Our crack engineering team reports that while ratings data are updated constantly at Netflix, the Friends part of the site is a little unique and only gets refreshed around midnight each day. Thus, if you rate a bunch of movies, that information could be seen immediately, but also might not show up in a slider until the next day. ("Refreshed" probably isn't the right word. Maybe an example will help.) Scenario: You rate a bunch of movies at 9pm, your Friend looks at the sliders at 11pm for the first time that day, and WILL see your ratings -- BUT, if they log in at 6pm (before you updated ratings) and returned at 11pm, they WON'T see your new ratings. They would have to return to the site after midnight to see those new ratings.

Does this explain things?