Here’s a handful of what we’ve been inspired by lately: new angles on the Olympics, an almanac of American national parks, striking maps of change in Delhi, and more.

America’s Natural Heritage

(Washington Post, August 15, 2016)
Search no further for spacious skies. Here’s an interactive way to explore 59 U.S. national parks. Check off which parks you’ve visited, and feel part of this natural patchwork of beauty.

RioRun: Take a Virtual Audio Tour of Rio de Janeiro As You Go

(The Guardian, August 6, 2016)

Run through the streets of Rio de Janeiro without ever leaving town when you plug into RioRun… We’ll take you on a virtual audio tour of Rio from wherever you are, following the route of the 2016 Olympic marathon. What you hear will depend on how far you run and how fast. Your distance will unlock new audio segments at key moments along the marathon route, so the further you go, the more you’ll discover.

The Decade that Changed Delhi

(Hindustan Times, August, 2016)
Witness how settlement in Delhi spread like broken blood vessels, from 1947 onward, fueled by refugees and political wrangling.

Texas Reservoir Levels

(Texas Tribune, August 15, 2016)

Using data collected from the Texas Water Development Board’s Water Data for Texas site, we have built a map that visualizes the current state of Texas’ reservoirs. The map auto-updates daily with new data. Each icon on the map represents an individual reservoir, color-coded based on how full it is currently.

On Your Marks

(Financial Times August, 2016)
Test your reaction time and remember why you’re not an Olympian. These mini-games create shareable achievements and shames.

For good measure, here’s one from the Wall Street Journal, and one from the New York Times. Or find your body double, with this quiz from the BBC, then hop over to Vox to find out where your body type can win or lose.

If you’d rather take yourself out of the equation—and compare an archery bow to a pizza instead—then this from the Washington Post is more your speed.

Where Does Foreign Aid Go?

(The Economist, August 10, 2016)

Which countries receive foreign aid, and which countries give it? This bar graph and map from the Economist paints the globe in the colors of money.

Even More

The places we go.

Retro telephone trolls (page 25), and how a company treated them.

Is this woman’s plight overstated? It is not…. When the telephone becomes an instrument of annoyance, unpleasantness, or terror, it is a matter of serious concern to us. Removing sources of customer irritation is an integral part of providing high quality service to our customers.

Redialing a publishing company. A dystopian business simulator. A shipload of ships. A gazeteer of real places. A landscape of unreal cartography.

Paying the JavaScript piper?

Not how graphs work.

An in-house CMS that works for the people who use it.

Just remember: “A dog catches no chickens.”

Here at OpenNews, we’re still overwhelmed with gratitude from last month’s SRCCON. Thanks again to everyone who made it to Portland, and to all those who followed along remotely. We’re collecting documentation on this Etherpad.

On our last OpenNews Community Call, we heard from some great folks, including Ben Myers and Sara Lipka, who walked us through the Chronicle of Higher Education’s Title IX Sexual Assault Investigations Tracker. (Missed the call? We saved you the notes, and here’s more on how the team made it.)

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