The first question is one that we've received -- and answered -- with regularity over the years. For all those who've missed the explanation previously, here it is.
Question of the Day is automatically updated daily at midnight PST and the email alert is programmed to be sent out two hours later. If, when you click on the link in the email, the answer doesn't match the question you were expecting to see, there are two possible explanations: Either you are not looking at/clicking through that day's email, or your server has cached an old answer, in which case hitting the "refresh" button on your menu bar should update the page for you.
The QoD daily alert is an automated system that generates a new email each time a new question goes "live"; the link in the email goes directly to whichever question is live on the site at the time the link is clicked. If your email provider is delivering the email tardily, or you're not opening an email until a day or more has elapsed, then that's where confusion arises because the QoD you were interested in has already "expired" and been archived and a new one is live.
If you suspect that your mail provider is the culprit and is exerting a delay on the delivery of the daily QoD email, we recommend that you inform your service provider that you are happy to receive the email and have us added to your contacts list, which sometimes helps eliminate that delay. As an added precaution, each time you log on to read QoD, check out what the following day's question is. That way, you can avoid missing one that particularly interests you.
As to the second question, with the exceptions of Question of the Day and the bi-monthly reader poll, not one of the features on our site is auto-updated: Everything is researched, written, and posted live, in real time, by a human. Although our official office hours are 9 a.m.-5 p.m., some members of staff are in the the office and working by 5 or 6 a.m., while others seldom leave before 10 or 11 p.m. (Case-in-point: This answer's being penned in the office at 9:20 p.m on a Saturday night). Thus, between us, we're almost a 24/7 operation, but we do need to sleep, eat, and so on from time to time, which explains those "down" hours between around midnight PST and the wee hours of the morning when no new news items are posted or updates made.
If you know of a Vegas-savvy writer/researcher who wants the graveyard shift, have them send us their resume.
