Monitor Talent - a group of thinkers, innovators and speakers that I'm proud to be part of, now has a blog, edited by team leader Chris Meyer. Hope to see some of my posts appearing here soon and looking forward to this as a way to keep up with extraordinary folks like Howard Rheingold, Chris Luebkeman, Kevin Kelly and others.

Great video of Kongar-Ool Ondar doing "durgen chugaa" - a form of Tuvan throat singing that sounds a lot like rap, though it's basically a way singers test each other with tongue twisters. Long live Tannu Tuva!

Harsh and interesting analysis of William McDonough's influence on sustainability through his "cradle to cradle" idea. Reads as a classic tale of a visionary who couldn't bring an idea to scale and let an obsession with intellectual property stop him from leading a movement… or perhaps it's a hatchet job.

We were shocked when the number of Japanese bloggers surpassed English-language bloggers. Now the explanations - they're teaching houseplants how to blog. A plant in a cafe is blogging using data from sensors in its pot. It's more articulate than many of the folks I read.

Fascinating project that's trying to offer language lessons by leveraging web2.0 aspects, letting users correct each other's work and (I think) create teaching materials. Membership-based - you really need to join it to get a sense for what they're doing

Tips on innovating in a developing world context from Paul Polak, Amy Smith, Design in Africa… and me. :-)

Nick Carr offers an interesting theory - that as the web expands, we concentrate attention on a few large sites. Seems to miss the point about the technical difficulties of running popular sites, or the power of network affects in large sites. Still, interesting to think about in relation to echo chambers and the homophily problem

Jonathan Elendu of Nigerian citizen media site ElenduReports.com has been detained in Abuja by Nigeria's SSS. It's likely that his family visit raised attention of local forces who consider some of his highly critical online content to be seditious. This is bad news for Nigeria's vibrant independent media community.

A useful riff on my African innovation talk, arguing that a lot of NGO-driven, outside of African innovation won't work and can be damaging to local innovators.

IFEX documents denial of service attacks against activist media in Tunisia and Burma. There have been lots of reports that important independent media outlets are starting to suffer DDOS attacks and become inaccessible - the belief is that repressive governments are "renting" DDOS, perhaps from Russian hackers

An interview with Journey's Arnel Pineda about his transition into working with the band. An edited version of the interview made it sound as if Pineda were having difficulties in his new role - this interview includes some strong comments from the Filipino community suggesting that people are mischaracterizing and misunderstanding Pineda's concerns about his role with Journey.

Bright Simons profiles an ambitious new effort by software entrepreneur Herman Chinnery-Hesse to build a trade system linking artisans in rural areas to online commerce via a combination of SMS, web and online currency. Looking forward to learning more about Hesse's new "protocol" for online African trade.

Been meaning to read the first five books of the Old Testament? Been waiting until someone translated them into rhyming couplets? Wait no longer. My friend Seth Brown presents "From God to Verse", the Torah in rhyme. I'm not entirely sure why, but it's quite wonderful, and an easy way to get a dose of biblical text, one chapter per week, in verse.

A new service that combines blogposts on important international issues, connecting the stories to organizations trying to alleviate these problems. Very interesting - trying to tie news to taking action, which is a fascinating strategy.

Microsoft's very pretty new tool for monitoring breaking news and buzz in professional and social media

Guinea's 50th anniversary of independence from France is not so much a cause for celebration but for difficult contemplation. Guinea's been led badly, by two leaders who haven't shared power, and has suffered greatly over the past 50 years.

A review of a pair of books that look at how airports have become a weird hybrid of panopticon, shopping mall, high security border and prison. Naked Airport looks excellent as a work of cultural and architectural history

Banksta rap. Funny.

Somali pirate captain Ali Sugule makes the argument that he and his bretheren engage in piracy because of Somalia's collapse, and that the $20m ransom demand for a ship loaded with arms for Kenya (or maybe southern Sudan) is really a political protest. Interesting. Bullshit, but interesting.

Brilliant video report from Southern California about the aftermath of the foreclosure crisis… from the point of view of guys who clear out foreclosed houses, paint dead lawns green, drain swimming pools and generally try to make distressed real estate look marketable.

A survey of Chinese political blogs suggests that they're far more critical of the goverment than printed newspapers, and may be significantly more pluralistic, showing a variety of persepctives and opinions. By Ashley Esarey at Middlebury.

For Eid al Fitr, give the gift your friends in Nairobi are waiting for - halal goat, delivered to their house live or pre-slaughtered.

Very attractive cartograms, based on travel and media statistics, taken from The Atlas of the Real World: Mapping the Way We Live by Daniel Dorling, Mark Newman and Anna Barford

Starting with legendary Zimbabwean graphic designer Chaz Maviyane-Davies, 30 designers will offer online posters encouraging people to vote Obama in 2008

Technorati's recent State of the Blogosphere points to a maturing culture, with many of the top bloggers now in the game for three years, some revenue models in place, and a shaking out from a "try me" technology to a more mature, lasting one.

BBC suggests that the US government may be using extraordinary rendition in cooperation with Ethiopian and Somali authorities, arresting people who've fled the violence in Somalia and questioning them - possibly using torture - in Ethiopian jails.

In a single piece of satire, The Onion manages to summarize "The Big Sort", "Infotopia" and about half a dozen other critical books about US politics. Well done.

Itay Talgem: Conductors aren't leaders. (That's the first vionlin's job.) Instead, "the conductor has another job. He has to make people connect. So it is about connectivity, about becoming a conductor to enable other people to work together. So that is quite a funny profession. In internet, I guess people are very much interested in the ways people come to collaborate and to create together."

A hundred-year old article on the phenomenon of sumo wrestling, on the occasion of the visit of a Yokozuna to the US. The description of a tournament could be applied to any contemporary tournament with basically not a single change. Amazing to hear how little this sport has changed over the years

One of the very best Afrigadget posts… an interview with Philip Isohe, a metalworker in Nairobi who makes absolutely extraordinary working models of planes and automobiles