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I'm familiar with Tom's Shoes--buy a pair of their shoes, and they donate a pair to someone in a Third World country. Great company.

But there are a number of other companies that operate on the same basis. Mashable spotlighted ten of them, companies selling such things as solar flashlights, boots, baby clothes, and other items.

It's great to see companies with a social conscience.

A Los Angeles Times article tells about a huge conference of atheists/agnostics/skeptics in Los Angeles. It was the Council for Secular Humanism conference.

A division has arisen.

• On one side are the "new atheists" (call them fundamentalists), who favor in-your-face confrontation with religious people.
• On the other side are "accomodationists" (call them liberals) who prefer a "let's-all-just-get-along" approach.

I find this very amusing. It's like they are Southern Baptists or something.

It's been revealed: Apple's next operating system, version 10.7, will be named "Lion."

OSX came out in 2001, code-named Cheetah. While 9/11 doesn't seem like all that long ago, it seems like I've been using OSX forever. Was I really still using OS9 back in 2001? Hard to believe.

I was wondering which cat would be next. Since OSX (version 10) arrived, they've gone through these names:

10.0 Cheetah (March 2001)
10.1 Puma (Sept 2001)
10.2 Jaguar (Aug 2002)
10.3 Panther (Oct 2003)
10.4 Tiger (April 2005)
10.5 Leopard (Oct 2007)
10.6 Snow Leopard (Aug 2009)
10.7 Lion (???)

My personal prediction for 10.7 was Lynx or Bobcat. Other possibilities are Ocelot and Cougar. That's pretty much all of the choices left in the cat family. We've only got two more cats coming, with versions 10.8 and 10.9.

I'm guessing Bobcat and Cougar, though technically, the puma and cougar--and mountain lion--are the same animal. However, Microsoft used the Bobcat and Cougar names with its small business server in 2003 and 2008, perhaps playing some kind of dirty trick on Apple. Or, more likely, following Apple's lead in a futile attempt to be hip.

Maybe Apple will do the Leopard/Snow Leopard thing with Lion, and make 10.8 "Mountain Lion" an incremental upgrade Then conclude with Ocelot or Lynx. 

I wonder what code names Apple will use when they reach version 11. Switch to dogs? Famous painters? Or maybe something inanimate, like planets? Whatever they decide, it'll be better than Vista.

Wal-Mart has divided its buyers into three categories:

1. "Brand aspirationals" are people with low incomes who are obsessed with brand names, like KitchenAid.
2. "Price-sensitive affluents" are wealthier shoppers who love deals.
3. "Value price shoppers" are people who like low prices and can't afford much more.

I'm not sure where Pam and I fit. First of all, we don't like going to Wal-Mart, because it's so doggone busy. All things considered, we prefer Target. But I imagine we're more "price-sensitive affluents" than anything else.

Salon magazine wrote about the five milestones that signify adulthood:

1. The end of formal education.
2. Separation from the family.
3. Financial independence.
4. Marriage.
5. Parenthood.

In 1960, 77 percent of women and 65 percent of men had passed all five milestones by the age of 30. By 2000, fewer than 50 percent of the women and 33 percent of the men had done so.

We've heard this before--that all of these are being postponed to later in line.

I was musing about it regarding myself. I did the first three on time. I basically separated from my parents at age 19 when I moved across the country to start college. I ended my formal education at age 23, and went right into my career, thereby achieving financial independence.

Marriage waited until I was 33. Most people agree that postponing marriage can be a good thing, since you go into it with more maturity and resources. And parenthood ain't gonna happen, by choice.

So I've followed the traditional script pretty well. So did my two brothers (all five steps). I think it's a pretty healthy script, when you get right down to it.

The article notes that some people now refer to the 20s as "emerging adulthood," a stage people pass through on their way to full adulthood. I don't like that concept. In earlier times, people were getting married and having kids and starting careers at 16, and doing fine. Is there something about our culture that makes it more difficult for people to mature?

In San Diego, people are rightfully outraged over a convicted sex offender who killed two young women. In 2005, he had been released from prison after serving five years for beating and imprisoning a 13-year-old girl. After three more years on parole, he was basically living free. We hear these stories all the time.

Whenever cases like this arise, people understandably ask how such a person could go free in society, and there are cries for perpetual monitoring or imprisonment. I totally understand the outrage, whether it applies to sex offenders or murderers or other violent criminals.

But I got to thinking--how many thousands upon thousands of people who have committed such crimes and served their time--for sex offenses and violence--are living free and will NOT repeat their crimes? I know a few people who served their time and have not been repeat offenders. They are back in society, living freely and productively.

When someone commits a sex crime, do we want to imprison him for the rest of his life, or perpetually monitor him electronically? We could. But it would overload an already-burdened system.

Is this guy in San Diego an exception, or the norm? I'm asking, because I don't know. The stats show that sexual predators tend to remain sexual predators, and repeat offenders deserve little mercy. But there's only so much we can do (like sex offender registries) after a person has served his time. And a great many convicted criminals do change their lives.

I'm not advocating anything. I'm just wondering out loud. Criminal justice isn't my area of specialty, so a high lack of knowledge accompanies my musings. What should be my attitude, and society's attitude? Do we really want to come down hard on everyone, because of the potential repeat offenders? What's the right approach?

From the weird file: In 1995, a South Carolina man named Sonny Graham got a heart transplant, using the heart of a man who had committed suicide. He struck up a relationship with the man's widow in 1997, and married her in 2004. And now he, too, has committed suicide.

So there are two common elements: the heart, and the woman. Who to blame?

Apple went to court in Australia to prevent companies from using a lower-case "i" in product names, arguing that a "person of ordinary intelligence and memory" would assume any "i" product came from Apple. The case centered on DOPi, a brand of bags. Of course, DOPi backwords is iPOD, which makes it even more interesting.

It's kind of like Lindsey Lohan suing over the use of the name "Lindsey" in a Super Bowl ad, saying that people would automatically think the ads refers to her. As if she's a one-word brand, like Oprah or Madonna.

Apple lost the case. The court (actually, a trademark tribunal) noted a number of other "i" products, like iSkin and iSoft.

As a huge Apple fan, let me just say: Apple, get over yourself.

I would really really like an iPad. And I really really can't justify getting one. It doesn't plug any hole in my life. Doesn't do anything that I'm not doing in some other sufficient way.

In the "Tool? or Toy?" category, it would be a toy for me.

But Mark Cuban is excited about it: "You can book it right now that it will be the product that kids of this generation grow up with and look back on with affection just like we did with the first video games. Video games changed how we grew up. The IPad will change how kids grow up."

Wow, that's setting some high expectations.