hey everybody,

what are the deadlines for? What happens if you miss a deadline? I can't imagine anything dramatic, but I could be wrong.

Is deadline more along the lines of "dang, oh well, guess we'll keep crunching until said project is done..." the disappointment area for the scientist? Or is it more of the "scientist is in trouble and backlogged and is stressed because he didn't get his numbers in in time and therefore ripples and backs up future projects and now everybody is angry (can i say pissed here?) that the people around the world couldn't crunch numbers fast enough?

In a nutshell they are for organizing distributed computing.

F.e. each WU is at least crunched by two hosts. When Host A finishes his WU within two weeks but Host B needs six months, credit for Host A would be pending until Host B has finished its work.

Deadlines simply make sure that the work will be done. Compare it with a factory.
And of course, sometimes the scientists need to get their numbers in time too.

If you miss a deadline, you'll be able to finish the WU, but you won't get any credit for it. That's because the project server guesses your WU is lost and send it already to another host.

I was searching the forums in order to figure out why a large number of my completed tasks are pending validation and it appears that I've found my answer here. Correct me if I'm wrong.

In order for a Task (WU) to be marked as valid, and thus result in credit, it must be processed by two different hosts. If you are the first person to complete the WU, the result will be "Validation pending" until another host completes that particular WU. However, if you are the second person to complete the WU it will be validated almost immediately and will post credits.

Is that an accurate summary?

Yes, it is.