Any news?

[Gennady]

Hello, I enjoy reading the news that appears on the main site. This informs me that I am doing everything right!
Each news gives me confidence that my contribution is somewhere among these WUs.
I understand that you have a lot of work, but it is hard for me, like many other contributors, to be in the dark.
So I decided to ask here, is everything okay?

[Jonazz]

I'm fine thank you.

[JimboPalmer]

Welcome to Folding@Home!
I am a folder just like you.

The client software seem very stable right now.
I am only seeing Core_22 Work Units for GPUs, although Core_21 is not officially retired.
I see both Core_a7 and Core_a8 WUs for CPUs. Gradually Core_a7 may disappear.

The servers are not in quite as good a shape, we have had Statistics issues lately, which I think are under control.
Some servers have issues assigning WUs, so some folders are idle.

On the development side, F@H seem to be trying to allocate WUs in a wiser manner. We will see.

None of this is anything that worries me.

[Gennady]

I tried to ask about the main site where news usually appeared https://foldingathome.org/news/
There has been no news since January.

[JimboPalmer]

One thing to realize here is that this effort is led by Biochemists. Their Public Relations skills are not in demand in Biochemistry.

When they have news a Biochemist would be interested in, it is there. News for folders, not so much. News for the public, not at all.

Again, just my opinion.

[Gnomuz]

One thing to realize here is that this effort is led by Biochemists. Their Public Relations skills are not in demand in Biochemistry.

When they have news a Biochemist would be interested in, it is there. News for folders, not so much. News for the public, not at all.

Again, just my opinion.

Nothing wrong about that in my opinion either.

The day when researchers are recruited based on their communication skills, then "neo-management" will have taken power over the scientific research sector. And that's definitely not the way to go for me !

[gunnarre]

The Twitch channel of Folding At Home has both some scientific presentations and status updates on the project. Those videos also get re-uploaded on YouTube.

Scientists like to publish in scientific journals (like those indexed on pubmed.gov), and sometimes they post things on their own social media too. Pre-prints of articles might be available on bioRxiv, but note that pre-published articles might have serious errors or flaws that haven't yet been discovered, so treat those results with more caution than you would a peer-reviewed article.

[Gennady]

One thing to realize here is that this effort is led by Biochemists. Their Public Relations skills are not in demand in Biochemistry.

When they have news a Biochemist would be interested in, it is there. News for folders, not so much. News for the public, not at all.

Again, just my opinion.

Nothing wrong about that in my opinion either.

The day when researchers are recruited based on their communication skills, then "neo-management" will have taken power over the scientific research sector. And that's definitely not the way to go for me !

This is not a correct opinion.
The FAH requires computer resources to operate and function. Many people who want to help may not have much of the necessary knowledge of what is being done and what is happening. They read the results and are confident that those who attracted them are doing everything right.
The COVID problem attracted quite powerful resources, but this is only due to the fact that the owners of these resources understood and realized this need.
I'm not a biologist, not a biochemist, I'm just a software engineer. Looking through the news, I generally understand what is happening - the demogargon opens, the cell is grabbed, and it is clear to me that to prevent this from happening, you need to deceive the virus. You understand this, you can do it. Me not. But I can help - I have a computer. But people like me need to give hope that what is happening is for the good. I was very pleased with the news about the possibility of closing Nsp16. I consider this a great achievement. It would be nice to receive such news.

[iero]

To be honest, the communication side of things is lacking to say the least. No news in 3 months. As a new member here, that strikes me as odd. And if it weren't for a handful active members here in the forum, it too, would seem like a barren wasteland.

[ajm]

Well, this forum is dedicated to the users' support. It is not supposed to be a communication channel.
Then, the communication coming from the Consortium, on the website, is either very specialized (biochemistry) or very broad (how it works in a general way, or some general thoughts about what is happening, Happy New Year and such stuff).
There also are Discord servers, one for the general public (https://discord.com/invite/foldingathome ) and one for developers, but this medium is rather meant for chatting, infos quickly disappear in the flow.

Last year, I gathered a few ideas for people who might want to create a "Folding Tech" YouTube channel: viewtopic.php?p=341595#p341595 but no big crowd in sight...

[Jonazz]

I kind of get OP's point.

Communication is key to motivate us folders. But honestly, FAH is already doing a pretty good job on this. With Rosetta@Home, you have no idea what you're crunching and the research very rarely reply on questions on the forum.

[BobWilliams757]

I kind of get OP's point.

Communication is key to motivate us folders. But honestly, FAH is already doing a pretty good job on this. With Rosetta@Home, you have no idea what you're crunching and the research very rarely reply on questions on the forum.

At times I'll look at the various sources, and I agree they overall do a fairly good job. But it is spread around some, with some here, and other input on various social media sites. Consolidating things might make it easier for some that need that extra motivation.

As for myself, I'll just keep folding as long as they tell us the basics of what they are doing.