Category: Blog

I want to discuss accessibility because it is the most important thing for making websites. Other A List Apart articles give you innovation and insight. This article will give you homework. These are just my personal views, but they’re pretty good.

I want to start off with a couple of statements, and you will agree:

1. Designers are good people. I have never heard a designer say, “I don’t care if somebody can’t read this text”, “Not my fault if somebody can’t use this device”, or “Who cares if this is confusing?”
2. Some designs exclude people. You have seen people unable to read the text on a website or app that somebody designed. You’ve seen people unable to use a physical device that somebody has designed. You’ve seen people utterly bamboozled while trying to use a service that somebody designed.

So what?

The first question is, “Is this life-or-death stuff?” The answer is, “Yes.” In my favorite essay, This Is All There Is, Aral Balkan makes the point that pretty much everything that we design can affect life events and death events. Aral gives the example of how even a straightforward bus timetable app can affect life and death events, if we design it badly:

• somebody might miss a life event, such as their daughter’s fifth birthday party; or
• somebody might miss a death event, such as the chance to say goodbye to a dying grandmother.

The next—and frustrating—question is, “Why do some designs still exclude people?” After all, we know that:

• not everybody can see perfectly;
• not everybody can hear perfectly;
• not everybody thinks the same way; and
• not everybody moves the same way.

I think the answer is that there’s too much to recall. Consider, if you will, the wide variety of topics that A List Apart articles cover. Designers are expected to remember all of that guidance, plus all of the accessibility guidance, plus so much more. It is too much.

Recognizing accessibility issues while designing

I’d like to point toward one possible solution, starting from Jakob Nielsen’s 10 Usability Heuristics for User Interface Design. These are from the mid-1990s, and—although there’s a good chance that you, gentle reader, are a lot younger than that—please bear with me. 

Seeing as the problem is that there’s too much to recall, I want to look at heuristic № 6, “Recognition rather than Recall.” Jakob Nielsen said that for users, information required to use the design should be visible or easily retrievable when needed. I suggest we tweak that to make life easier for designers. Let’s say that the information required to produce the design should be visible or easily retrievable when needed. In other words, let’s make it easier to recognise accessibility issues while we’re designing.

How are we going to do that? I really like the book A Web for Everyone—Designing Accessible User Experiences by Sarah Horton and Whitney Quesenbery. I really like this book not only because it includes a quote from me—actually two quotes, but I don’t like to boast—but because it includes personas that are perfect for helping us to recognise accessibility issues. That’s the good news. The even better news is that these personas are available now for free on the companion website to the book What Every Engineer Should Know About Digital Accessibility, again by Sarah Horton, with David Sloan this time.

Meet your users

I’m going to introduce you to these personas now:

• Vishnu, an engineer and global citizen with low vision says, “I want to be on the same level as everyone else”, “If I can adjust my screen, I can read comfortably”, and, “Translating in my head is easier with simpler sentences.”
• Trevor, a high school student with autism, says, “I like consistent, familiar places on the web”, “When I can learn the pattern, I can find my way”, and, “Reading is hard for me”.
• Steven, a deaf graphic artist and American Sign Language speaker, says, “My only disability is that everyone doesn’t sign”, and, “Without captions, it’s meaningless to me”.
• Maria, a bilingual community health worker, says, “I love this. It’s all here … when I can find it”, “When a site is confusing, I just leave”—fair enough, Maria!—and, “When I hear and see it, health information makes more sense”.
• Lea, an editor living with fatigue and pain, says, “No one gets that this really is a disability”, “Don’t make me work so hard”—please do not bombard this lady with drop-down lists—and, “Links at the top of the page make navigation easier for me”.
• Jacob, a blind paralegal and a bit of a geek, says, “The right technology lets me do anything”, and “This makes it possible to do my job”.
• Emily, who has cerebral palsy and is living independently, says, “I want to do everything for myself”, “Simpler screens are easier screens”—hell yeah, Emily!—and, “Tell me what I need in advance”.
• Carol, a grandmother with macular degeneration which affects her sight, says, “My grandkids are dragging me into the world of technology”, “I don’t understand what the screen is saying”, and, “Why can’t the text be just a little bit larger?”

I want to throw one more persona at you now, because, well, A List Apart readers are overachievers. One of my favorite authors, Cennydd Bowles—who literally wrote the book on Future Ethics—says to create Personas Non Grata. In other words, every time we design something, we have to think about what a bad guy could do with that thing, and whom that might affect.

To actually use these personas while designing, I like what Eric Meyer and Sara Wachter-Boettcher in Design for Real Life call the Designated Dissenter: for each project that you work on, one of your teams should be responsible for asking, “Will this work for Vishnu?”, “How’s Trevor going to get on with this?”, and so on. 

Then, once you’ve used the personas to recognise the accessibility issues, you can look up the guidelines for whichever platforms you’re designing for: 

• Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.2
• Accessibility designing — Material Design 3
• Accessibility — Windows apps
• Accessibility | Apple Developer Documentation
• Check your interface for accessibility (Ubuntu)

Your mission, should you choose to accept it

I told you in the introduction of this article that I would give you homework. You thought I was joking. So, here’s your homework: I want you to grab the personas from the Know About Accessibility website, and use them throughout every design project to help you recognise accessibility issues while you work—and reclaim design for everyone.

NOTE: This article is based on “Recognise,” my five-minute presentation from Interaction Design Association (IxDA) Dublin’s Defuse (Design for Use) event in 2025.

Today’s web is not always an amiable place. Sites greet you with a popover that demands assent to their cookie policy, and leave you with Taboola ads promising “One Weird Trick!” to cure your ailments. Social media sites are tuned for engagement, and few things are more engaging than a fight. Today it seems that people want to quarrel; I have seen flame wars among birders.  

These tensions are often at odds with a site’s goals. If we are providing support and advice to customers, we don’t want those customers to wrangle with each other. If we offer news about the latest research, we want readers to feel at ease; if we promote upcoming marches, we want our core supporters to feel comfortable and we want curious newcomers to feel welcome. 

In a study for a conference on the History of the Web, I looked to the origins of Computer Science in Vienna (1928-1934)  for a case study of the importance of amiability in a research community and the disastrous consequences of its loss. That story has interesting implications for web environments that promote amiable interaction among disparate, difficult (and sometimes disagreeable) people.

The Vienna Circle

Though people had been thinking about calculating engines and thinking machines from antiquity, Computing really got going in Depression-era Vienna.  The people who worked out the theory had no interest in building machines; they wanted to puzzle out the limits of reason in the absence of divine authority. If we could not rely on God or Aristotle to tell us how to think, could we instead build arguments that were self-contained and demonstrably correct? Can we be sure that mathematics is consistent? Are there things that are true but that cannot be expressed in language? 

The core ideas were worked out in the weekly meetings (Thursdays at 6) of a group remembered as the Vienna Circle. They got together in the office of Professor Moritz Schlick at the University of Vienna to discuss problems in philosophy, math, and language. The intersection of physics and philosophy had long been a specialty of this Vienna department, and this work had placed them among the world leaders.  Schlick’s colleague Hans Hahn was a central participant, and by 1928 Hahn brought along his graduate students Karl Menger and Kurt Gödel. Other frequent participants included philosopher Rudolf Carnap, psychologist Karl Popper, economist Ludwig von Mises (brought by his brother Frederick, a physicist),  graphic designer Otto Neurath (inventor of infographics), and architect Josef Frank (brought by his physicist brother, Phillip).  Out-of-town visitors often joined, including the young Johnny von Neumann, Alfred Tarski, and the irascible Ludwig Wittgenstein. 

When Schlick’s office grew too dim, participants adjourned to a nearby café for additional discussion with an even larger circle of participants.  This convivial circle was far from unique.  An intersecting circle–Neurath, von Mises, Oskar Morgenstern–established the Austrian School of free-market economics. There were theatrical circles (Peter Lorre, Hedy Lamarr, Max Reinhardt), and literary circles. The café was where things happened.

The interdisciplinarity of the group posed real challenges of temperament and understanding. Personalities were often a challenge. Gödel was convinced people were trying to poison him. Architect Josef Frank depended on contracts for public housing, which Mises opposed as wasteful. Wittgenstein’s temper had lost him his job as a secondary school teacher, and for some of these years he maintained a detailed list of whom he was willing to meet. Neurath was eager to detect muddled thinking and would interrupt a speaker with a shouted “Metaphysics!” The continuing amity of these meetings was facilitated by the personality of their leader, Moritz Schlick, who would be remembered as notably adept in keeping disagreements from becoming quarrels.

In the Café

The Viennese café of this era was long remembered as a particularly good place to argue with your friends, to read, and to write. Built to serve an imperial capital, the cafés found themselves with too much space and too few customers now that the Empire was gone. There was no need to turn tables: a café could only survive by coaxing customers to linger. Perhaps they would order another coffee, or one of their friends might drop by. One could play chess, or billiards, or read newspapers from abroad. Coffee was invariably served with a glass of purified spring water, still a novelty in an era in which most water was still unsafe to drink. That water glass would be refilled indefinitely. 

In the basement of one café, the poet Jura Soyfer staged “The End Of The World,” a musical comedy in which Professor Peep has discovered a comet heading for earth.

Prof. Peep: The comet is going to destroy everybody!

Hitler:  Destroying everybody is my business.

Of course, coffee can be prepared in many ways, and the Viennese café developed a broad vocabulary to represent precisely how one preferred to drink it: melange, Einspänner, Brauner, Schwarzer, Kapuziner. This extensive customization, with correspondingly esoteric conventions of service, established the café as a comfortable and personal third space, a neutral ground in which anyone who could afford a coffee would be welcome. Viennese of this era were fastidious in their use of personal titles, of which an abundance were in common use. Café waiters greeted regular customers with titles too, but were careful to address their patrons with titles a notch or two greater than they deserved. A graduate student would be Doktor, an unpaid postdoc Professor.  This assurance mattered all the more because so many members of the Circle (and so many other Viennese) came from elsewhere: Carnap from Wuppertal, Gödel from Brno, von Neumann from Budapest. No one was going to make fun of your clothes, mannerisms, or accent. Your friends wouldn’t be bothered by the pram in the hall. Everyone shared a Germanic Austrian literary and philosophical culture, not least those whose ancestors had been Eastern European Jews who knew that culture well, having read all about it in books.

The amiability of the café circle was enhanced by its openness. Because the circle sometimes extended to architects and actors, people could feel less constrained to admit shortfalls in their understanding. It was soon discovered that marble tabletops made a useful surface for pencil sketches, serving all as an improvised and accessible blackboard.

Comedies like “The End Of The World” and fictional newspaper sketches or feuilletons of writers like Joseph Roth and Stefan Zweig served as a second defense against disagreeable or churlish behavior. The knowledge that, if one got carried away, a parody of one’s remarks might shortly appear in Neue Freie Presse surely helped Professor Schlick keep matters in hand.

The End Of Red Vienna

Though Austria’s government drifted to the right after the War, Vienna’s city council had been Socialist, dedicated to public housing based on user-centered design, and embracing  ambitious programs of public outreach and adult education. In 1934 the Socialists lost a local election, and this era soon came to its end as the new administration focused on the imagined threat of the International Jewish Conspiracy. Most members of the Circle fled within months: von Neumann to Princeton, Neurath to Holland and Oxford, Popper to New Zealand, Carnap to Chicago. Prof. Schlick was murdered on the steps of the University by a student outraged by his former association with Jews.  Jura Soyfer, who wrote “The End Of The World,” died in Buchenwald.

In 1939, von Neumann finally convinced Gödel to accept a job in Princeton. Gödel was required to pay large fines to emigrate. The officer in charge of these fees would look back on this as the best posting of his career; his name was Eichmann.

Design for Amiability

An impressive literature recounts those discussions and the environment that facilitated the development of computing. How can we design for amiability?  This is not just a matter of choosing rounded typefaces and a cheerful pastel palette. I believe we may identify eight distinct issues that exert design forces in usefully amiable directions.

Seriousness: The Vienna Circle was wrestling with a notoriously difficult book—Wittgenstein’s Tractus Logico-Philosophicus—and a catalog of outstanding open questions in mathematics. They were concerned with consequential problems, not merely scoring points for debating. Constant reminders that the questions you are considering matter—not only that they are consequential or that those opposing you are scoundrels—help promote amity.

Empiricism: The characteristic approach of the Vienna Circle demanded that knowledge be grounded either in direct observation or in rigorous reasoning. Disagreement, when it arose, could be settled by observation or by proof. If neither seemed ready to hand, the matter could not be settled. On these terms, one can seldom if ever demolish an opposing argument, and trolling is pointless.

Abstraction: Disputes grow worse when losing the argument entails lost face or lost jobs. The Vienna Circle’s focus on theory—the limits of mathematics, the capability of language—promoted amity. Without seriousness, abstraction could have been merely academic, but the limits of reason and the consistency of mathematics were clearly serious.

Formality: The punctilious demeanor of waiters and the elaborated rituals of coffee service helped to establish orderly attitudes amongst the argumentative participants. This stands in contrast to the contemptuous sneer that now dominates social media.  

Schlamperei: Members of the Vienna Circle maintained a global correspondence, and they knew their work was at the frontier of research. Still, this was Vienna, at the margins of Europe: old-fashioned, frumpy, and dingy. Many participants came from even more obscure backwaters. Most or all harbored the suspicion that they were really schleppers, and a tinge of the ridiculous helped to moderate tempers. The director of “The End Of The World” had to pass the hat for money to purchase a moon for the set, and thought it was funny enough to write up for publication.

Openness: All sorts of people were involved in discussion, anyone might join in. Each week would bring different participants. Fluid borders reduce tension, and provide opportunities to broaden the range of discussion and the terms of engagement. Low entrance friction was characteristic of the café: anyone could come, and if you came twice you were virtually a regular. Permeable boundaries and café culture made it easier for moderating influences to draw in raconteurs and storytellers to defuse awkward moments, and Vienna’s cafés had no shortage of humorists. Openness counteracts the suspicion that promoters of amiability are exerting censorship.

Parody: The environs of the Circle—the university office and the café—were unmistakably public. There were writers about, some of them renowned humorists. The prospect that one’s bad taste or bad behavior might be ridiculed in print kept discussion within bounds. The sanction of public humiliation, however, was itself made mild by the veneer of fiction; even if you got a little carried away and a character based on you made a splash in some newspaper fiction, it wasn’t the end of the world.

Engagement: The subject matter was important to the participants, but it was esoteric: it did not matter very much to their mothers or their siblings. A small stumble or a minor humiliation could be shrugged off in ways that major media confrontations cannot.

I believe it is notable that this environment was designed to promote amiability through several different voices.  The café waiter flattered each newcomer and served everyone, and also kept out local pickpockets and drunks who would be mere disruptions. Schlick and other regulars kept discussion moving and on track. The fiction writers and raconteurs—perhaps the most peripheral of the participants—kept people in a good mood and reminded them that bad behavior could make anyone ridiculous.  Crucially, each of these voices were human: you could reason with them. Algorithmic or AI moderators, however clever, are seldom perceived as reasonable. The café circles had no central authority or Moderator against whom everyone’s resentments might be focused. Even after the disaster of 1934, what people remembered were those cheerful arguments.

7 Steps to Small Business Marketing Success – Episode 4 written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing

Catch the Full Episode Overview Every founder I talk to is excited about AI content tools. Most of them should be a little nervous. The market is being flooded with content that reads fine and means nothing, and when you add to that pile, you do not rise above it. You disappear into it. In […]

7 Steps to Small Business Marketing Success – Episode 4 written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing

Catch the Full Episode

Overview

Every founder I talk to is excited about AI content tools. Most of them should be a little nervous. The market is being flooded with content that reads fine and means nothing, and when you add to that pile, you do not rise above it. You disappear into it. In this solo episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast, John Jantsch makes the case that more content is the fastest way to become less visible, and that the fix is not volume. It is content built to do a specific job.

The episode lays out a practical content strategy for small business owners who are tired of publishing for the sake of publishing. John walks through three principles: picking content pillars anchored on your ideal client’s problems, organizing everything under hub pages that signal authority to both buyers and AI, and repurposing authoritative founder content rather than mass-producing generic posts. He also names the ingredient most businesses skip entirely: a point of view.

This one is for small business owners, marketers, agencies, and consultants who want their content to compound over years instead of evaporating in a week. If you have ever written a blog post because the topic seemed interesting that week, this episode will change how you plan everything that comes next.

Key Takeaways

• More content is not the answer. AI has flooded the market with readable but forgettable material, and adding to it buries your brand instead of building it.
• Content should do a job. If a piece cannot tie back to a clear pillar, you should not be producing it.
• Pick three content pillars at most, anchored on your ideal client’s problems or buyer segments. Three gives you range without dilution.
• Use the three-year test: if you would be bored with a topic in six months, it is a theme, not a pillar. Pillars are what you intend to own years from now.
• Organize content under hub pages. One page per pillar where your proof, case studies, and expertise live together, so both search engines and buyers see real authority.
• Hub pages serve your sales team too. They give you a credible place to send prospects who need the full picture on a topic.
• Repurpose authoritative content. An hour of focused founder conversation can become 50 to 100 pieces of content in the founder’s real voice.
• This is the best use of AI for content. Not to write the generic stuff, but to stretch the good stuff once you have captured it.
• The missing ingredient is a point of view. AI returns the opinion of the collective mass. It cannot give you the thing only you believe.
• A point of view does not have to be controversial. It just has to be different, and most founders already hold one they are simply not surfacing.

Great Moments

• [00:01] John kicks off episode four of the seven-part solo series and frames the core idea: why more content is making you less visible.
• [02:26] The first principle, picking pillars, and why your content needs to compound around your ideal client’s problems.
• [04:49] The three-year test for separating a real pillar from a passing theme, plus how hub pages organize it all.
• [07:12] The repurposing principle, including how an hour with a founder becomes 50 to 100 pieces of authoritative content.
• [09:24] The missing ingredient most businesses skip: developing a genuine point of view in a sea of AI sameness.
• [11:44] Your next steps and where to get the full Seven Steps ebook.

Memorable Quotes

• “Adding to that pile doesn’t help you. It buries you.”
• “If you’re bored with a topic in six months, it’s not a pillar. It’s a theme.”
• “Every piece of content should point to one of those pillars. If you can’t tie it to one, you shouldn’t be doing it.”
• “AI doesn’t develop points of view. It develops the point of view of the collective mass.”
• “It doesn’t have to be controversial. It just has to be different.”

Resources

• The Seven Steps to Small Business Marketing Success ebook (under five dollars): dtm.world/sevensteps
• Talk to a Duct Tape Marketing advisor: ducttapemarketing.com/consultation

What does it mean that something is cursed? Well, in the way the term is used now, it doesn’t mean that something (or someone) is being altered supernaturally, rather, it refers to events or circumstances that are so weird or tragic, they feel like a curse was cast.

No one actually thinks these shows were cursed, but people do agree that parts of their plots, productions or scripts feel that way. These are the TV shows that generate a lot of online discussions, not due to their plots or characters, but due to how they look and feel in the real world.

The post 14 Most Cursed TV Shows appeared first on Den of Geek.

Articles that talk about how back in the day, the danger was real for the performers on stage, tend to sound like they miss those days. We don’t. We believe we live in an era where safety needs to come first, and where animals aren’t exploited. It isn’t a perfect world, but we’re trying.

Instead, we are focusing on these images to remember the strange things we thought were fun. Dangerous stunts still happen, but with a much more dedicated medical staff. Animals are still used in entertainment, but with far more laws protecting them. These are the windows to a past we won’t be returning to.

Polar Bear Chorus

Training a bear to do something is one thing, training a whole group of them is quite another. These bears had to balance on balls, look cute, and jump over rings of fire just to earn a meal and go back to their cells.

Basketball On Wheels

Perhaps one of the more quaint auditions to the list, here we have some players of basketball with an additional difficulty spike: balancing on monocycles. It’s hard to imagine any dribbling taking place.

Elephant Parade

While the animals here seem to be treated better than the bears (and better than in Dumbo), these poor elephants must have been scared of being around so many people. And believe me, a scared elephant is one of the most dangerous things in the world.

Balancing Without A Net

Yes, seeing acrobats doing their craft without need of a safety net is impressive, but only because you fear for the poor person’s life. Is it really all that less impressive if you know the artist will survive at the end?

Monowheel Confidense

Riding a monocycle is already hard, but it is harder if you also need to balance someone on top of you. Fortunately, the audiences will be focused on the person on top, since the one below will be too focused to be charismatic.

The General

Moving on to films, The General featured one of the most expensive and dangerous stunts of the silent era when a real locomotive was sent crashing through a burning bridge.

Ben-Hur

Ben-Hur used a massive practical chariot race involving real horses, real collisions, and significant risk to performers and stuntmen.

The Man with the Golden Gun

The Man with the Golden Gun included a record-setting corkscrew car jump performed for real, requiring precise calculations and leaving little room for error.

Police Story

Police Story featured Jackie Chan doing many of his own stunts, suffering burns and injuries during one of cinema’s most famous scenes.

Roar

Roar was filmed with dozens of real lions, tigers, and other big cats. More than 70 cast and crew members reportedly suffered injuries during production.

The post 10 Photos from When Entertainment Involved Real Danger appeared first on Den of Geek.

Romantic chemistry in movies does not always follow logic, consistency, or even basic compatibility, yet audiences are often asked to accept it anyway. Over the years, countless films have paired characters together for narrative convenience, star power, or simple storytelling shortcuts rather than a believable emotional connection. The result is a long list of couples that feel confusing, forced, or completely out of place within their own stories. Here are twenty movie couples that never quite made sense on paper, but still ended up happening on screen.

The post 20 Movie Couples That Made Absolutely No Sense But Still Happened appeared first on Den of Geek.

Articles that talk about how back in the day, the danger was real for the performers on stage, tend to sound like they miss those days. We don’t. We believe we live in an era where safety needs to come first, and where animals aren’t exploited. It isn’t a perfect world, but we’re trying.

Instead, we are focusing on these images to remember the strange things we thought were fun. Dangerous stunts still happen, but with a much more dedicated medical staff. Animals are still used in entertainment, but with far more laws protecting them. These are the windows to a past we won’t be returning to.

Polar Bear Chorus

Training a bear to do something is one thing, training a whole group of them is quite another. These bears had to balance on balls, look cute, and jump over rings of fire just to earn a meal and go back to their cells.

Basketball On Wheels

Perhaps one of the more quaint auditions to the list, here we have some players of basketball with an additional difficulty spike: balancing on monocycles. It’s hard to imagine any dribbling taking place.

Elephant Parade

While the animals here seem to be treated better than the bears (and better than in Dumbo), these poor elephants must have been scared of being around so many people. And believe me, a scared elephant is one of the most dangerous things in the world.

Balancing Without A Net

Yes, seeing acrobats doing their craft without need of a safety net is impressive, but only because you fear for the poor person’s life. Is it really all that less impressive if you know the artist will survive at the end?

Monowheel Confidense

Riding a monocycle is already hard, but it is harder if you also need to balance someone on top of you. Fortunately, the audiences will be focused on the person on top, since the one below will be too focused to be charismatic.

The General

Moving on to films, The General featured one of the most expensive and dangerous stunts of the silent era when a real locomotive was sent crashing through a burning bridge.

Ben-Hur

Ben-Hur used a massive practical chariot race involving real horses, real collisions, and significant risk to performers and stuntmen.

The Man with the Golden Gun

The Man with the Golden Gun included a record-setting corkscrew car jump performed for real, requiring precise calculations and leaving little room for error.

Police Story

Police Story featured Jackie Chan doing many of his own stunts, suffering burns and injuries during one of cinema’s most famous scenes.

Roar

Roar was filmed with dozens of real lions, tigers, and other big cats. More than 70 cast and crew members reportedly suffered injuries during production.

The post 10 Photos from When Entertainment Involved Real Danger appeared first on Den of Geek.

As actors and performers grow in age, the roles they can play change dramatically. Child actors grow into teen dramas, who later play adults and veterans until only elderly roles are left. But not everyone functions that way, since not all bodies grow in the same manner; some people are eternal children, while others look 40 from before and after they turn that age.

Chalk it up to a receding hairline, a weathered face, or simply an unusually mature screen presence, these actors often found themselves playing authority figures, parents, and grizzled professionals long before their actual age suggested it. Looking back, it’s hard not to wonder whether some of these actors were somehow born looking 40 years old.

The post 14 Actors Who Looked 40 Their Entire Careers appeared first on Den of Geek.

Articles that talk about how back in the day, the danger was real for the performers on stage, tend to sound like they miss those days. We don’t. We believe we live in an era where safety needs to come first, and where animals aren’t exploited. It isn’t a perfect world, but we’re trying.

Instead, we are focusing on these images to remember the strange things we thought were fun. Dangerous stunts still happen, but with a much more dedicated medical staff. Animals are still used in entertainment, but with far more laws protecting them. These are the windows to a past we won’t be returning to.

Polar Bear Chorus

Training a bear to do something is one thing, training a whole group of them is quite another. These bears had to balance on balls, look cute, and jump over rings of fire just to earn a meal and go back to their cells.

Basketball On Wheels

Perhaps one of the more quaint auditions to the list, here we have some players of basketball with an additional difficulty spike: balancing on monocycles. It’s hard to imagine any dribbling taking place.

Elephant Parade

While the animals here seem to be treated better than the bears (and better than in Dumbo), these poor elephants must have been scared of being around so many people. And believe me, a scared elephant is one of the most dangerous things in the world.

Balancing Without A Net

Yes, seeing acrobats doing their craft without need of a safety net is impressive, but only because you fear for the poor person’s life. Is it really all that less impressive if you know the artist will survive at the end?

Monowheel Confidense

Riding a monocycle is already hard, but it is harder if you also need to balance someone on top of you. Fortunately, the audiences will be focused on the person on top, since the one below will be too focused to be charismatic.

The General

Moving on to films, The General featured one of the most expensive and dangerous stunts of the silent era when a real locomotive was sent crashing through a burning bridge.

Ben-Hur

Ben-Hur used a massive practical chariot race involving real horses, real collisions, and significant risk to performers and stuntmen.

The Man with the Golden Gun

The Man with the Golden Gun included a record-setting corkscrew car jump performed for real, requiring precise calculations and leaving little room for error.

Police Story

Police Story featured Jackie Chan doing many of his own stunts, suffering burns and injuries during one of cinema’s most famous scenes.

Roar

Roar was filmed with dozens of real lions, tigers, and other big cats. More than 70 cast and crew members reportedly suffered injuries during production.

The post 10 Photos from When Entertainment Involved Real Danger appeared first on Den of Geek.

Some actors seem to maintain the face and physicality of youth for longer than other people, letting them play young adults or even teens well into their thirties. Emphasis on some, since there are other actors that simply don’t look the part. Adults act better than teens, but they need to fit the bill.

We’ve gathered here a few actors that played teens for a bit too long, traversing high school halls looking more like teachers than students. Some of them were able to trick us for years, but not forever; at some point, it’s time to pass the torch to the new generations.

The post Actors Who Were Somehow Cast as Teenagers for Way Too Long appeared first on Den of Geek.

Articles that talk about how back in the day, the danger was real for the performers on stage, tend to sound like they miss those days. We don’t. We believe we live in an era where safety needs to come first, and where animals aren’t exploited. It isn’t a perfect world, but we’re trying.

Instead, we are focusing on these images to remember the strange things we thought were fun. Dangerous stunts still happen, but with a much more dedicated medical staff. Animals are still used in entertainment, but with far more laws protecting them. These are the windows to a past we won’t be returning to.

Polar Bear Chorus

Training a bear to do something is one thing, training a whole group of them is quite another. These bears had to balance on balls, look cute, and jump over rings of fire just to earn a meal and go back to their cells.

Basketball On Wheels

Perhaps one of the more quaint auditions to the list, here we have some players of basketball with an additional difficulty spike: balancing on monocycles. It’s hard to imagine any dribbling taking place.

Elephant Parade

While the animals here seem to be treated better than the bears (and better than in Dumbo), these poor elephants must have been scared of being around so many people. And believe me, a scared elephant is one of the most dangerous things in the world.

Balancing Without A Net

Yes, seeing acrobats doing their craft without need of a safety net is impressive, but only because you fear for the poor person’s life. Is it really all that less impressive if you know the artist will survive at the end?

Monowheel Confidense

Riding a monocycle is already hard, but it is harder if you also need to balance someone on top of you. Fortunately, the audiences will be focused on the person on top, since the one below will be too focused to be charismatic.

The General

Moving on to films, The General featured one of the most expensive and dangerous stunts of the silent era when a real locomotive was sent crashing through a burning bridge.

Ben-Hur

Ben-Hur used a massive practical chariot race involving real horses, real collisions, and significant risk to performers and stuntmen.

The Man with the Golden Gun

The Man with the Golden Gun included a record-setting corkscrew car jump performed for real, requiring precise calculations and leaving little room for error.

Police Story

Police Story featured Jackie Chan doing many of his own stunts, suffering burns and injuries during one of cinema’s most famous scenes.

Roar

Roar was filmed with dozens of real lions, tigers, and other big cats. More than 70 cast and crew members reportedly suffered injuries during production.

The post 10 Photos from When Entertainment Involved Real Danger appeared first on Den of Geek.

Articles that talk about how back in the day, the danger was real for the performers on stage, tend to sound like they miss those days. We don’t. We believe we live in an era where safety needs to come first, and where animals aren’t exploited. It isn’t a perfect world, but we’re trying.

Instead, we are focusing on these images to remember the strange things we thought were fun. Dangerous stunts still happen, but with a much more dedicated medical staff. Animals are still used in entertainment, but with far more laws protecting them. These are the windows to a past we won’t be returning to.

The post 10 Photos from When Entertainment Involved Real Danger appeared first on Den of Geek.

Articles that talk about how back in the day, the danger was real for the performers on stage, tend to sound like they miss those days. We don’t. We believe we live in an era where safety needs to come first, and where animals aren’t exploited. It isn’t a perfect world, but we’re trying.

Instead, we are focusing on these images to remember the strange things we thought were fun. Dangerous stunts still happen, but with a much more dedicated medical staff. Animals are still used in entertainment, but with far more laws protecting them. These are the windows to a past we won’t be returning to.

Polar Bear Chorus

Training a bear to do something is one thing, training a whole group of them is quite another. These bears had to balance on balls, look cute, and jump over rings of fire just to earn a meal and go back to their cells.

Basketball On Wheels

Perhaps one of the more quaint auditions to the list, here we have some players of basketball with an additional difficulty spike: balancing on monocycles. It’s hard to imagine any dribbling taking place.

Elephant Parade

While the animals here seem to be treated better than the bears (and better than in Dumbo), these poor elephants must have been scared of being around so many people. And believe me, a scared elephant is one of the most dangerous things in the world.

Balancing Without A Net

Yes, seeing acrobats doing their craft without need of a safety net is impressive, but only because you fear for the poor person’s life. Is it really all that less impressive if you know the artist will survive at the end?

Monowheel Confidense

Riding a monocycle is already hard, but it is harder if you also need to balance someone on top of you. Fortunately, the audiences will be focused on the person on top, since the one below will be too focused to be charismatic.

The General

Moving on to films, The General featured one of the most expensive and dangerous stunts of the silent era when a real locomotive was sent crashing through a burning bridge.

Ben-Hur

Ben-Hur used a massive practical chariot race involving real horses, real collisions, and significant risk to performers and stuntmen.

The Man with the Golden Gun

The Man with the Golden Gun included a record-setting corkscrew car jump performed for real, requiring precise calculations and leaving little room for error.

Police Story

Police Story featured Jackie Chan doing many of his own stunts, suffering burns and injuries during one of cinema’s most famous scenes.

Roar

Roar was filmed with dozens of real lions, tigers, and other big cats. More than 70 cast and crew members reportedly suffered injuries during production.

The post 10 Photos from When Entertainment Involved Real Danger appeared first on Den of Geek.

Ask entrepreneur Gary Vaynerchuk, better known as Gary Vee, about his goals for the more than 200 characters he’s created for his VeeFriends brand, and he won’t just talk about the comics or stickers in which they’ve appeared, nor the newest set of VeeFriends trading cards released by Topps Chrome. No, Gary Vee wants VeeFriends […]

The post Gary Vee Follows Jim Henson’s Example With VeeFriends appeared first on Den of Geek.

Articles that talk about how back in the day, the danger was real for the performers on stage, tend to sound like they miss those days. We don’t. We believe we live in an era where safety needs to come first, and where animals aren’t exploited. It isn’t a perfect world, but we’re trying.

Instead, we are focusing on these images to remember the strange things we thought were fun. Dangerous stunts still happen, but with a much more dedicated medical staff. Animals are still used in entertainment, but with far more laws protecting them. These are the windows to a past we won’t be returning to.

Polar Bear Chorus

Training a bear to do something is one thing, training a whole group of them is quite another. These bears had to balance on balls, look cute, and jump over rings of fire just to earn a meal and go back to their cells.

Basketball On Wheels

Perhaps one of the more quaint auditions to the list, here we have some players of basketball with an additional difficulty spike: balancing on monocycles. It’s hard to imagine any dribbling taking place.

Elephant Parade

While the animals here seem to be treated better than the bears (and better than in Dumbo), these poor elephants must have been scared of being around so many people. And believe me, a scared elephant is one of the most dangerous things in the world.

Balancing Without A Net

Yes, seeing acrobats doing their craft without need of a safety net is impressive, but only because you fear for the poor person’s life. Is it really all that less impressive if you know the artist will survive at the end?

Monowheel Confidense

Riding a monocycle is already hard, but it is harder if you also need to balance someone on top of you. Fortunately, the audiences will be focused on the person on top, since the one below will be too focused to be charismatic.

The General

Moving on to films, The General featured one of the most expensive and dangerous stunts of the silent era when a real locomotive was sent crashing through a burning bridge.

Ben-Hur

Ben-Hur used a massive practical chariot race involving real horses, real collisions, and significant risk to performers and stuntmen.

The Man with the Golden Gun

The Man with the Golden Gun included a record-setting corkscrew car jump performed for real, requiring precise calculations and leaving little room for error.

Police Story

Police Story featured Jackie Chan doing many of his own stunts, suffering burns and injuries during one of cinema’s most famous scenes.

Roar

Roar was filmed with dozens of real lions, tigers, and other big cats. More than 70 cast and crew members reportedly suffered injuries during production.

The post 10 Photos from When Entertainment Involved Real Danger appeared first on Den of Geek.

Batman‘s always had a villain problem. Not just because they keep getting out of Arkham Asylum every time he puts them in, but also because they keep overshadowing him in movies. Even The Batman, which gave plenty of time to Robert Pattinson‘s emo take on the Dark Knight, also featured the Riddler, Catwoman, Carmine Falcone, […]

The post The Batman 2 Is Taking the Right Approach to The Penguin appeared first on Den of Geek.

Articles that talk about how back in the day, the danger was real for the performers on stage, tend to sound like they miss those days. We don’t. We believe we live in an era where safety needs to come first, and where animals aren’t exploited. It isn’t a perfect world, but we’re trying.

Instead, we are focusing on these images to remember the strange things we thought were fun. Dangerous stunts still happen, but with a much more dedicated medical staff. Animals are still used in entertainment, but with far more laws protecting them. These are the windows to a past we won’t be returning to.

Polar Bear Chorus

Training a bear to do something is one thing, training a whole group of them is quite another. These bears had to balance on balls, look cute, and jump over rings of fire just to earn a meal and go back to their cells.

Basketball On Wheels

Perhaps one of the more quaint auditions to the list, here we have some players of basketball with an additional difficulty spike: balancing on monocycles. It’s hard to imagine any dribbling taking place.

Elephant Parade

While the animals here seem to be treated better than the bears (and better than in Dumbo), these poor elephants must have been scared of being around so many people. And believe me, a scared elephant is one of the most dangerous things in the world.

Balancing Without A Net

Yes, seeing acrobats doing their craft without need of a safety net is impressive, but only because you fear for the poor person’s life. Is it really all that less impressive if you know the artist will survive at the end?

Monowheel Confidense

Riding a monocycle is already hard, but it is harder if you also need to balance someone on top of you. Fortunately, the audiences will be focused on the person on top, since the one below will be too focused to be charismatic.

The General

Moving on to films, The General featured one of the most expensive and dangerous stunts of the silent era when a real locomotive was sent crashing through a burning bridge.

Ben-Hur

Ben-Hur used a massive practical chariot race involving real horses, real collisions, and significant risk to performers and stuntmen.

The Man with the Golden Gun

The Man with the Golden Gun included a record-setting corkscrew car jump performed for real, requiring precise calculations and leaving little room for error.

Police Story

Police Story featured Jackie Chan doing many of his own stunts, suffering burns and injuries during one of cinema’s most famous scenes.

Roar

Roar was filmed with dozens of real lions, tigers, and other big cats. More than 70 cast and crew members reportedly suffered injuries during production.

The post 10 Photos from When Entertainment Involved Real Danger appeared first on Den of Geek.