[ddemchuk]

Why does loading TechCrunch take me 9 seconds? What exactly are they doing to cause such a slow load? Why does a page load for them require 330 requests?

[k33l0r]

They seem to have no idea about site optimization. The home page gets a C in Google's Page Speed and a D from YSlow: http://gtmetrix.com/reports/techcrunch.com/yUjb1zjR

[nkassis]

I'm going to say without looking that's it's for ads. Oh and I'm sure that blocky logo isn't compressed at all, (same effect could have been done with the logo at 50x50 scaled up ;p)

[phamilton]

Some browsers blur scaled up images so you don't get that nice blocky image.