Google Glass Wearer Assaulted in San Francisco

Kyle Russell writes at Business Insider:

On Friday night, I was assaulted while walking down
the sidewalk in the Mission District of San Francisco.

A colleague and I had just finished covering a march in protest of a Google employee who had recently evicted several tenants after buying and moving into a home in the area.

After more than an hour spent working on the story in a coffee shop, I arranged my laptop, camera, and notes in my backpack. Mindlessly, I put on Google Glass instead of squeezing it in with the rest of my things.

(In retrospect, I can see how that might not have been the best idea.)

The aforementioned colleague and I were on our way to the 16th Street BART station — I'll note that I wasn't using any device at the time — when a person put their hand on my face and yelled, "Glass!"

In an instant the person was sprinting away, Google Glass in hand.

I ran after, through traffic, to the corner of the opposite block. The person pivoted, shifting their weight to put all of their momentum into an overhand swing. The Google Glass smashed into the ground, and they ran in another direction.

Not knowing what to do, I scooped up the remains and continued to follow. We went back in the direction of the intersection where it started when the person ran into my colleague while I was blocked by traffic. After a brief moment, the person got away.

Note 1: It is strange that Russell only identifies the assaulter as a "person," not providing gender or race. Is this what the politically correct reporting is coming to?

Russell continues:

 I tweeted about what happened

Word got around quickly. Initial reactions from friends on Twitter were very supportive — and then the trolls 

These are some of the tweets that were sent to him:

@kylebrussell they should have eaten you alive too
— BIG TIME SEX HAVER (@mycoolaugustine) April 12, 2014

.@kylebrussell good. Go fuck yourself
— Sexy Alphabet Deluxe (@chead) April 12, 2014

@dankmtl @kylebrussell @dingl_ @getwired we've all heard of rape culture. now let me educate u on "smashing a fucwads expensive toy culture"
— TORMNIABLY PIACKEELS (@Tormny_Pickeals) April 12, 2014

SF geeks discover glass struggle @kylebrussell: Just had Glass torn off my face and smashed on the ground in the Mission
— Thierry Do Espirito (@Doespirito) April 12, 2014

@kylebrussell LOLOLOL
— Allen Goodman (@goodmanio) April 12, 2014

.@kylebrussell HAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHA
— MAGGLE (@HerrmannCFC) April 12, 2014

@kylebrussell good. fuck you.
— Floyd Epps (@floydepps) April 12, 2014

@kylebrussell You could throw a bag of gold coins at your assailants to distract them
— Tarin ''the'' Towers (@tarintowers) April 12, 2014

This is Russell's response to these tweets:

 As responses have flooded in and I've looked back on the situation, I've started to understand where the people barraging me with angry tweets are coming from.

While I may not be a resident of San Francisco — I live across the Bay in Berkeley, where rent is affordable — or a wealthy young software engineer, I've worked in the city for three years. I'd like to live and work in or near San Francisco for the foreseeable future.

Unfortunately, anything associated with Google has come to represent gentrification in the city, from the buses that take young software engineers to their corporate campuses in Silicon Valley to Google Glass. This is especially true in areas where gentrification and income inequality have become points of conflict in the community.

People are being evicted or priced out of their homes. What's the difference between losing your home and having property destroyed?...I can see why the person who smashed my Glass did what they did.

Welcome  to the People's Republic of San Francisco, where there is never discussion about the rent controls and zoning laws that discourage and limit construction. If construction were allowed to move forward, rents would drop dramatically. The problem isn't techies moving into the city, it is city planners, and their supporters, who don't understand economics 101 and the fact that greater supply drives prices down. Limiting supply only results in rationing of one sort or another. It's slowly becoming rationing by price in SF and that means the low payers get evicted.

If new construction were allowed, the moneyed techies would be moving into those apartments and leaving the second and third tier housing supply, for those with lower incomes. But with the supply limited, the low payers are getting evicted instead of seeing more rent options.