That is, computer running the sign on the front of the store pulls data from here, and you've completely broken it because now the page loads a second time before it can finish drawing the screen. It /needs/ that delay on the HTTP request in order to catch up. A real programmer would have thought of that. Add some loops, sleeps and rands; we can talk about your reckless conduct in the morning.

What's worse is when fake delays are put into the code because (stupid) people think that the computer can't possibly be doing a good job if it retrieves the results in under a second. If it's "thinking", it's working well!

I thought the fake delays were so the programmer could cash in on doing optimisations at a later date.

Also, your ads are viewed for more seconds = more revenue

Those two things are just added bonuses!

Also known as "The Speedup Loop" - http://thedailywtf.com/Articles/The-Speedup-Loop.aspx

See: banking websites.

Just put a four way Cartesian join in a subselect that gets discarded. All unit tests pass! Ship it!