What a bunch of ...

... bullshit!

The developers count on the stackoverflow ad page is clearly increased at random.

The count is being increased in a recursively called function at random intervals. Here's the javascript:

$(function(){
       
        var visitors = 5373966;
        var updateVisitors = function()
            {
                visitors++;
                
                var vs = visitors.toString(), 
                     i = Math.floor(vs.length / 3),
                     l = vs.length % 3;
                while (i-->0) if (!(l==0&&i==0))
                    vs = vs.slice(0,i*3+l)
                       + ',' 
                       + vs.slice(i*3+l);
                $('#devCount').text(vs);
                setTimeout(updateVisitors, Math.random()*2000);
            };
        
        setTimeout(updateVisitors, Math.random()*2000);
        
    });

P.S. Posting this from google SideWiki - kinda cool

in reference to: http://inedomedia.com/stackoverflow.aspx (view on Google Sidewiki)