I saw them with my own eyes. And I took a picture. I was in Santa Fe, NM last weekend when I saw a very bright light in the sky. Thinking it was the moon, I dismissed it. Then I saw everyone in the city standing in the middle of streets looking at it - and I realized it wasn’t the moon. So I took a picture.

See that bright light up in the sky?  That’s my alien.  Someone with a telescope in Arizona saw it too.  Their picture is a bit better than my cell phone picture:

Apparently it was Nasa.  I love the first comment in this article at the bottom.  Weather balloon, huh?  Whatever.

Yeah, I know. I am aware of the stereotype. But if you get an “extra” (the highest of 3) class HAM radio license from the FCC, you can legally put satellites in space. You never know when you might need to do that.

Plus, apparently any licensed HAM operator can directly contact astronauts in the space shuttle or international space station. SERIOUSLY.

http://www.ah0a.org/HA4/T-Notes.pdf

Started studying today, I’m consistently scoring in the 83-86% range. You need 70% to pass. The license is good for life. It costs 10 dollars. Why wouldn’t I do this?

Want to make a ton of money?  

Create a rock solid 72 hour sump pump backup for finished basements.   How many times have you heard about people with finished basements having floods?  I’ve even heard of people with backup systems failing.  I’m sure part of the problem is that people are lazy and don’t want to spend money on a backup system.

Create a enterprise grade backup system for server rooms - Power and Data.    I know at my job we’ve had multiple power and data backup interruptions, or backups done and were bad and unrecoverable.

Is technology the only thing holding us back from solar system exploration?  Is it still too hard and expensive to get into space?  If a new propulsion system is invented will that change?  If you could cut the time of transit and cost in half - would that be worth it for private industry to get involved?

Do you know how to plant and produce food from a garden?  Collect freshwater?  Skin game for consumption?  Clean a fish?  Do you think these are skills everyone should know?

I think we should concentrate on mass producing functional explorers for a solar system census instead of building amazingly complex and horrifically expensive satellites and cameras.  We know an extremely little amount about our own solar system.  We don’t really even know 100% about our own planet.  Why don’t we have orbiters around all planetary bodies in our solar system, mapping, imaging, and collecting essential data on everything?  We don’t need billion dollar rovers, or exotic and expensive imaging equipment and experiments.  We need to build modular orbiters, probes, and rovers.  Very small amounts of modifications for different missions.  Use the same small, cheap, light, and simple parts for each unit.  The mantra should be - small, functional, sturdy, cheap.  Hybrid rockets seem to be a very good solution- as well as sugar based solid rocket engines.  

Can we please genetically engineer some slow-growing Kentucky bluegrass?  Mowing every 2 days is not that fun actually.

There are 0 video games that interest me right now.  It’s a weird feeling.

I found it.

The future of everything is found at Wolfram Research.  A long time ago, when computers were first introduced to the public, people thought that someday computers could answer questions and compute things automatically.  That’s sort of true, but to compute things you usually need to program some logic and go from there.  Sure there are a few websites dedicated to answering questions that people have.  These guys are building a “computational knowledge engine”.  What does that mean?  They are gathering information on factual data on the net.  ALL OF IT.  You type a question that has a factual answer, and this piece of wundersoft will get you that answer.  Let that sink in for a second.

You ask any question with a factual answer, and this thing will answer it.  It’s indexing all of the data on planet earth available to the Internet.  Think of the university data, the archived data that earthlings posses.  This is your population of available data.

Surely this is too big of a project to get done soon.  Surely this fledgling company is just a bit optimistic, right?  Actually, no- the work they’ve already done is staggering.  Check out this product they’ve already built called Mathematica -[ http://www.wolfram.com/ ].  You type in any computation, and formula, any mathematica expression and this thing not only answer/solves/computes it, but it can dynamically graph and represent it any way you’d like.  Stephen Wolfram also wrote a book called A New kind of Science where he describes a new way to observe and investigate complex programs at a granular level.  Honestly I don’t know much more about it than that - but if what he says is true, this new methodology will allow startling insights and advancements.  Wolfram has studied the effects of programs for 20 years and has built this entire new way of science around everything.  Now combine this new methodology with the already finished product of Mathematica, and Wolfram came up with this computational knowledge engine called Wolfram|Alpha.  Estimated launch date of Wolfram Alpha?  May 2009.

The possibilities of this project are mind boggling.  Faster than light space drives?  Time travel?  Beaming objects from one side of the planet to the other?  Cold fusion?  These things, once thought to be impossible - are now becoming at least theoretically possible to calculate and model.  Things like Artificial intelligences will be based on the algorithms, and computations this engine will possess.  This is the future!

I saw this article about What you can(’t) do about Global Warming.  They ask the question, so what impact would I have on the climate if I actually bought into this carbon footprint nonsense?  How would I actually impact the warming of the planet?  Read the article for yourself, and follow the quite simple math, but here is the conclusion.

even if the entire United States reduced its carbon dioxide emissions by 83% below current levels, it would only amount to a reduction of global warming of less than three-thousandths of a ºC per year.

Nice. I’ll be in the corner laughing at the people riding bikes to work - hoping they can help global warming.  

The problem with all the green talk is, you can’t convince the world leading polluting countries to stop.  China is a communist country.  They pollute more than anyone.  They’ll never listen or care about the environment.  Even if we made DRASTIC changes in the US, we wouldn’t even scratch the bucket.  These are facts.  What you hear from Al Gore, the media, and politicians are nicely worded scare tactics to feed this hilarious “green” industry.

It’s not a pandemic.  Yet.  (Current pandemic level - http://www.who.int/csr/disease/avian_influenza/phase/en/index.html)

A pandemic is defined as:

The Pandemic will be declared when the new virus sub-type has been shown to
cause several outbreaks in at least one country, and to have spread to other countries,
with consistent disease patterns indicating that serious morbidity and mortality is
likely in at least one segment of the population.

According to the definition set from WHO (world health organization) they should be announcing the global pandemic status very soon - and for good reason.  Borders need to be closely monitored between countries, containment procedures need to be enforced and started immediately.

For a bit of background on what pandemics are all about - here are some statistics:

The last 2 pandemics (1918, 1958) both estimated around 90 million people getting the virus.
In 1918 1.9 million of those people died.
In 1958 209,000 of those people died.
This is a very serious and real thing, here is a great website to grab some facts and FAQs. - http://www.pandemicflu.gov/plan/pandplan.html 

Prepare!  There are tons of resources online - PandemicFlu.gov , GetPandemicready.org - so go check them out and be prepared.  If you can’t be bothered reading those (you’re dumb) then wash your hands all the time, disinfect your phones, keyboards, doorknobs, table, car steering wheels, etc. as often as you can.  And stay away from sick people.

So if this hits 90 million people be prepared for a weird environment.  People not going to work, businesses closing for periods of time, etc.  Estimations are around 40% of the workforce could be absent at a time.  Pandemics usually come in 2-3 waves, lasting around 2 months each wave and getting bad in the late fall/early winter.

I found a wonderful community plan (modeled for the bird flu) that everyone should at least read through to get an idea on what to expect-BirdFluManual.com

Hope this helps.

Wow. Ok, I learned alot today.

First of all:
Astronomers are full of crap.

The number of assumptions that have been wrong about our own solar system let alone galaxies, stars, and planets light years away from earth - is staggering and still changing.  To me, it’s almost comical how they all state things as certain science facts, when most of what they think is definite is either a model based on conjecture or just a plain guess.  Don’t believe me?  Tell me then, is Pluto a planet?  I mean this week.  Is pluto a planet this week?

(seriously - is it?)

With the recent news of the latest telescope to go up to space- Kepler, here are some of the ways that Astronomers think they can identify exoplanets in other star systems across our galaxy (warning-I am going to brutally simplify some crap that I just understand a tiny bit of.  I am not an expert or a smart person.)

Transitional method:
This is the easiest to understand.  Sorry.  So you have a big old star way out in the galaxy.  It’s just a pinpoint of light, but sometimes we can detect that the visible light actually dims for a time.  Astronomers think it’s a planet crossing in front of it’s star.  This can only work if we get amazingly lucky and just catch the correct angle of orbit.  Pretend you have a dinner plate in front of you.  The sun is at the center of the plate, and the planet would be the edge of the plate.  There are 360 different degrees of orbit you could hold that plate at.  Only about 10 or 20 (probably less) of the degrees would intersect the sun at your angle and cause the light to dim.  Yikes.

Radial Velocity:
To understand this you need to understand the Doppler effect- the effect large planets have on a star’s orbit. Basically the large planets gravity cause a star to wobble a very small amount. This CAN suggest there is a planet and it’s gravity may cause the wobble.

The radial velocity can be deduced from the displacement in the parent star’s spectral lines due to the Doppler effect.  Ok follow me here. You know sometimes when something acts like a prism on a sunny day and you get this cool rainbow of colors on your wall or something? That’s a horrible example of the displacement of spectral lines. So astronomers say they can determine a planet is there - when a star, many light years away wobbles almost imperceptibly. Then they take a spectrometer reading on the pinpoint of light they see (measuring the frequency lengths of the visible light) and they say they can estimate the velocity of the star, when it speeds up and slows down due to the Doppler effect of a planet. Not only this, but astronomers think they can take the spectrometer readings and accurately determine THE FREAKING MAKEUP OF THE ATMOSPHERE ON THE PLANETS!!!!

All from the extremely dim light of a star sometimes hundreds of lightyears away. Seriously.

You ready for the other method?
It’s worse. Gravitational microlensing. Einstine thought that gravity did some weird things to just about everything - even visible light. E A B. E is earth, A is star 1, and B is star 2. There is a planet above star 1 (A). This theory says that the gravity well of the planet above star 1 will grab the light coming from star 2(B) and intensify the visible light coming to earth. The planets gravity literally bends the light from star 2 around and adding to the light of star 1.

This sudden intensity of light coming from this star and possible planet could give evidence of a planet, or more accurately the gravity of a planet.

OK.  So Astronomers have thought up some fancy ways to guess about planets.  Actually I think that’s very cool.  Having a great imagination and innovating new ways to identify earth like planets is an awesome thing.  I know it’s important for them to be as accurate as possible, but I think it’s also important for them to be honest.  They have some good ideas, they’re doing some great research- but in 10-20 years from now, we’ll all be giggling about the silly “facts” not only about our own star system but about other star systems as well.  Just like we do now at what we thought we knew 20 years ago.

What do I think we should explore?  I think we’ve got to start in our own solar system.  Do you know what the first planet that humankind safely landed a spacecraft on?  Nope, you’re wrong.  It’s Venus.  The Russians soft landed Venera 7 on Venus mere months after we landed on the moon in late 1969.  As I’ve suggested before, we need to set up a network of atmospheric probes, mapping/imaging orbiters, and autonomous rovers on each planet in our star system.  We need to come up with cost effective, modular designs that you can cheaply mass produce and distribute all across our star system.  I think a system wide communication network also needs to be built to provide a backbone for future manned and unmanned missions in the future.  Cheap, small, light communication relays spread out, linking Pluto’s satellites to Mercury’s.

Arthur C. Clarke’s book Hammer of God. It could be amazing, but his personal bias towards Christianity is over the top and really alienates you from a good story. He goes out of his way to build this Godless, anti-Christian future. The premise of the book alone would have been great to follow, but he tries to intertwine this really weird, out of place vengeance on all things Christian.

Astronomy. I will learn it. The internets say to get a star chart and some binoculars to start. Learn the sky, join an astronomy club then maybe buy a telescope. It’s intriguing because astronomy is one of the sciences that amateurs can still make staggering discoveries.

I need to loose 30 pounds. Running? Eating better? Eating less? Quit drinking soda? Sigh….yes to all.

Model Rocketry. I am hopelessly behind my plans. The summer is already filling up. ARG. Must. MAKE. TIME…

Gaming is for the first time in my life actually not interesting me as much as other things. How is that?

Japanese culture has always amazed me, even more so - the Samurai.  The “special forces” of Japan, Samurai have been idolized throughout the world.  During the Heian Period (794-1185) Samurai began to gain influence within the Japanese culture.  Clans divided Japan in a struggle for regional supremacy.  The Samurai were usually hired by these clans or families to provide protection.  The Samurai were rather high in stature - during the Tokugawa regime (1600-1867) they were the only ones permitted to use swords (usually a katana) - and the highest of 4 social classes.

Daidoji Yuzan-
“…Thus, a man can divide his mind into three parts: he should throw out those thoughts that are evil, take up those ideas that are good, and become intimate with his own wisdom… I would honor and call wise the man who penetrates this principle, though he lacks the knowledge of a single Chinese character. As for those who are learned in other matters, I would avoid them regardless of how deep their knowledge might be. That is how shallow and untalented this monk is. “

Yagyu Munemori (1571-1646) (as interpreted by D. T. Suzuki)
“A man who has thoroughly mastered the art does not use the sword, and the opponent kills himself; when a man uses the sword, he makes it serve to give life to others. When killing is the order, it kills; when giving life is the order, it gives life. While killing there is no thought of killing, while giving life there is no thought of giving life; for in the killing or in the giving life, no Self is asserted. The man does not see ‘this’ or ‘that’; he makes no discrimination and yet knows well what is what. He walks on water as if it were earth; he walks on the earth as if it were water. One who has attained this freedom cannot be interfered with by anybody on earth. He stands absolutely by himself.”

They were men of honor and great skill.  Their Bushido - way of the Samurai was one of honor, proper etiquette, hygiene, and excellence.  Their noted swordsmanship was second to none at the time, but they were well versed in all methods of battle.  Horses were reserved for the samurai in battle, covered in fierce and beautiful armor, the Samurai were fearsome and deadly.

Once defeated in battle, often times a master would commit seppuku (ritualized suicide) - and it was expected that the masters’ Samurai would follow suit and do the same.  When they would not, or deserted thier positions, they were called Ronin - or master-less Samurai.  They were looked down upon because most Ronin resorted to banditry and theft for their new way of life.  Sometimes, however this was not the case:

“The story of the 47 Rônin is one of Japan’s most famous and most beloved tales. The fact that it is a true story (well, mostly true), only adds to its enduring appeal.

The year was 1701, in the closing days of the prosperous Genroku Era during Japan’s long and peaceful Edo Period. Under the effete shogunTsunayoshi and the effect of complacency, the Tokugawa shogunate had becoming increasingly venal and more concerned with emulating courtly culture than with the exigencies of warrior rule.

In this world of idle dalliance and foppery, the feudal lord of Akô domain, Asano Naganori, was compelled to reside in Edo for extended periods, under the sankin kotai or “alternate attendance” system of social control that forced lords to spend roughly half their time in the capital. On this particular visit, Lord Asano and another daimyo, Lord Kamei, had been put in charge of receiving an embassy of imperial envoys from the court inKyoto.

As provincial lords from distant domains (Akô is west of Himeji, in present-day Hyogo prefecture), the two daimyo were not familiar with the countless minutia of imperial protocols, and thus had to rely upon the guidance of the bakufu’s senior protocol advisor, one Kira Yoshinaka. Somehow, a grudge arose between Lord Asano and Kira, and on the final day of the envoy’s visit, while the two daimyo and Kira were walking down a corridor in Edo Castle, Lord Asano drew his wakizashi sword and slashed Kira across the head and right shoulder. Kira was only slightly wounded and Lord Asano was quickly restrained. Placed into custody, he was ordered by the shogunate to commit seppuku that very same day, the 14th day of the Third Month of Genroku 14, better known as April 21, 1701.

We will never know exactly why Asano attacked Kira, as the historical records are silent on this matter. Some tales make it an insult to Lord Asano’s wife, or a slight against his status as a samurai. The popular conception is that Kira was demanding bribes for his services, and turned to insults when his initial hints fell on the deaf ears of a righteous Lord Asano. The commonly included detail about Lord Kamei also wishing to kill Kira cannot be substantiated. History only records with certainty that upon striking Kira with his sword, Lord Asano was heard to proclaim “This is for that grudge I’ve borne against you!” (Kono aida no ikon oboetaru ka).

It was strictly forbidden to draw one’s sword with in the precincts of Edo Castle, let alone attack a high-ranking shogunal authority. And thus, even though Asano outranked Kira by virtue of his daimyo status, he must have realized what his fate would be as soon as his anger cooled. But Lord Asano would have had several reasons to complain about his subsequent treatment. At the time of the incident, there had been a long standing legal precedent known as “equal punishment of quarrels,” which stipulated that both parties in a dispute receive equal treatment regardless of who was the instigator, yet while Asano was ordered to suicide, Kira received no punishment whatsoever. Adding insult to injury, Lord Asano was forced to commit suicide the very same day, without a proper investigation, and was ordered to die outside in a residential garden, a location more suitable for a run-of-the-mill felon than a lord of Asano’s rank. As a final insult, Lord Asano’s lands were confiscated and his heir and family divested of the lordship of Akô, a fate typically reserved for traitors and dishonored enemies rather than a loyal vassal who had died honorably by his own hand.

Lord Asano’s family and retainers immediately protested and pressed for the reinstatement of the Asano house, but all appeals were denied and Lord Asano’s 308 samurai retainers were ordered to surrender Ako Castle and disband. If a samurai did not have a master, he was no longer a samurai, and thus, after some debate, the castle was duly turned over to shogunal authorities, and most of the retainers went their separate ways, some finding new masters and joining other houses, while others took up lives as ordinary tradesmen.

But 47 did not.

Or rather they appeared to go their separate ways, but secretly plotted their revenge. Led by the former chief retainer of Lord Asano, Ôishi Kuranosuke, the 47 planed to finish what their Lord had started - to kill Kira Yoshinaka. Perhaps most remarkable was their patience. No hot-blooded, heat-of-the-moment act was this. Nay, after pressing for months in a failed bid to reinstate Lord Asano’s heir, the 47 waited a full yearwhile they carefully plotted and schemed under the watchful eyes of shogunal spies who, wary of a potential vendetta, tracked their every move. Ôishi divorced his wife and disowned his children so they wouldn’t be dispossessed after the crime (although his eldest son refused and joined the vendetta). Moreover, he convincingly took up a profligate life of gambling, drinking, and brothel-visiting, maintaining a facade as a “fallen” samurai to throw the hounds off the scent. Another of the retainers divorced his wife and married the daughter of the architect who designed Kira’s house, just so he could learn as much as possible about its layout. Talk about careful planning! In any case, there was certainly ample time to reflect on the consequences of their action.

At last on the night of December 14, 1702, the loyal retainers of Akô stormed Kira’s Edo mansion in a perfectly executed attack, 23 from the front and 23 from the back. Overwhelming Kira’s guards, they fought their way into the house, pulled Kira out of a hidey hole in the floor, dragged him outside, and demanded he commit seppuku in the garden as their lord had done. When he refused, they relieved him of his head.

Thereafter, despite the fact that several were seriously wounded, 46 of the retainers marched 10 kilometers through Edo to Shinagawa, where they presented the head to their lord’s grave on the grounds of Sengakuji, the Buddhist temple patronized by members of the Asano house when in Edo (the 47th retainer was dispatched to inform the shogunate, and was spared punishment for his efforts). Along the way, the retainers stopped at the houses of prominent lords to post pre-prepared letters explaining the righteousness of their action. This was more than mere revenge - it was a publicity campaign.

After a week or so of uncertainty, the Akô retainers turned themselves in and threw themselves on the mercy of the shogun, Tsunayoshi. The shogunate deliberated for a full seven weeks, while the 46 were detained in the houses of various lords around Edo and treated extremely well, in accordance with their full status as samurai. At last, the shogunate was swayed by the arguments of the famous Confucian scholar Ogyû Sorai, and ruled on the second day of the second month of Genroku 16 (March 20, 1703) that the retainers commit seppuku. The order was carried out that same day, and the 46 were interred alongside their lord at Sengakuji, where you can still see their gravestones today and even the well where they washed Kira’s head on the night of the attack.”

The Samurai have been victims of perception.  When you think of a Samurai, often times you think of a warrior mindlessly killing himself for his master to avoid shame.  While this is true, it unfairly characterizes these great men.  These were men who’s word literally meant their life.  Their allegiences were final, their resolve more solid than stone.  They did not consider their life, only honor and courage.  Most good men read of their story and resolve to incorporate their values.  

Here are some of their stories:

Makara Naotaka - This great warrior, better known by his title of Jûrôzaemon, rode out to cover the retreat of the Asakura after they had given way to the forces of Tokugawa Ieyasu and Oda Nobunaga at Anegawa in 1570. He killed a certain Ogasawara Nagatada in single combat, then, aided by his son and a long sword, bought his clan as much time as possible . Finally surrounded in the shallow waters of the Anegawa, Makara and his son Naomoto were cut down - but not before the Asakura had made good their escape.

Nishima Morinobu - Morinobu was the 5th son of the late warlord Takeda Shingen. His elder brother Katsuyori had lost the aforementioned Battle of Nagashino in 1575, and now Oda Nobunaga’s troops were pouring into the Takeda lands. Almost everywhere the long-since disillusioned Takeda men were deserting, but at Takato Castle Morinobu held out. Though they resisted wave after wave, the defenders, which included all of the castle’s able-bodied women, were finally worn down, and Morinobu mounted the battlements and shouted down at the attackers. He listed Nobunaga’s crimes, and predicted the timely downfall of the Oda, then slit his belly in full view of both besieger and besieged. His head was spirited away in the ensuing confusion, and, in fact, Oda Nobunaga was dead just a few months later.

Sanada Yukimura - Few other samurai warriors earned the fame accorded to Sanada, whose greatest glory came in the service of the defenders of Hideyori’s Osaka Castle. Thanks in part to Sanada’s skill, Osaka Castle held out against Tokugawa Ieyasu’s initial assaults, and a peaceful settlement was arranged. Yet this peace was to be undone by treachery on the part of Tokugawa and indecision on the part of Hideyori and his mother. Faced with another siege they stood less chance of winning, Sanada and the other defenders of the castle elected to make a bold attack, which culminated in the Battle of Tennôji. The fighting was savage and often much in doubt, but finally, the Osaka troops began to give way. Sanada’s men had borne more then their share of the fighting, and their leader, realizing that their cause was lost, slumped onto his campstool. A Tokugawa warrior burst forth and leveled a spear at him.

Sanada looked up wearily. “I am Sanada Yukimura, an adversary no doubt worthy of you. But I am too exhausted to fight any more.”20 With that he took off his helmet and exposed his neck, allowing the Tokugawa man to take his head. The victor did not gain great fame for his prize, and Sanada was remembered by all as a warrior and man of the first rank.

Tsukahara Bokuden -
For the samurai to learn 
There’s only one thing, 
One last thing - 
To face death unflinchingly.

The Hagakure is a book written around 1700 containing practical and spiritual commentaries of a warrior, very similar to the stories and sayings above.  It covers an amazing variety of details from how not to yawn to the spiritual mindset of a faithful retainer.  (Did you know you can rub upwards on your forehead when you feel like you need to yawn to make it stop?)  You can see the values and mindset of the warrior through the Hagakure here:

Every morning one should first do reverence to his master and parents and then to his patron deities and guardian Buddhas. If he will only make his master first in importance, his parents will rejoice and the gods and Buddhas will give their assent. For a warrior there is nothing other than thinking of his master . If one creates this resolution within himself, he will always be mindful of the master’s person and will not depart from him even for a moment.  Moreover, a woman should consider her husband first, just as he considers his master first.

and about pride/humility:

In one’s life. there are levels in the pursuit of study. In the lowest level, a person studies but nothing comes of it, and he feels that both he and others are unskillful. At this point he is worthless. In the middle level he is still useless but is aware of his own insufficiencies and can also see the insufficiencies of others. In a higher level he has pride concerning his own ability, rejoices in praise from others, and laments the lack of ability in his fellows. This man has worth. In the highest level a man has the look of knowing nothing. These are the levels in general;. But there is one transcending level, and this is the most excellent of all. This person is aware of the endlessness of entering deeply into a certain Way arid never thinks of himself as having finished. He truly knows his own insufficiencies and never in his whole life thinks that he has succeeded. He has no thoughts of pride but with self-abasement knows the Way to the end. It is said that Master Yagyu once remarked, “I do not know the way to defeat others, but the way to defeat myself. ” Throughout your life advance daily, becoming more skillful than yesterday, more skillful than today. This is neverending.  

on manners:

There was a man who said, “Such and such a person has a violent disposition, but this is what I said right to his face…This was an unbecoming thing to say, and it was said simply because he wanted to be known as a rough fellow. It was rather low, and it can be seen that he was still rather immature. It is because a samurai has correct manners that he is admired. Speaking of other people in this way is no different from an exchange between low class spearmen. It is vulgar.

on hygene:

Every morning, the samurai of fifty or sixty years ago would bathe, shave their foreheads, put lotion in their hair, cut their fingernails and toenails rubbing them with pumice and then with wood sorrel, and without fail pay attention to their personal appearance . It goes without saying that their armor in general was kept free from rust, that it was dusted, shined, and arranged.  Although it seems that taking special care of one’s appearance is similar to showiness, it is nothing akin to elegance. Even if you are aware that you may be struck down today and are firmly resolved to an inevitable death, if you are slain with an unseemly appearance, you will show your lack of previous resolve, will be despised by your enemy, and will appear unclean. For this reason it is said that both old and young should take care of their appearance. Although you say that this is troublesome and time-consuming, a samurai’s work is in such things. 

and:

Ordinarily, looking into the mirror and grooming oneself is sufficient for the upkeep of one’s personal appearance.  This is very important. Most people’s personal appearance is poor because they do not look into the mirror well enough. Training to speak properly can be done by correcting one’s speech when at home. Practice in letter writing goes to the extent of taking care in even one-line letters. It is good if all the above contain a quiet strength. Moreover, according to what the priest Ryozan heard when he was in the Kamgala area, when one is writing a letter, he should think that the recipient will make it into a hanging scroll .

on speech:

After I took up the attitude of a retainer, I never sat sloppily whether at home or in some other place. Neither did I speak, but if there was something that could not be done properly without words, I made an effort to settle things by putting ten words into one. Yamazaki Kurando was like this .

and:

A person with a bit of wisdom is one who will criticize the times. This is the basis of disaster. A person who is discreet in speaking will be useful during the good times and will avoid punishment during the bad.

an interesting portion about Man’s sinful nature:

When I was young, I kept a “Dairy of Regret” and tried to record my mistakes day by day, but there was never a day when I didn’t have twenty or thirty entries. As there was no end to it, I gave up. Even today, when I think about the day’s affairs after going to bed, there is never a day when I do not make some blunder in speaking or in some activity. Living without mistakes is truly impossible. But this is something that people who live by cleverness have no inclination to think about.

While the book has many good qualities in it, it is literally a collection of sayings from various teachers and warriors over the years.  There are some seemingly rediculous things covered just as thouroughly as the good:

The late Jin’emon said that it is better not to bring up daughters. They are a blemish to the family name and a shame to the parents. The eldest daughter is special, but it is better to disregard the others.

Once when Nabeshima Aki no kami Shigetake was halfway through his meal, a guest suddenly came to see him and he left his tray just as it was. Later, a certain retainer of his sat down at the tray and began eating the fried fish that was on it. Just then Lord Aki came back and saw him, and the man became flustered and ran off. Lord Aki yelled out, ”What a low-life slave you are to eat something that someone else has been eating!” and sat down and finished what was left.  This is one of Jin’emon’s stories. It is said that this retainer was one of those who committed tsuifuku for the master.

Horie San’emon’s misdeed was robbing the Nabeshima warehouse in Edo of its money and fleeing to another province. He was caught and confessed. Thus it was pro nounced , ”Because this is a grave crime he should be tortured to death, ” and Nakano Daigaku was ordered to be the official who verified the execution. At first all the hairs on his body were burner off and his fingernails were pulled out. His tendons were then cut, he was bored with drills and subjected to various other tortures. Throughout, he did not flinch once, nor did his face change color. In the end his back was split, he was boiled in soy sauce, and his body was bent back in two.

Seriously?

Sadly, the honorable Samurai were no match for capatilism and imperialistic countries expanding their sphere’s of incfluence.  July 8, 1853, a small fleet of ships from the U.S. Navy sailed boldly into Tokyo harbour. The Americans delivered an ultimatum; open Japan to trade or “suffer the consequences”.  In 1867 The Emporer Meiji outlawed the Samurai.   Because of the one-sided political and economical treaties Japan was forced to sign with European and American powers, Emporer Meiji forced upon his country massive social reforms.  Classes were to be dissolved, major educational improvements to be made, military and economic reforms were also flooding in.  In a way, we were responsible for the end of the Samurai.  

References:
http://www.samurai-archives.com/cultcat.html 
http://www.jref.com/glossary/samurai.shtml 
http://www.japanesebushido.org/ 
http://www.rosenoire.org/archives/Hagakure.pdf
http://everything2.com/title/47%2520Ronin
http://www.japan-guide.com/e/e2130.html