U.S. Rep Steve Southerland grins after winning an auctioned possum during the Wausau Possum Festival on Saturday, August 2, 2014, in Wausau, Fla. What is usually a must-attend event for statewide candidates was notably lacking of them this year, perhaps because candidates who now raise tens of millions of dollars focus more on television ads than making personal contact. But not attending is a missed opportunity, said Susan MacManus, a University of South Florida political science professor who drove more than 350 miles for the festival. (Photo by Heather Leiphart/AP Photo/The News Herald)

A colorful sky at sunset over the snowy mountains in Immenstadt, Bavaria, Germany, 20 November 2014. Cloudy weather is forecast in the region on 21 November. (Photo by Karl-Josef Hildenbrand/EPA)

William Gibson is not one of the authors that spits out novels like a machine – in his long and fruitful career he has only published 11 novels andof short stories and articles in the tens each. Still his impact on modern literature was huge – the “noir prophet” of the cyberpunk subgenre (that he was one of the pioneers of) has predicted the rise of reality television, virtual reality, video games and the internet. He is a Hugo and Nebula award winning science fiction writer, with a special eye for what the future might bring.

An alpaca chewing a leaf is pictured on November 18, 2014 in the zoo of Frankfurt am Main, Germany. (Photo by Frank Rumpenhorst/AFP Photo/DPA)

Tens of thousands of vehicles damaged by super storm Sandy are being temporarily stored on runways and taxiways at Calverton Executive Airpark in Calverton, New York, on January 9, 2013 in this aerial view. Insurance Auto Auctions Inc, a salvage auto auction company specializing in total-loss vehicles, acquired the cars and trucks that were damaged, destroyed or flooded by the storm and needed a place to store them. The company made a deal with the Town of Riverhead to lease the airport land and then the vehicles are auctioned online. (Photo by Stan Honda/AFP Photo)

Children pour cold water on themselves under the control of fitness coach Margarita Filimonova (R) at local kindergarten number 317, with the air temperature at about minus 23 degrees Celsius (minus 9.4 degrees Fahrenheit), in Russia's Siberian city of Krasnoyarsk, February 5, 2013. (Photo by Ilya Naymushin/Reuters)

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Travel photographer Amos Chapple recently crossed into Turkmenistan on a three-day transit visa and was able to photograph many of the sights and monuments in Ashgabat, the capital and largest city. Turkmenistan is a single-party country, a former Soviet state, run by a president at the center of a cult of personality.

Photo: A young couple leave the Alem Entertainment Center in Ashgabat. The current president has a history of breaking obscure records. In 2012 the wheel atop this complex was entered into the Guinness Book of World Records as the world's largest enclosed Ferris wheel. The structure was built at a cost of $90m. (Photo by Amos Chapple via The Atlantic)

Adrienne Sipe (L) and Brooke Gilliam of Washington D.C. leap off a snow podium they made near the U.S. Capitol in Washington February 13, 2014. A deadly and intensifying winter storm packing heavy snow, sleet and rain pelted a huge swath of the U.S. East Coast on Thursday, grounding flights and shuttering schools and government offices. (Photo by Kevin Lamarque/Reuters)