Not one person being "scanned" would know what the rig is for. It is the responsibility of the wearer to communicate this and ask permission when entering private spaces.

A museum or a public place is a different story. If museum security has an issue then you either leave or take it off.

Even in public there's the concept of decorum. Let's say you have a teenage daughter who is also attractive and some guy stars to follow you a few feet in fron while recording her on video. While probably legal in most parts of the world this behavior is almost guaranteed to cause the videographer a lot of trouble, and rightly so.

Then there are other invasion-of-privacy type issues like people who choose to smoke in public. I recently had the experience of having dinner with my family in the outdoor dining area of a restaurant when a group of youngsters sat at the table next to us and started to smoke. They showed total disregard for the fact that we were being forced to inhale their smoke, even my young kids. We had been there for an hour, they just showed up and we were engulfed in a cloud of smoke. Legal? Yes? Incredibly rude and inconsiderate? Absolutely!

> "It is the responsibility of the wearer to communicate this and ask permission when entering private spaces."

The law says otherwise - and this position is backed up incredibly clearly by copious amounts of case law.

> " Let's say you have a teenage daughter who is also attractive and some guy stars to follow you a few feet in fron while recording her on video. While probably legal in most parts of the world this behavior is almost guaranteed to cause the videographer a lot of trouble, and rightly so."

No, just no. What the fucking fuck? What's wrong with you? What part of "being creepy in public" justifies physical assault?

This is the kind of attitude that results in people getting harrassed at a Parisian MacDonald's. You assume because your daughter is attractive that the stranger must be recording her? There is no innocent explanation? Will you bother verifying your suspicions before flying into a fit of rage at the guy (thereby escalating the entire incident into something quite possibly violent)?

> " Legal? Yes? Incredibly rude and inconsiderate? Absolutely!"

I'm waiting for you to get to the part where this justifies physical assault.

Don't be a douchebag. I get it. What does this have to do with physical violence again? Or are you saying that it is morally correct to assault douchebags? Or, more accurately, to assault people you believe are douchebags, but have not bothered verifying?

One of the fundamental tenets of our free society is the freedom to live without threat of harm or harassment for merely that which is unusual. Those who choose to "be dorks", as you so crudely put it, still have to put up with being ostracized, stereotyped, and distrusted. They should not have to add "fear of physical harm" to that list.

My question to you is this: have you ever belonged to a marginalized group, stereotyped and leered at for your subculture, your race, your sexuality, and more? If you have, you would know how easy it is for much of the population to fly to conclusions about you without even once consulting anyone knowledgeable, least of all yourself.

It is really interesting how those with weak arguments and creative interpretations of what is written resort to personal attacks as their only remaining tool.

I painted a hypothetical scenario where I clearly stated that you have someone a few feet away recording your daughter as you walk down the street. Nowhere in there did I say that I would personally resort to physical violence. I never have in my life. Why are you reading more into it than I have said?

As for the "don't be a dork" bit of advice. I am a dork. Or so says my wife. I am a geek too. Now, the term "dork" can have many meanings. Between dorks it is a little different. When I am doing something stupid or overly geeky my wife will say "You are such a dork!". It is not a pejorative at all. It just means that you are being dumb in a geeky way. Case in point: We had a brush fire in a hill near our house. I took out my RC helicopter, strapped a camera and video transmitter to it and flew it up about 800 feet (not over the fire, people, property or near full scale aircraft) to get a view of what was going on. The fire captain even took advantage of what my video monitor was showing. At the end of that my wife said "You are such a dork!". And she was right.

> I'm waiting for you to get to the part where this justifies physical assault.

And you'll never see that. Again, it's interesting to see how some are choosing to read my comments as though I justify someone getting beaten-up. NOWHERE DO I SAY THAT. READ THE FUCKING POSTS AGAIN.

I am talking about common sense and manners.

This guy decided it was more important to wear all this shit on him while going on a vacation with his daughter? What the hell is wrong with HIM? Unless he is genuinely handicapped (which does not seem to be the case) he is just being an inconsiderate dork. If I go on vacation with my kids I go on vacation with my kids. I might bring some work with me, but it is always in the form of a laptop for coding that I'll only use when they've gone to sleep. I am there for the family and their experience, not to shove my dorky pursuits on their face 24-7.

This isn't even about marginalized groups. IT IS ONLY YOU and others that are choosing to interpret the comments as such. Well, get over it, none of what I said has anything whatsoever to do with marginalized groups at all. It's about the potential of being a jerk by not being in touch with the incursions you might be making into other peoples spaces and privacy. That's all.

> "Why are you reading more into it than I have said?"

Quote: "this behavior is almost guaranteed to cause the videographer a lot of trouble, and rightly so." - you may not yourself resort to violence, but you certainly tried to excuse/justify it.

That isn't a whole lot better.

When, in the context of a thread about alleged physical assault, you say something to the tune of "well, if you do weird/creepy things, bad things will happen, and rightly so", the most obvious interpretation is that you're referring to violence. If you meant something else, you need to disclaim this.

> "Again, it's interesting to see how some are choosing to read my comments as though I justify someone getting beaten-up."

Here we go. You realize that your line of argument is the exact one that comes up inevitably when we talk about other crimes like rape.

When we're talking about certain classes of crimes, most commonly any type of physical assault, excusing the perpetrators in any way is tacit victim-blaming. I realize you seem to think differently, but this is the way you are guaranteed to come across.

There are no "buts" when it comes to physical assault, the perpetrator is in the wrong, full stop. What the victim could have potentially done to prevent the attack is not relevant to the discussion, and people are allergic to this line of reasoning for good reason: 95% of the time when it comes up it's victim-blaming and shifting responsibility away from the criminal.

I'd argue your specific instance of this argument falls into this 95%. In response to "a man was assaulted" you go on about how big of a dork he is, how inconsiderate he is (simply for wearing a strange contraption!), how when a person behaves strangely bad things will happen and rightly so.

How else do you want us to interpret your comments except to draw blame away from the perps?

> "What the hell is wrong with HIM?"

Nothing. As a self-proclaimed geek/dork you ought to understand that.

Or are you that ashamed of your own weirdness, that you will confine it to your home? That you feel the need to be utterly normal when in public, so as not to upset some people's overly-delicate sensibilities?

If author's blog is any accurate, he just finished a whole day of museum touring with his family and enjoying the stereotypical sights and sounds of Paris. If his family doesn't think his contraption is a big deal, the problem is with you for thinking it is.

The world is full of weird and wonderful people, I am very glad they exist. I'm saddened to hear that you feel compelled to bury yours because it may ruffle a few feathers.

> "Well, get over it, none of what I said has anything whatsoever to do with marginalized groups at all"

Person behaving out of expected social norms is attacked for it. How is that not the story of every marginalized group out there? From the LGBT community to the goth community to the BDSM community to, hell, the nerd community?

You seem like a person with geeky inclinations and a predilection for weirdness. Good for you. I challenge you to let your freak flag fly - and observe that 99.9% of the world either celebrates your weirdness or is ambivalent to it, and that 0.1% will fly to a fit of rage for daring to be different.

And that the 0.1% are curmudgeons, irrelevant to anyone. They certainly do not need your impassioned defense.

> It is the responsibility of the wearer to communicate this and ask permission when entering private spaces.

I'm not sure about that. You go on to talk about decorum and respect for the privacy of others. If someone walked into a restaurant with a glass eye or Pistorius-style prosthetics, I would feel rude asking them about it.

Sure, you and I know his camera is reality-augmenting, but if I didn't know about Mann I would probably assume it was a high-tech medical advice I hadn't heard about; I wouldn't simply assume it was a recording device.

In the same way you wouldn't expect Pistorius to walk into a McDonalds and announce why he has an unusual bodily attachment, I'm not sure Mann has to explain his EyeTap.

Granted, there are serious, qualitative difference between EyeGlass and a prosthetic leg; one might be an invasion of privacy, the other definitely isn't.

I think it's clear from the article's description that his EyeTap, which can be used to record pictures/video, is not constantly invading anyone's privacy. He has the choice (and I think we both agree, the obligation) to use it responsibly. If I don't have to announce that I have a camera in my backpack, he doesn't have to announce the camera-features of his permanent eye fixture.

I wouldn't have a problem with it. Then again, I am a techie. I'd probably strike-up a conversation and try to learn as much as I could. But I am not the general public and my guess is that most HN readers would have the same reaction.

The general public might react differently. There are people who are actively fearful of being on Facebook. I know people who have taken down their entire Facebook photo set because of the potential to be connected through the friend-of-friends mechanism. There are also people who view and value their privacy at different levels.

I believe that in France there are laws about publishing someone's images without their permission. This means that, if you presume that someone might take a picture with you in it and then post it to Facebook they could be doing something that you don't want to have happen and that happens to be illegal in France. Splitting hairs to some and a very serious matter to others.

Private establishments might have a responsibility to their customers to provide a certain type of an environment. I don't know French law, maybe there's something there. Whatever the case may be, they have the right to create whatever standard they deem necessary within their property (so long as it is legal). For example, you can't walk into a theater and video record the screen.

For the numskulls who always choose to read their own fantasy into posts: None of the above means that violence is justified without provocation. It takes two to tango and it should also take two for an encounter to turn into a physical altercation.

> It is the responsibility of the wearer to communicate this and ask permission when entering private spaces.

At some point, I feel the need to be pedantic: any healthy human does have a universal recording device: the eye and the brain. But we're all kinda used to it. My guess is, the real reason the "security" guys were pissed off was primal fear of the unknown. They saw a Borg coming in, then they found a likely rationale for messing with him.

Try walking past a security guard in a clown suit, and see what happens. I bet he will find any reason to mess with you but the fact you are wearing a clown suit.

As for the actual privacy problem, wait for the day we'll have recording devices plugged right to the optic nerve.