Category: Media and Journalism

Some evidence exists that games stimulate the same areas in the brain as alcohol and other drugs, psychologists, sociologists and others were told at the world’s first interdisciplinary games conference here.

But unlike the addictive substances, there is no medicine to deal with compulsive gaming behavior, they heard.

“Is (the popular online game) Everquest addictive? Well, it’s no more addictive than school or work. The time invested in those also make them addictive,” said Florence Chee, a research student at Simon Fraser University in Canada.

Scientific interest in the multibillion dollar computer games industry has mushroomed in recent years, after teenagers in several countries killed themselves and others after playing violent games. Various governments have put pressure on the industry to add a health warning to games packages.

But many players actually described themselves as addicts, said Stephen Kline, a social psychology professor and media analyst at Simon Fraser University.

“Fifteen percent of Everquest players say: ‘I’m addicted’. Thirty percent can be categorized as addicts,” he said.

Although he used the word “addiction” in the classic Greek sense of “devotion,” his survey of hundreds of heavy online games players showed half of them reported family conflict and romantic failure as a result of their hobby.

VIOLENCE SPILLS OVER

Heavy games players can play an average 17 to 26 hours a week. The online games, in which players battle with opponents online, are considered the most gripping and time-consuming.

Children from the age of 10 are now starting to play online games, he said, and families should know it is radically different from comics.

“Game entertainment is not a classic media experience. It has a potency that offers a new psychological experience,” Kline said, adding he could imagine violent experiences in games to spill over in real life.

Other scientists, who like Chee have carried out scientific surveys, said heavy games players were in fact sociable and not the pathological loners they are often made out to be.

Anti-virus software maker Trend Micro said tens of thousands of its corporate computer users in France and Germany had been hit by the virus, dubbed “Mimail.C.”

The e-mail was spreading quickly because it spoofs e-mail addresses in a computer address book, making it appear as if the virus-carrying e-mail comes from a friend or co-worker, said Raimund Genes, European president of Trend Micro.

Trend and Network Associates Inc. rated the virus a “medium” threat, upgrading it from a low-level threat because of the large number of infections being reported within a short time, according to Vincent Gullotto, vice president of Network Associates’ anti-virus response team.

The virus arrives in a zip, or compressed file, in an e-mail with a subject line of “our private photos.” The text in the body of the message says: “All our photos which i’ve made at the beach….” and is signed “Kiss, James.”

When the recipient opens the zip file and then the executable file inside that, the virus harvests e-mail addresses from the computer to spread itself further, Gullotto said.

It also sends an unknown type of data to a remote server in what appears to be an attempt to cripple the server in a “denial of service” attack, he said. In such an attack, a remote attacker instructs compromised computers to overload a Web site and take it down temporarily.

Then on the 15th of July 1999 three people were killed. The detectives tried to pin the hatecrime on me!

They arrested the Caucasian boy before they arrested me. When the detectives talked tohim, he told them specific details about the triple homicide. Then he told them that I did the hatecrime and the triple homicide.Which was a bunch of bullshit.

So the detectives gave him full immunity from the triple homicide and charged him with the “hatecrime”or “first degree murder”. The detectives charged him with plain muder. He continued to blame me for everything and he pled guilty to plain murder. Now the detectives are the same ones in both cases! Before they arrested me, they wanted to “talk”. I told the detectives that if they checked the crime scene, they would find Patrick’s fingerprints (Patrick’s the Caucasian’s name). Because they said that there was 59 sets of fingerprints found at the crime scene. I told them that I knew the three victims and had been inside the appartment a few times. So they told me the name of all the places that I had been inside the appartment. I said the living room, both bedrooms, the kitchen and the bathroom. I told them that I opened the refrigerator and got something cold to drink. So at my trial they swore that they found my fingerprint on the door handle of the refrigerator. I’m the one who told them that the fingerprint was there!

Plus the print was only of one finger. Now out of 59 usable prints only one was mine. Two of the victims were female and the other was male.

Here’s the name,race,sex and weight of the victims:

Roscoe Merchant: Male-biracial weight 150 LBS
Cindy Richards: Female white weight 140 LBS
Ann Marie Merchant: Female bi racial weight 350 LBS

Roscoe and Cindy were a couple. But Roscoe and Ann Marie were brother and sister. I had consentual sex with Ann Marie twice. We had sex on July 14th ,1999. I used a condom the first time, but the second time I didn’t.

At my trial the states own DNA expert stated that semen can reamain in a woman’s vagina for 60 days after intercourse! He also stated that the semen can leak out at anytime! I told them at my trial that during sex I told Ann Marie that she was too wet, so she used her shirt and wiped her vagina and my penis. The state entered the shirt into evidence at my trial. Yet their own DNA expert stated that the semen couldn’t have been deposited on the shirt on July 15, 1999 because the sperm was dead. The State paid some experts to take a look at the shirt. The experts said that it wasn’t sperm, but a discharge!

So the prosecution said the experts lied. They asked a worker for the department of public safety what it was and right off the bat she said sperm. Now how is ist that two priced experts said it wasn’t sperm,but a worker for DPS said it was. Plus they swore at my trial that there was sperm on her leg
Yet they don’t have any proof of that. When they searched at my parents’ house they took:
-three pairs of handcuffs
-two knives
-a roll of grey duct tape

The three pairs of handcuffs didn’t have any blood on them. The duct tape didn’t match either. Hell to this day,the murder weapon hasn’t been found. They took my Dad’s 357 and ran ballistic tests and found out that it wasn’t the murder weapon. Yet detective Joseph Petrosino told the grand jury that they had the murder weapon. Joseph Petrosino also told the grand jury that the three victims were murdered with a 35. When the three victims were murdered with a 38 special.