So I stumbled upon a neat little plugin for the Firebug plugin I’ve been using with Firefox for awhile now. It’s called YSlow and what it does is analyze various aspects of your pageload and compares it to Yahoo’s Exceptional Performance criteria and gives each aspect a letter grade rating. Nerd Culture was an F yesterday–Now it’s averaging between D to B for me, depending on the page. I reduced the total page load of the homepage from 784 KB to 345 KB, less than half what it was before! Even better; Primed Cache was reduced from 440 KB to 18 KB! Why was my server set up so that the users would download images they already have in their browser’s cache? >.>

Tomorrow I’m thinking of going on a full-scale safari, hacking through Wordpress’ code with my Dreamweaver machete until I slim this fatty down a little. >.<

Anyone else hate that Wordpress places all the javescript in the header and that they didn’t think to try using php to merge all the js files and all the css files into one big js file and one big css file, so you don’t have 50 HTTP Requests on every pageload? >.>

Popularity: 7% [?]

I broked mah Wurdprezz.

Sorry about that, I tried Minifying a few JS files to speed up load times and kinda broke them. Everything should be back to normal, but if you spot any errors let me know.

Popularity: 5% [?]

New feature! Nerd Culture now has polls, so I can ask you all sorts of useless questions with every post I make, including such questions as What Would Jesus Do? (Optionally, for you Pastafarians; What Would The Flying Spaghetti Monster Do?), Why Am I So Bald? and What Has Science Done?

Seriously though, I plan to make great use of these polls to try and figure out exactly what it is my fellow nerds want to know about. I’m always working to make Nerd Culture better and this is just one more step toward greatness.

Popularity: 6% [?]

You probably still remember my recent post about the animated film Beyond The Clouds–well, this is a brand new movie from the same director and animation studio! Byousoku 5cm, literally meaning 5 Centimeters Per Second, just came out in Japan this September. The art is absolutely fantastic (as you can probably assume by the fact I posted 65 screenshots of it. *_*), there is some definite improvement in the quality of the art since their previous project, Beyond The Clouds. The art is extremely colorful and extraordinarily detailed at times. You’d almost swear you were looking at the real thing in some scenes!

Aside from the noticeable improvement graphically, I found the story in 5 Centimeters Per Second was much more dramatic and engaging than Beyond The Clouds. The story is split into three chapters, each centered around a boy named Takaki Tono. Because of circumstances beyond his control he has been forced to spend his youth constantly moving from city to city. Takaki’s relationship with his close friend Akari Shinohara is very central to the plot.

Episode 1: Okasho

Upon graduating from elementary school, Takaki Tono and his close friend Akari Shinohara drifted apart. Akari moved to Tochigi Prefecture due to her parents’ jobs, while Takaki attended a junior high in Tokyo. The two kept in contact by writing letters, but despite the feelings that existed between them, the only thing that persisted was time. When Takaki became aware that his family would move to Kagoshima, he decided to go see Akari since they would be too far apart to visit each other after he moved. However, when the day came, a severe snowstorm delayed Takaki’s trip, and it would be hours before he reached Iwafune, where they promised to meet.

Episode 2: Cosmonaut

Takaki is now in the third year of senior high in Tanegashima, where the Tanegashima Space Center is located. Kanae Sumita, a classmate of Takaki, has feelings for Takaki, but she does not have the courage to express her love to him. She later observes that Takaki is always staring off into the distance, as if searching for something far far away. Even though she loves Takaki she understands that he is searching for things far greater than what she can offer.

Episode 3: Byōsoku 5 Centimeter

It is now 2008, and all three characters have gone their separate ways. Takaki is now a computer programmer in Tokyo, and Akari is preparing to get married. One day, Takaki goes out and sees the face of a familiar-looking woman at a railroad-crossing. He tries to look back, but a passing train obstructs his view.

The movie is very subtle in it’s presentation, but it is very rich in emotion and depth. I could very much feel an actual love between the characters in the story. That isn’t something that can often be said of an animated film. It was easy to relate the characters’ actions and emotions–Takaki, in the second chapter had a girl that loved him right by his side the whole time, but he couldn’t acknowledge her because he just couldn’t let go of the past. The movie quite much had a theme to it that dwelling on the past will only be damaging in the future.

From the art to the story right down to the characters this is a truly breathtaking film that anyone, regardless of interest in anime, could walk away with a part of themselves forever changed. This movie is pretty much required viewing for anyone with any interest at all in Japan and it’s unique culture.

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Popularity: 21% [?]

I was surfing about the blogosphere when I noticed a comment on a post about browsers mentioning a browser called Lolifox. I thought to myself; there is a browser that I don’t even know about? How is this possible! So I looked it up on Google and discovered it was a variant of Firefox with modifications to make it anime themed! When you install it you get several useful bookmarks in your bookmark list like AnimeSuki, but what I thought was the greatest part of it was the default start page. The start page has a search box that can search not only the popular search engines such as Google and Yahoo, but it can even search several anime-centric bit torrent sites such as AnimeSuki and Tokyo Toshokan!

You can download it yourself at Lolifox! It’s my new default browser. ^_^

Popularity: 54% [?]