When I'm depressed, I have to force myself to follow my exercise routine. I have to force myself to go out. I have to force myself to do something OTHER than refreshing Reddit and Slashdot while WoWing it up.
And if you succeed, you're not really depressed... Real depression is when you can't force yourself to get out of bed even to do the "distractions" instead of what you really really should get done today.
I think almost everybody sometimes has to force themselves to do what they need to do, even when that is enjoyable. Real depression is when, more and more often, you just can't. Your conscious mind says "now I get up and do this", but your body stubbornly doesn't obey but keeps doing whatever irrelevant it was doing, like writing to slashdot.
The web version works quite well though IIRC, at least after you've noticed that you can actually get a mouse cursor on the screen with N900 browser...
>>> Why would you bother? That's a completely different class of gear.
Different in what way? Both use pretty much the same Cortex A8 processor and share many similar specifications - in that regard both units are just 'sub-notebook' type computers with different operating systems.
To put the difference in a nutshell, iPhone is an "embedded device", ie. software and hardware are meant to be inseparable. It is a device with fixed features (of course running approved "apps" and limited (no Flash) browsing of web services are very powerful features). N900 is a PC in the sense that it/Nokia/Maemo does not try to limit what you can do with it. Real limits (as opposed to limits enforced by software only) of the hardware are the only limitation.
N900 has one software feature: it can run software. iPhone has only the software features explicitly approved by Apple.
Of course if Apple had it's way, they'd bring Macs to the same class as iPhone, running only approved software. But Macs are thought of as computers, so they can't do that. But wait for a displayless iPad Mini with wireless touchpad-keyboard and an HDMI-out, I'm sure that's on it's way...;-) Actually, just give me "legal" Python or Ruby with reasonable UI library bindings and a developer community, and give me Flash with usable (Linux-like) performance, and I'd buy one as soon as I'd be able get my hands on one.
I love my N900, it's a shame Nokia doesn't. Still waiting for MeeGo, and to get the best out of my device I've OC'ed it slightly, not to mention transition and touch screen sensitivity tweaks which all make the phone much more usable. What I want to know is why can't they get it right the first time? Since they didn't, how hard would it be to adopt similar tweaks directly into the OS so it doesn't feel so sluggish? It had/has so much potential, but I'm afraid for now, we'll never see it. As soon as Apple releases an iPhone with a slide out QWERTY keyboard, I'm in.
You'll have to wait for N9 (if you haven't check the pics or videos of something that may be N9, google for it!). Hopefully it'll be this year, but I'm not holding my breath, even considering how important it would be to get it to stores before Christmas. There'll be a lot iPads and stuff bought for Christmas, and some of those are permanently lost sales for Nokia, if N9 isn't out and available by then.
About N900, I've got a feeling, that the desperate(?) need to get N9 ready and out ASAP might have something to do with N900 not being given more love by Nokia. Ie. the best people are needed to work on N9.
When you link against a library, even dynamically, details from it are copied into your resulting executable, e.g. names of functions, layouts of data structures, etc. This is enough to justify your linked program (and also probably your source code) being a derivitive work of the original GPL code and therefore requiring permission from the GPL code's authors to distribute.
Indeed. But as far as I can see, combining an application binary in memory with GPL library is no different from combining a WoW raid data files in memory with Blizzard's game data.
Logically, if one needs a license, then both need a license. GPL explicitly gives the user right to do just about anything for purposes of using the software, but has conditions for distributing the binary or any other derived work. Whatever the relevant WoW license given by Blizzard says, I'd guess "draconian" wouldn't probably be an exaggeration.
Both when I was in college and now at my work place, there's externally mounted Cisco devices with high gain antennas mounted to the walls.
This is seriously bad medical House, M.D. style logic, but, there's a thin veneer of plausibility that if you drill holes into a wall full of black mold, the mold may be getting out through those holes.
I bet there aren't many buildings which are bad enough to have walls full of black mold, yet are airtight enough so that drilling a few extra holes into the interior walls will make any big difference in the amount of spores getting into the breathing air. Note that ventilation and wind will cause a pressure difference that will move air through the walls, it's only a matter of how much, because there are always holes and cracks in any regular house wall.
People distribute things all the time that rely on the recipient already having some piece of copyrighted data. RiffTrax, or Windows software.
Yeah, but there the relevant license allows that.
A case in point, GPL libraries rely on copyright giving right to say what can linked against it and what can't. If no license was required, then there would be no difference between GPL and LGPL libraries. And I haven't read anybody arguing that non-GPL-compatible software is allowed to link against a dynamic GPL library, though I don't know if that has actually been tested in court.
Are you sure their servers did not distribute any material with Blizzard's copyright? Models? Textures? Maps?
I'm not an expert on this, having never actually touched WOW, but with most MMOs these are distributed with the client, the server only sends out identifiers to reference the data the client already has.
Texts? Raid data?
As these (typically) reside on the server, I'm not sure how the defendant in this case would have acquired them. From what I've seen of such things before, chances are the server in question ran custom-build raids that had little in common with the official Blizzard ones other than (due to the restrictions imposed by the client) using locations and creatures that Blizzard designed.
So, then there's an additional question. If you make a raid that uses Blizzard's stuff (monsters, textures etc), is the raid derivative work under the copyright law, even if the stuff you actually distribute doesn't contain copies of Blizzard's stuff, but depends on the client already having copies?
This is an issue that applies to a lot of digital data (for example, just about any map/level for any game with level editor available), so there must be legal precedent, if the copyright law itself isn't clear on this.
You just edit this text file and it points WoW at a different server.
Just happens that WoW net traffic isn't encrypted and therefore people have reverse engineered the protocol and created their own servers.
Not really any different than any other reverse engineering I've heard of. Is it copyright infringing if they made their own server software that mimics the client / server protocol?
Is it legal to ask for payment to connect to my web server? Is it still legal if my server can speak the reverse engineered WoW protocol? Is it common knowledge that Judges are ignorant of the technology they are asked to provide judgment over?
If you answered "no" to one of these questions you have been qualified as next in line for judicial appointment.
Are you sure their servers did not distribute any material with Blizzard's copyright? Models? Textures? Maps? Texts? Raid data?
I can put up a shelf. But I can't butcher a carcass. Evolution in reverse eh?.
Sure you can. If you were put naked into the wilderness, surrounded with carcasses and no other food in sight, you'd probably be digging into them with a makeshift stone knife in a matter of hours, especially if you were aware that your life depended on it.
Don't underestimate the power of knowledge, even if it's just knowledge that something can be done, but not knowing how.
Re:Why do I need KDE?
on
KDE 4.5 Released
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· Score: 2, Insightful
I think I'm the typical techy user. During the day I'll use xterm , open office, firefox and gxine. And maybe one or 2 other apps. Can someone explain to me why I need a huge resource hungry window manager, sorry - desktop enviroment - like KDE running as my machine? This is a genuine question, not an anti KDE troll. I simply don't get it.
If you start integrating things like GUI file manager, GUI system configuration/control panel, and a desktop widget system (application launch menu, volume control, network/WLAN status&control, printer status&control, application notifications...), you quickly end up with something very much like Gnome or KDE.
KDE and Gnome are also a set of application libraries. It saves memory and simplifies updates when all the applications use the same libraries, not to mention unified look&feel of applications.
Desktop environment is also a set of default applications that somebody else has tested and made sure the whole more or less works. That's great if you don't want to spend time finding the application for your need, and tracking each application for updates if you want to stay "current".
Desktop environment is something, where somebody else has done all the hard things for you. If you want to use a WLAN or check printer status, click on the icon in notification area that is there by default. If you want to launch an application, just find it in the menu. If you want to change some system setting or just desktop option (like title bar style and color), just open whatever "control panel" the desktop environment has.
If you don't want or need these things, then you can easily get by with slightly "configured" (by which I mean, change the source and recompile) tinywm.
I'm not sure why human "care" about things, but I guess it's something that has been hardwired to our brains by evolution. An evolutionary psychologist (or whatever) might be able to answer the general question about caring.
More specifically, one thing I care about is success of me, my offspring, and their offspring until (or preferably beyond) the end of the Universe. This is very basic result of evolution: those that haven't cared have gone extinct. So I guess at it's root it is purely selfish, I want "me" and my heritage to continue evolving into new forms infinitely into the future. This extends also to my ancestors, to the family, to my culture, to human race, to mammals, ultimately to the LUCA if all else fails.
Beyond that I think I don't really care, ie. I don't think my caring extends to any hypothetical aliens, but even that might change if at some point some kind of meaningful cultural exchange took place between these hypothetical aliens and humans, thus making the aliens able to continue human heritage at least to a tiny degree.
The idea of not dying out makes me happy, it gives me satisfaction. Of course it's not the only thing, perhaps not even the most important thing, but it does rank pretty high.
So, your turn. Do you care about anything? Why do you care about it, whatever it is? If you don't care about anything, why do you do anything? That would be kind of stupid, spending energy on things you don't care to spend energy on.
I don't think that's even needed. We can manufacture as much of LOX/LH as we want, from sea water at equator using solar energy. Even though it's more expensive than current rocket fuels, the cost will still be negligible compared to the cost of entire launch.
There could even be tanks of pressurized stuff launched to orbit (and even orbits of other planets for return trips), and attached to actual rocket there, allowing interplanetary payloads not limited by maximum launch weight from the ground at Earth. Probably quite cheap, if it doesn't matter much if some percentage of the fuel tank rockets fail. It's just a few boosters and a tank of harmless LOX or LH. And by cheap I mean, "not as cheap as today's rocket fuel, but still only a negligible fraction of total cost of the mission".
Exactly. Better we find a method for porting our consciousness to other devices, or other organic forms. The human "condition" is much to fragile to warrant eternal propagation.
Why not try all that, and more? It's not like we're going to be united enough do one thing as a species, even if we tried.
Many asked you the same question, you didn't respond.
Why do we care about death of life on this planet or in the Universe at all, once you are dead, what is it to you if the entire Universe ends as well? You did not answer that.
"We" don't have to care. It can be observed that at least some people do care. Each have their own reasons. Just RTFS for an example of somebody who cares, and check other/. space stories to find people who care enough (for whatever personal reasons) to invest millions in the vision of space travel.
Because we may be the only chance for life on earth to spread to other planets,... ever.
Why should I want to expend lots of resources that could be put to use for me or my immediate descendants on this? What am I getting out of it?
If you have to ask, you're don't need to care about it. There will be enough people who do care, as proven by individual rich people striving for space, and all the "averagely wealthy" who have bought tickets and otherwise invested. As technology progresses, there will be more.
I mean, how many private rich people were investing in space travel in 40 years ago? How many now? How many might be investing in 40 years?
What else would they do with some of their disposable income/wealth, that would give them equal feeling of satisfaction?
I think your idea is admirable, but good effin' luck getting all of humanity to tackle a given project. Everyone just looks out for themselves. If this mindset continues, our fate is already sealed and potentially the fate of life itself if your theory holds true.
We don't have to agree on it. It's enough that, say, 1% agrees on it. In a globalized world that would be enough to get just about anything done (assuming the distribution is even, ie. it'll have 1% of the rich and 1% of the poor).
Unfortunately, we really need to get our shit together on this planet before we start thinking about colonizing others.
There are, what, 6 billion of us now. I think we can do both. Let's dedicate, say, 5 billion on getting our shit together on this planet, while 1 billion will start thinking about colonizing others.
Well and good, but where do we get the energy to boost enough humans and tools into space to create a viable life-supporting ecosystem elsewhere?
Use electricity to create liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen. No, really, it's just that simple.
Shit, don't let the oil barrons catch you uttering such blasphemous statements.
Oh, no worries. Electricity will be provided by coal power plants, and diesel generators, billowing blessed black smoke into the sky, blotting out that ancient enemy, the Sun, and leaving those blasphemers who use solar energy to shiver in the cold and dark.
This planet has an expiration date. It's nice to pretend that if we were all hippies and lived like cavemen, that it'd last forever, but that isn't the case. Sooner or later we're gonna have to get out of here, or go extinct
Sun has an expiration date, but Earth doesn't, at least not in a very very long time (proton decay timescale). All that is needed is technology that is a bit more above caveman level than what we have now. Plenty of time to develop that before Sun starts getting too hot for comfort (which is likely to be much sooner than the red giant phase in about 5 billion years, even under 1 billion years according to some figures I've read).
Whereas, if we take the steps necessary to unbind ourselves from earth, and begin colonizing the local solar-system, nearby stars, etc, we may actually, as a species, live considerably longer, and be around for a significant amount of universe time.
And that would matter why exactly?
It matters because of evolution. Group A thinks it matters. Group B thinks it doesn't. Which group is more likely to survive the next major asteroid or comet impacting the Earth?
For group A it matters because they feel that way, or choose that way, or are brainwashed to care.
Slashdot Mirror
When I'm depressed, I have to force myself to follow my exercise routine. I have to force myself to go out. I have to force myself to do something OTHER than refreshing Reddit and Slashdot while WoWing it up.
And if you succeed, you're not really depressed... Real depression is when you can't force yourself to get out of bed even to do the "distractions" instead of what you really really should get done today.
I think almost everybody sometimes has to force themselves to do what they need to do, even when that is enjoyable. Real depression is when, more and more often, you just can't. Your conscious mind says "now I get up and do this", but your body stubbornly doesn't obey but keeps doing whatever irrelevant it was doing, like writing to slashdot.
(google maps being the most glaring absence).
The web version works quite well though IIRC, at least after you've noticed that you can actually get a mouse cursor on the screen with N900 browser...
>>> Why would you bother? That's a completely different class of gear.
Different in what way? Both use pretty much the same Cortex A8 processor and share many similar specifications - in that regard both units are just 'sub-notebook' type computers with different operating systems.
To put the difference in a nutshell, iPhone is an "embedded device", ie. software and hardware are meant to be inseparable. It is a device with fixed features (of course running approved "apps" and limited (no Flash) browsing of web services are very powerful features). N900 is a PC in the sense that it/Nokia/Maemo does not try to limit what you can do with it. Real limits (as opposed to limits enforced by software only) of the hardware are the only limitation.
N900 has one software feature: it can run software. iPhone has only the software features explicitly approved by Apple.
Of course if Apple had it's way, they'd bring Macs to the same class as iPhone, running only approved software. But Macs are thought of as computers, so they can't do that. But wait for a displayless iPad Mini with wireless touchpad-keyboard and an HDMI-out, I'm sure that's on it's way... ;-) Actually, just give me "legal" Python or Ruby with reasonable UI library bindings and a developer community, and give me Flash with usable (Linux-like) performance, and I'd buy one as soon as I'd be able get my hands on one.
I love my N900, it's a shame Nokia doesn't. Still waiting for MeeGo, and to get the best out of my device I've OC'ed it slightly, not to mention transition and touch screen sensitivity tweaks which all make the phone much more usable. What I want to know is why can't they get it right the first time? Since they didn't, how hard would it be to adopt similar tweaks directly into the OS so it doesn't feel so sluggish? It had/has so much potential, but I'm afraid for now, we'll never see it. As soon as Apple releases an iPhone with a slide out QWERTY keyboard, I'm in.
You'll have to wait for N9 (if you haven't check the pics or videos of something that may be N9, google for it!). Hopefully it'll be this year, but I'm not holding my breath, even considering how important it would be to get it to stores before Christmas. There'll be a lot iPads and stuff bought for Christmas, and some of those are permanently lost sales for Nokia, if N9 isn't out and available by then.
About N900, I've got a feeling, that the desperate(?) need to get N9 ready and out ASAP might have something to do with N900 not being given more love by Nokia. Ie. the best people are needed to work on N9.
the board just wanted to avoid publicity.
...and succeeded!
Oh, wait...
When you link against a library, even dynamically, details from it are copied into your resulting executable, e.g. names of functions, layouts of data structures, etc. This is enough to justify your linked program (and also probably your source code) being a derivitive work of the original GPL code and therefore requiring permission from the GPL code's authors to distribute.
Indeed. But as far as I can see, combining an application binary in memory with GPL library is no different from combining a WoW raid data files in memory with Blizzard's game data.
Logically, if one needs a license, then both need a license. GPL explicitly gives the user right to do just about anything for purposes of using the software, but has conditions for distributing the binary or any other derived work. Whatever the relevant WoW license given by Blizzard says, I'd guess "draconian" wouldn't probably be an exaggeration.
Both when I was in college and now at my work place, there's externally mounted Cisco devices with high gain antennas mounted to the walls.
This is seriously bad medical House, M.D. style logic, but, there's a thin veneer of plausibility that if you drill holes into a wall full of black mold, the mold may be getting out through those holes.
I bet there aren't many buildings which are bad enough to have walls full of black mold, yet are airtight enough so that drilling a few extra holes into the interior walls will make any big difference in the amount of spores getting into the breathing air. Note that ventilation and wind will cause a pressure difference that will move air through the walls, it's only a matter of how much, because there are always holes and cracks in any regular house wall.
People distribute things all the time that rely on the recipient already having some piece of copyrighted data. RiffTrax, or Windows software.
Yeah, but there the relevant license allows that.
A case in point, GPL libraries rely on copyright giving right to say what can linked against it and what can't. If no license was required, then there would be no difference between GPL and LGPL libraries. And I haven't read anybody arguing that non-GPL-compatible software is allowed to link against a dynamic GPL library, though I don't know if that has actually been tested in court.
Are you sure their servers did not distribute any material with Blizzard's copyright?
Models? Textures? Maps?
I'm not an expert on this, having never actually touched WOW, but with most MMOs these are distributed with the client, the server only sends out identifiers to reference the data the client already has.
Texts? Raid data?
As these (typically) reside on the server, I'm not sure how the defendant in this case would have acquired them. From what I've seen of such things before, chances are the server in question ran custom-build raids that had little in common with the official Blizzard ones other than (due to the restrictions imposed by the client) using locations and creatures that Blizzard designed.
So, then there's an additional question. If you make a raid that uses Blizzard's stuff (monsters, textures etc), is the raid derivative work under the copyright law, even if the stuff you actually distribute doesn't contain copies of Blizzard's stuff, but depends on the client already having copies?
This is an issue that applies to a lot of digital data (for example, just about any map/level for any game with level editor available), so there must be legal precedent, if the copyright law itself isn't clear on this.
.WTF !?
You just edit this text file and it points WoW at a different server.
Just happens that WoW net traffic isn't encrypted and therefore people have reverse engineered the protocol and created their own servers.
Not really any different than any other reverse engineering I've heard of.
Is it copyright infringing if they made their own server software that mimics the client / server protocol?
Is it legal to ask for payment to connect to my web server?
Is it still legal if my server can speak the reverse engineered WoW protocol?
Is it common knowledge that Judges are ignorant of the technology they are asked to provide judgment over?
If you answered "no" to one of these questions you have been qualified as next in line for judicial appointment.
Are you sure their servers did not distribute any material with Blizzard's copyright?
Models? Textures? Maps? Texts? Raid data?
"There is no money to be made in figuring out how the universe works"
Teleportation? Possibility of warping space to move around the galaxy? No money, what?
Any patent on that kind of thing would expire long before there's even a chance of actual profitable company to be sued.
And still, I'm actually pretty sure there is quite a dung-heap of that kind of patents anyway...
I can put up a shelf. But I can't butcher a carcass. Evolution in reverse eh?.
Sure you can. If you were put naked into the wilderness, surrounded with carcasses and no other food in sight, you'd probably be digging into them with a makeshift stone knife in a matter of hours, especially if you were aware that your life depended on it.
Don't underestimate the power of knowledge, even if it's just knowledge that something can be done, but not knowing how.
I think I'm the typical techy user. During the day I'll use xterm , open office, firefox and gxine. And maybe one or 2 other apps.
Can someone explain to me why I need a huge resource hungry window manager, sorry - desktop enviroment - like KDE running as my machine? This is a genuine question, not an anti KDE troll. I simply don't get it.
If you start integrating things like GUI file manager, GUI system configuration/control panel, and a desktop widget system (application launch menu, volume control, network/WLAN status&control, printer status&control, application notifications...), you quickly end up with something very much like Gnome or KDE.
KDE and Gnome are also a set of application libraries. It saves memory and simplifies updates when all the applications use the same libraries, not to mention unified look&feel of applications.
Desktop environment is also a set of default applications that somebody else has tested and made sure the whole more or less works. That's great if you don't want to spend time finding the application for your need, and tracking each application for updates if you want to stay "current".
Desktop environment is something, where somebody else has done all the hard things for you. If you want to use a WLAN or check printer status, click on the icon in notification area that is there by default. If you want to launch an application, just find it in the menu. If you want to change some system setting or just desktop option (like title bar style and color), just open whatever "control panel" the desktop environment has.
If you don't want or need these things, then you can easily get by with slightly "configured" (by which I mean, change the source and recompile) tinywm.
Ok, so if you care, why?
I'm not sure why human "care" about things, but I guess it's something that has been hardwired to our brains by evolution. An evolutionary psychologist (or whatever) might be able to answer the general question about caring.
More specifically, one thing I care about is success of me, my offspring, and their offspring until (or preferably beyond) the end of the Universe. This is very basic result of evolution: those that haven't cared have gone extinct. So I guess at it's root it is purely selfish, I want "me" and my heritage to continue evolving into new forms infinitely into the future. This extends also to my ancestors, to the family, to my culture, to human race, to mammals, ultimately to the LUCA if all else fails.
Beyond that I think I don't really care, ie. I don't think my caring extends to any hypothetical aliens, but even that might change if at some point some kind of meaningful cultural exchange took place between these hypothetical aliens and humans, thus making the aliens able to continue human heritage at least to a tiny degree.
The idea of not dying out makes me happy, it gives me satisfaction. Of course it's not the only thing, perhaps not even the most important thing, but it does rank pretty high.
So, your turn. Do you care about anything? Why do you care about it, whatever it is? If you don't care about anything, why do you do anything? That would be kind of stupid, spending energy on things you don't care to spend energy on.
I don't think that's even needed. We can manufacture as much of LOX/LH as we want, from sea water at equator using solar energy. Even though it's more expensive than current rocket fuels, the cost will still be negligible compared to the cost of entire launch.
There could even be tanks of pressurized stuff launched to orbit (and even orbits of other planets for return trips), and attached to actual rocket there, allowing interplanetary payloads not limited by maximum launch weight from the ground at Earth. Probably quite cheap, if it doesn't matter much if some percentage of the fuel tank rockets fail. It's just a few boosters and a tank of harmless LOX or LH. And by cheap I mean, "not as cheap as today's rocket fuel, but still only a negligible fraction of total cost of the mission".
physics can't ultimately answer "why" questions.
Ultimately, there are no "why" questions.
Exactly. Better we find a method for porting our consciousness to other devices, or other organic forms. The human "condition" is much to fragile to warrant eternal propagation.
Why not try all that, and more? It's not like we're going to be united enough do one thing as a species, even if we tried.
Many asked you the same question, you didn't respond.
Why do we care about death of life on this planet or in the Universe at all, once you are dead, what is it to you if the entire Universe ends as well? You did not answer that.
"We" don't have to care. It can be observed that at least some people do care. Each have their own reasons. Just RTFS for an example of somebody who cares, and check other /. space stories to find people who care enough (for whatever personal reasons) to invest millions in the vision of space travel.
Why should I want to expend lots of resources that could be put to use for me or my immediate descendants on this? What am I getting out of it?
If you have to ask, you're don't need to care about it. There will be enough people who do care, as proven by individual rich people striving for space, and all the "averagely wealthy" who have bought tickets and otherwise invested. As technology progresses, there will be more.
I mean, how many private rich people were investing in space travel in 40 years ago? How many now? How many might be investing in 40 years?
What else would they do with some of their disposable income/wealth, that would give them equal feeling of satisfaction?
I think your idea is admirable, but good effin' luck getting all of humanity to tackle a given project. Everyone just looks out for themselves. If this mindset continues, our fate is already sealed and potentially the fate of life itself if your theory holds true.
We don't have to agree on it. It's enough that, say, 1% agrees on it. In a globalized world that would be enough to get just about anything done (assuming the distribution is even, ie. it'll have 1% of the rich and 1% of the poor).
Unfortunately, we really need to get our shit together on this planet before we start thinking about colonizing others.
There are, what, 6 billion of us now. I think we can do both. Let's dedicate, say, 5 billion on getting our shit together on this planet, while 1 billion will start thinking about colonizing others.
Use electricity to create liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen. No, really, it's just that simple.
Shit, don't let the oil barrons catch you uttering such blasphemous statements.
Oh, no worries. Electricity will be provided by coal power plants, and diesel generators, billowing blessed black smoke into the sky, blotting out that ancient enemy, the Sun, and leaving those blasphemers who use solar energy to shiver in the cold and dark.
This planet has an expiration date. It's nice to pretend that if we were all hippies and lived like cavemen, that it'd last forever, but that isn't the case. Sooner or later we're gonna have to get out of here, or go extinct
Sun has an expiration date, but Earth doesn't, at least not in a very very long time (proton decay timescale). All that is needed is technology that is a bit more above caveman level than what we have now. Plenty of time to develop that before Sun starts getting too hot for comfort (which is likely to be much sooner than the red giant phase in about 5 billion years, even under 1 billion years according to some figures I've read).
And that would matter why exactly?
It matters because of evolution.
Group A thinks it matters.
Group B thinks it doesn't.
Which group is more likely to survive the next major asteroid or comet impacting the Earth?
For group A it matters because they feel that way, or choose that way, or are brainwashed to care.
Group B doesn't matter.
Err, *they* can't be sued
*Everybody* can be sued, that's what the land of equal opportunity is all about!