Friday Four

1. Two years on, Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker's changes to teachers' union rules appear to be in the process of wiping them out (HT: Amit Ghate).

2. This mosquito magnet is eager to try running a fan on the deck to ward off the pesky insects. I have been amazed at the abundance of mosquitoes here in St. Louis.

3. Yesterday, on my second day of solo duty with both kids, I took them to the zoo. The highlight was watching my daughter at the excellent hippopotamus exhibit, which allows visitors to view the beasts in a good re-creation of their natural habitat. It was a sunny day and the animals were particularly active, repeatedly swimming past the viewing window. This delighted my daughter, who would yell and flail her arms as she watched them go by.

As I said to another parent, who smiled at her antics, "You know you've had a great trip to the zoo when your two-year-old starts shouting nonsense."

4. Canonical is forging ahead with plans to build a smart phone that can team up with a monitor and other peripherals to function as a desktop that runs its Ubuntu flavor of Linux:

The company's two-day-old Indiegogo campaign seeks $32 million total, with backers getting first delivery of devices estimated to ship in May 2014. The campaign initially let backers spend $600 to reserve a phone, but that was a one-day-only offer. Once it expired, Canonical said backers would have to spend $830 to reserve a phone.

The company has changed the pledge levels for the campaign, this morning announcing new levels at $625 and up. The $625 pledges are now gone, but you can still buy in for $675, $725, or $775.

I won't be reserving one of these, but I would consider one as a successor to my current phone when the time comes to replace it: All my other computers run Ubuntu Linux.

-- CAV