6 ms·

I find it really hard to believe that Steve Mann would have some kind of medical condition that would lead a normal Dr. to prescribe that Steve Mann wears the c

• potatolicious 14y ago
  From the post: > "I tried on many occasions to contact McDonald's but have not received any response." > "I also contacted the Embassy, Consulate, Police, etc., without much luck." IMO going to the court of public opinion is acceptable when nobody who should be dealing with the issue is actually doing so. This is practically why we have modern media, blogosphere or otherwise.
  • Zenst 14y ago
    Not good is it, quick google yeilds this site: http://www.contact-the-ceo.com/mcdonalds.html http://www.contact-the-ceo.com/mcdonalds.html Which highlights how he can be contacted though has no email address, but that is: jim.skinner@us.mcd.com
• reso 14y ago
  I think he's well within reason. If you were assaulted by a cashier at McDonald's, would you just ignore it and continue on? I'm pretty sure I would try and get the perpetrators fired and possibly charged, and have the company pay for any damages to my property.
  • heyrhett 14y ago
    I agree, he is well within reason to get a lawyer and sue the pants off of McDonald's in civil court if his case is accurate as he describes it. He's not asking for that though. What he basically wants is a public apology and for McDonald's to FIX his glasses. This is laughable. Notice how all aspects of this story point to how awesome his glasses are: "they help with a medical condition", "having them fixed is more important than money", "they saved photos of a crime, even after they were broken"...
    • ktizo 14y ago
      You are completely misreading him, as far as I can tell. He says: I'm not seeking to be awarded money. I just want my Glass fixed, and it would also be nice if McDonald's would see fit to support vision research. Which means in any sane interpretation to be that he wants McDonalds to pay for whatever it costs to repair or replace his property, but he is not seeking punitive damages for the assault, he just wants his glasses fixed. And he thinks it would be nice if McDonalds made a gesture of donating something to vision research, to show they are actually sorry.
    • polyfractal 14y ago
      Agreed. This should be handled by lawyers and law enforcement. Not by panhandling to the internet about how awesome your technology is. For the record, I totally love his research. When Google Glass debuted I said aloud "Wow! It's Steve Mann's EyeTap!".
      • coolie15 14y ago
        We should all be thankful that it wasn't Steve Mann's EyeTrap design.
      • petitmiam 14y ago
        "I also contacted the Embassy, Consulate, Police, etc., without much luck." He said he already tried getting law enforcement involved. Maybe he plans to use lawyers as a last ditch effort, if his internet plea doesn't work? I would think it's a bit extreme to involve them first before trying to just settle things with McDonalds directly.
• alex_c 14y ago
  The doctor's note is presumably to explain that the glasses cannot be removed easily and are actually implanted in him. A few years back he had airport security physically pull out wires out of him. http://www.nytimes.com/2002/03/14/technology/circuits/14MANN.html http://www.nytimes.com/2002/03/14/technology/circuits/14MANN... (apparently "a few years back" is 10 years ago. Yikes.) Edit: a link to an old (1997) article about his glasses: http://www.wearcam.org/ieeecomputer/r2025.htm http://www.wearcam.org/ieeecomputer/r2025.htm
  • TazeTSchnitzel 14y ago
    Wow, that's dreadful. Having security guards rip electrodes off someone's skull making them bleed is no way to treat somebody.
    • gcb 14y ago
      you say that until some terrorist screw a bomb to his head and kill YOUR CHILDREN!!!!1!!
      • writetoalok 14y ago
        calm down, more people have been killed on roads than due to terrorism.
        • vertr 14y ago
          That comment was clearly sarcasm.
          • gcb 14y ago
            And i thought leaving the 1 among the !s was overkill here on HN... Little do i know.
        • Tuna-Fish 14y ago
          I'd like to point out that this is a huge understatement. Roughly 10 times more people are killed on the roads in each year than have died as a result of terrorism on us soil (or us airplanes) in the past 50 years.
• AsylumWarden 14y ago
  I don't see in the article where the writer claimed there was a prescription involved. Just documentation that probably described things like what the purpose of the glasses was, how they were physically attached to his skull (that might require a note from a normal dr. perhaps?) At any rate, in a foreign country I would imagine it is a good idea to carry plenty of documentation for an augmentation like this just as with one's controlled medications. My two cents, I am sure he is on the level and definitely deserves some sort of acknowledgement and perhaps an apology from McD's.
• waiwai933 14y ago
  > I find it really hard to believe that Steve Mann would have some kind of medical condition that would lead a normal Dr. to prescribe that Steve Mann wears the computer vision glasses that Steve Mann invented. Not necessarily as huge a coincidence as you seem to think. If Steve Mann has a medical condition that is not easily rectified by existing technology, and assuming Steve Mann is reasonably intelligent, then it's no stretch of imagination that he might be compelled to do research on something that personally impacts him. Since he's a professor at the University of Toronto, I don't find it hard to believe that he is reasonably intelligent, and so this is not necessarily so hard to believe. But on a second reading, it doesn't seem like he even necessarily has a medical condition. He refers to a doctor's letter which is for explanatory purpose. Since this device is apparently permanently attached to the skull, no doubt a doctor was involved at some point. In other words, Dr. Mann has done research into augmented vision, created a device, and had the device installed onto himself. While potentially risky, we all know people do far crazier things. Which isn't to say that this isn't a media attention grab, but it's not as farfetched as you make out.
  • rprasad 14y ago
    True, but the crux of the matter is that no doctor would prescribe such a device.
    • incongruity 14y ago
      Maybe, maybe not (I'm not a doctor and don't want to speculate) but they would absolutely write a letter to document/certify a visual disability and describe potential accommodations that might be used.
    • sophacles 14y ago
      That is prima facia absurdity. It's like saying "no doctor would just prescribe pain killers without checking for addiction signs", yet it happens all the time. There is a phrase for it - doctor shopping. How hard is it to believe some techie doctor would allow, or formalize a guy doing potentially important research on himself, particularly if it is presented well by a competent scientist.
• ktizo 14y ago
  He is one of the most major researchers of this kind of device that does have direct and obvious applications for all sorts of forms of visual disability, and he is also one of the major long term voluntary scientific test subjects for it. Of course he carries a doctors note for the device, given a major part of the intention is intended as long term-medical research. As for the demand for money to pay for the cost of replacement, it is hardly a fantasy given that this is probably their liability and they clearly can afford it.
• pg 14y ago
  This explanation is so uncharitable it crosses over into implausible. It's not "the easy part" to get random McDonald's employees to behave as extremely as this.
  • ktizo 14y ago
    confused security + non-compliance = being hit
  • pbhjpbhj 14y ago
    Well if McD have a policy of not allowing photography of their staff in their outlets then it's easy. McD worker: "sorry sir you can't take pictures or video of our staff" person with recording device: "I'm not taking any pictures this is a medical device" worker: "it looks rather like a Google glass recording device; you were recording the servers at the counter just now weren't you, I'm afraid you'll have to leave" person: "no I won't I'm not recording anything these are just my glasses, see I have a doctor's note" [passes note carefully made to look fake but actually having real content] worker: "sorry, please leave" [attempts to remove what he believes to be Google glass device as the person moves towards him aggressively] It probably didn't go down like that but why is it such a stretch to believe it did?
    • pavedwalden 14y ago
      Don't forget the part where they rip up his papers. That's pretty out of line.
    • chris_wot 14y ago
      The point you got wrong was the last one. Instead if removing clothing, call the police.
    • Karunamon 14y ago
      Well the first problem there is putting your hands on another person. In America that's begging for at least law hilarity if not worse. Oh, and not to mention they tore his paperwork up.
• user49598 14y ago
  If you developed a solution to your own medical problem, why wouldn't you get a prescription for it? The prescription gives you the right to use it. It's a bare website (not a blog post) with nothing but a story and some contact information. If you know of a way to make this not "smell of one of the oldest ways..." do let us know. Obviously we need to keep that in mind, but you're talking about the difference between one man's photographically documented account of an event and a theoretical response form a multi-national fast food chain's Public Relations team. He is coming to the internet because he can't get his case handled in the way he wants to. Obviously they aren't qualified to fix his glasses and that was a cheeky way of saying he wants them to pay for it. All in all, he is a respectable human, who has compelling evidence of assault, who has not gotten the justice he thinks he deserves. Would you like him to give up?
• ChuckMcM 14y ago
  What I don't understand why clearly things have been manually blacked out (or whited out in this case). Why not show their face? I agree this story smells in a dozen different ways. Rather than the mafia I'm wondering if Steve Mann is perhaps seeking to establish some documentation in order to assert IP rights against a very wealthy company which has made very public announcements about glasses that augment your vision and take pictures of what you see. For that reason I think we'll see more on this story.
  • Jach 14y ago
    > …I'm wondering if Steve Mann is perhaps seeking to establish some documentation in order to assert IP rights… This is the most ridiculous thing I've seen on this page yet. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Mann http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Mann http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache%3Aeyetap.org%2Fpublications%2Findex.html&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8 http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache%3Aeyeta...
    • ChuckMcM 14y ago
      Your argument is that because Dr. Mann is an academic he wouldn't sue Google? On the contrary for someone who has put as much of his life into augmented reality, to see Google Glass hit the press where essentially this giant $250B company is going to change the world with his ideas? Especially where he is the sole inventor and assignee? I don't know about you but that movie has played out so many times as to be cliche. Generally the professor's college is the one doing the suing as they get assignment rights to research but that doesn't seem to be the case here. I'll be the first to admit I'm awfully cynical about patents these days, and I sure as hell know that if some patent litigator saw Mann's patent he would ask Dr. Mann if he was being compensated by Google. If not that same litigator would probably have a moment of giddyness as he offers to get him that compensation. Could be a big payday, and money is a powerful motivator. I'll take it all back if Mann says that Google has already licensed the patent. Otherwise my bet is on the legal sharks.
      • sesqu 14y ago
• hexagonc 14y ago
  I don't see how you are drawing this cynical conclusion. I didn't read much self-promotion at all in the article. It doesn't even explain what the device corrects with his vision. The focus of this story was his experience. I know I'd sure as hell want to tell the world about such abusive behavior if I didn't get a response from the police, embassy, or McDonalds. You could start a fight, trying to snatch somebody's glasses off like the first perpetrator did.
• antihero 14y ago
  To be honest what fucking business does anyone have for assaulting someone for wearing special glasses?
  • Frozenlock 14y ago
    Exactly! Unless those glasses are shooting dangerous gamma rays, you have no right to remove them.