list, or maybe focus on dirt and make a film "exposé" for the media.
Moreover going to a mac donald in France is really not a very good idea, but the one on the champs élysé is one of the worst (he could also go to the one on "rue de flandre" chances are that the level of inteligence is similar, at least it had a similar reputation a couple of years back).
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 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?"
You know, I hear this crap all the time. I spent a week in Paris and never met a single person who was anything less than polite. We even went to one small restaraunt where they didn't have any English menus, and the owner sat down at our table and went over the menu with us, translating about 30 different items into English the best he could. Time and again, we were helped by person after person who were nothing but polite. I suspect that if there is a problem, it is instigated by cocky foreigners who make no attempt to show respect and fit in. When I went, I don't speak french, but I learned 15-20 common words and phrases so that I could communicate basic needs with people who only speak french. It turned out that was almost entirely unnecessary, but I used them when I could anyway. I suspect it went a long way towards showing them some respect and that I wasn't just some cocky American there to be catered to while making jokes about the french.
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
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.
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...
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)
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)
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?
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
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.
You could have bothered to read the article, you know:
The computerized eyeglass processes imagery using Augmediated Reality, in order to help the wearer see better, and 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, and are not overwritten with new ones by the then non-functioning computer vision system.
As a result of Perpetrator 1's actions, therefore images that would not have otherwise been captured were captured. Therefore by damaging the Eye Glass, Perpetrator 1 photographed himself and others within McDonalds.
You're correct in that a wearable device could be saving pictures without your knowledge, but the discussion is one of policy and based on a hypothetical that has not occurred: he did not intentionally save any images. Your particular outrage at the victim here is misplaced.
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
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.
Huh, remind me to never visit the UK. No wonder muggings happen so much there. Here in the US we carry handguns. If you mug somebody, you get shot in self defense.
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
Also based on my experience as a French citizen, I want to share that France is deeply culturally conservative. It is extremely frowned upon to deviate from the norm. To give you an idea, I once wore, for fun, a Fedora at my high-school in Paris. I had rocks thrown at me for that.
\u262D = \u5350
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"
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.
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
Mon aéroglisseur est plein d'anguilles.
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."