http://photography.nationalgeographic.com/photography/photo-of-the-day/camping-yosemite-night/
As the sun set, Mulek tread carefully across the last bit of terrain between him and his destination. His calloused hands grabbed a tree trunk, and he eased himself down to the next safe foothold. But from here, there was nowhere else to go but down.
He took a deep breath. Judged the angle. Whispered a quick prayer to no god in particular. Then let go of the tree.
http://photography.nationalgeographic.com/photography/photo-of-the-day/dog-playing-balls/
Voltoys: The Post-Civ Leader in Electronic Apparatus (marketing materials for local salesmen)
New gear now available!
Item #34 – Blast Balls
Life in NKC gets better every day. But the vast plains that surround our new home hide dangers new and old. The recent spate of attacks from feral dog packs inspired our latest creation.
http://photography.nationalgeographic.com/photography/photo-of-the-day/insect-fruit-fly-eyes/
“I don’t understand.”
“It’s a defensive fortification.”
“Defensive fortification?”
“Yes.”
“Against deer?”
“Well they aren’t deer.”
“Look like deer.”
“A little bit. But as you seem to have forgotten the decades you spent in stasis to get here, I shall remind you that this isn’t Earth, and as it is not Earth, there aren’t any deer.”
“But there are defensive fortifications against them?”
Bull markets always attracted the least trustworthy people. Dragon markets were routinely expensive but reliable. Bear markets were cheap but required a keen eye to spot good value. Carp markets, being clearance markets, were the best but also the most rare. Bull markets were the most common and, therefore, the least savory.
Lauk wasn’t after anything in particular. He had been advised, before wading into the abandoned lot surrounded on all sides by empty warehouses, to come without an agenda. Buyers with an agenda needed something, and the sellers at Bull markets could smell that need like sharks tracking blood in the water. Lauk wanted something good for cheap. This was the only safe way to shop at these things.
http://photography.nationalgeographic.com/photography/photo-of-the-day/honeybee-cell-varma/
Excerpt from Press Conference
Held at the Grand Palace of the Royal Family of Apini
Mark Seintine – Famous Trophy Hunter
Elle Latrille – Apinian Forest & Wildlife Ministry Official
Latrille
Thank you everyone for your interest. I have some brief facts on the hunt, then Mark will say a few words. We’ll then leave some time for questions. Mark set out with a team of 7, including himself, a bush guide, two porters, a Ministry official tasked with identifying an acceptable mark, a journalist and lastly one of his closest friends. They were in the bush for 5 days before making a successful kill. The mark was a worker bee, so female, estimated at about 91 kilograms, or 200 pounds. She was probably about forty years old, so she would have been at least three years past her pollinator days. Mark?
http://photography.nationalgeographic.com/photography/photo-of-the-day/boy-courtyard-playing/
Side to Side
Rules & Instructions
Game Summary
Side to Side is a classic schoolyard game for Telepaths. It is played on a square board and consists of 2 Players and 7 Pieces per team. The Pieces are dressed uniformly, traditionally one in white & one in grey, though any obvious different color/style will suffice. The Players, each assigned either the white or grey team, send directions telepathically to one piece per turn. The goal is to get 1 piece to the other team’s end. Any gameplay done without telepathy is grounds for forfeiture.
Basic Gameplay
The board is any square area. In our example photo, you’ll see boys in an Indian school using an interior courtyard as their game board.
http://photography.nationalgeographic.com/photography/photo-of-the-day/frozen-spring-nebraska/
With a thud, the tall wooden door slammed into the wall stopper. A figure stood in the open frame. The senator looked up and sighed.
“The building is a few hundred years old. Please don’t smash it to pieces over whatever tabloid nonsense has you riled up today.”
“No tabloids today,” the figure said. His chief of staff stepped into the dimly lit office. “Much worse than that.” She closed the door behind her.
http://photography.nationalgeographic.com/photography/photo-of-the-day/frozen-waterfall-iceland/
Minutes from the Thaw Meeting
Year 3705
Attendees: Ice Sprites, Water Nymphs, Mist Fairies
Day 1
10am – Roll Call
Day 2
10am – Roll Call (cont.)
– Fairies insist on their full names being called. Since Fairy names include all of their accomplishments and noteworthy deeds, and the Fairies themselves decide what accomplishments and deeds pass muster, names can take 20 minutes or more each
– e.g. the first Fairy called showed the most restraint; being named Roynayr of the Spiked Valley Who First Questioned The Logically Incongruent Name of the Valley And Ventured From the Valley to the Surrounding Mountains to Investigate Other Peaks And Therein Discovered a Heretofore Undocumented Ungulate Species of Similar Disposition to the Grumpiest of Antlered Beasts And Bravely Drove Them From the Otherwise Pleasant Lands of Some Proximity to the Spiked Valley And Who, Unjustly, Returned From His Adventure With Most of One Ear Missing Because Grumpy Antlered Beasts Pack a Wallop And Make No Mistake
http://photography.nationalgeographic.com/photography/photo-of-the-day/night-stars-clouds/
Looking down felt like looking backwards.
Backwards in Sysha’a life. She was 15 when she first came here, bussed out from her rural hometown after a wave of disease took most of her village, including her parents. She was terrified. The stories from the light farms were as varied as the colors that pulsed through the ever-present fog. But then it didn’t seem so bad, not at first. She was given a bed, a trunk, a job and the standard wage of a line sorter. One night, years later, she realized the dull walls and rotating cast of bunkmates had become familiar, and she’d started to refer to it as “home” in her inner dialogue. She’d nearly vomited from the thought. From that moment, every thought was based on planning her escape.
http://photography.nationalgeographic.com/photography/photo-of-the-day/man-walking-snowy-bridge/
It was the sound of the sled that got him. The half-crunch, half-slice of the dull blades meandering across the not-quite-frictionless surface. The brief absence of sound when it hit a perfect patch of ice and could glide silently for just a moment. Or maybe it was the sled’s weight. How could it be possible for an empty sled to be so much heavier than one with a rider?
The Tall Tale Year 