I've always enjoyed creating analogies like to see why certain behaviors, mindsets, and tactics are okay in some industries and others not. To wet your palette a bit more here's a wonderful essay analogizing math education to music (Famously, The Mathematician's Lament) http://www.maa.org/devlin/LockhartsLament.pdf

And a TED Talk comparing the use of patents and trademarks in the fashion industry to software. http://www.ted.com/talks/johanna_blakley_lessons_from_fashio...

Both are quite insightful, and I think you'll enjoy them.

FYI: "whet your palate"

Thanks for the tip, I was just about to start debugging it for IE.

I tried a few really obvious backgrounds (Even a mario background for fun) and found a soft subtle background gave the best effect, although it looks like I went too far. It looked fine on the few screens I demo'd it on, but I'll update with a higher contrast background soon.

Try using something more colorful like a landscape or bokeh so that the perception of parallax feels natural and impactful. I had totally missed the parallax had it not been for the comments here.

I noticed it much more when I turned my laptop screen brightness up all the way. Maybe something to consider testing if you pick a new one.

Your suggestion for the CSS3 is great, I'll definitely toy around with it in the next few days.

Secondly, Parallax.js can already do this. It simply moves around the divs you feed it, which can be tiny or full screened! This allows you to throw your own header on the top, or, if you like, a same parallaxing div in the center of your page.