image_tag() helper is a sucker for memory.It takes more than 34 megabytes of memory to render a page displaying a list of about 500 rows, each accompanied by a set of four or five icons, each icon's
<img> tag created by image_tag() helper, with additional parameters provided like this:image_tag("some_image.png", "alt=Lovely, title=Rita")With those images coded explicitly, rendering takes just 8.5MB. A leak, maybe?