Sakurakai

Sakurakai, or Cherry Blossom Society (桜会, Sakurakai) was an ultranationalist secret society established by young officers within the Imperial Japanese Army in September 1930, with the goal of reorganizing the state along totalitarian militaristic lines, via a military coup d'état if necessary. Their avowed goal was a Shōwa Restoration, which they claimed would restore the Emperor Hirohito to his rightful place, free of party politics and evil bureaucrats in a new military dictatorship.

The Sakurakai was led by Imperial Japanese Army Lieutenant Colonel Kingoro Hashimoto, then chief of the Russian section of the Imperial Japanese Army General Staff and Captain Isamu Cho with the support of Sadao Araki. The society began with about ten members, active-duty field grade officers of the Army General Staff, and expanded to include regimental-grade and company-grade officers, so that its membership increased to more than 50 by February 1931, and possibly up to several hundred by October 1931. One prominent leader was Kuniaki Koiso, future Prime Minister of Japan.

Modà

Modà is an Italian pop band from Milan. Formed in 2002, the band currently consists of lead singer Kekko Silvestre, guitarists Diego Arrigoni and Enrico Zapparoli, bass guitarist Stefano Forcella and drummer Claudio Dirani.

History

2000–2003: Early years

In the early 2000s, Kekko Silvestre met musicians Tino Alberti and Enrico Palmosi. Later joined by Silvestre's childhood friend Paolo Bovi, they formed a band, Pop Doc, which performed in local clubs in Northern Italy. Silvestre later decided to rename tha band after a discothèque in Erba, Lombardy. In 2001, Modà recorded their first demos, but during the summer of the same year, Palmosi left the group, later becoming the arranger of most of Modà's songs.

The following year, Silvestre met Diego Arrigoni, who became the band's guitarist. Shortly after, Stefano Forcella and Manuel Signoretto became Modà's bass guitarist and drummer, respectively.

2003–2005: Debut album and Sanremo Music Festival

In May 2003, Modà released their first self-produced EP, titled Via d'uscita. During one of their concerts, Modà were noted by Marco Sfratato, who was interested in their music and introduced the band to Pippo Landro, director of the independent record label New Music International. That way, Modà obtained their first recording contract. The band's debut album was released in October of the following year. Titled Ti amo veramente, the album was preceded by the single with the same title, which became a minor hit in Italy. The album also spawned the singles "Dimmi che non hai paura", released on 10 September 2004, and "Nuvole di rock".

MOD (file format)

MOD is a computer file format used primarily to represent music, and was the first module file format. MOD files use the “.MOD” file extension, except on the Amiga where the original trackers instead use a “mod.” prefix scheme, e.g. “mod.echoing”. A MOD file contains a set of instruments in the form of samples, a number of patterns indicating how and when the samples are to be played, and a list of what patterns to play in what order.

History

The first version of the format was created by Karsten Obarski for use in the Ultimate Soundtracker; tracker software released for the Amiga computer in 1987. The format has since been supported by hundreds of playback programs and dozens of other trackers.

The original version of the MOD format featured four channels of simultaneous audio playback, corresponding to the capabilities of the original Amiga chipset, and up to 15 instruments.

Later variations of the format have extended this to up to 32 channels and 31 instruments.

The format was designed to be directly playable on the Amiga without additional processing: for example, samples are stored in 8-bit PCM format ready to be played on the Amiga DACs, and pattern data is not packed. Playback required very little CPU time on an Amiga, and many games used MOD files for their background music.

Mod (video gaming)

A mod or modification is the alteration of content from a video game in order to make it operate in a manner different from its original version. Mods can be created for any genre of game but are especially popular in first-person shooters, role-playing games and real-time strategy games. Mods are made by the general public or a developer and can be entirely new games in themselves, but mods are not stand-alone software and require the user to have the original release in order to run. They can include new items, modded weapons, characters, enemies, models, textures, levels, story lines, music, money, armor, life and game modes. They can be single-player or multiplayer. Mods that add new content to the underlying game are often called partial conversions, while mods that create an entirely new game are called total conversions and mods that fix bugs only are called unofficial patches.

Games running on a personal computer are often designed with change in mind, allowing modern PC games to be modified by gamers without much difficulty. These mods can add extra replay value and interest. The Internet provides an inexpensive medium to promote and distribute mods, and they have become an increasingly important factor in the commercial success of some games. Developers such as id Software, Valve Software, Re-Logic, Bethesda Softworks, Firaxis, Crytek, The Creative Assembly and Epic Games provide extensive tools and documentation to assist mod makers, leveraging the potential success brought in by a popular mod like Counter-Strike.