February 22 2024
Grocery horror
1 Food’s share of average family budget highest in 30y
2 Hybrids not clean enough: activists
3 Satellite images threaten privacy
4 Pentagon aims to mass produce cheap drones
5 AL rules frozen embryos to be children
2/22/1980 U.S. hockey team beats the Soviets in the “Miracle on Ice”
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1 Food’s share of average family budget highest in 30y
Eating continues to cost more, even as overall inflation has eased from the blistering pace consumers endured throughout much of 2022 and 2023. Prices at restaurants and other eateries were up 5.1% last month compared with January 2023, while grocery costs increased 1.2% during the same period, Labor Department data show. Relief isn’t likely to arrive soon. Restaurant and food company executives said they are still grappling with rising labor costs and some ingredients, like cocoa, that are only getting more expensive. Consumers, they said, will find ways to cope. “If you look historically after periods of inflation, there’s really no period you could point to where [food] prices go back down,” said Steve Cahillane, chief executive of snack giant Kellanova, in an interview. “They tend to be sticky.”
WSJ
2 Hybrids not clean enough: activists
Climate activists are questioning how environmentally friendly hybrid vehicles are as those cars rise in popularity. The battle over the green bona fides of hybrids comes ahead of what could be the toughest U.S. restrictions on car pollution. Hybrids combine a gasoline engine with battery power and generally get far better gas mileage than the cars and trucks Americans have typically driven. Hybrid makers led by Toyota Motor argue that the vehicles’ popularity is something to celebrate and “an important solution toward achieving carbon neutrality,” Toyota executive Yoichi Miyazaki said. Those on the other side of the debate, including activists and some regulators, say hybrids aren’t good enough if the world hopes to meet ambitious carbon-reduction targets.
A study by the U.S. Department of Energy calculated that, using a nationwide average of different energy sources in 2022, EVs produce annual emissions that heat the planet to the same extent as 2,727 pounds of carbon dioxide. That compares with 6,898 pounds for hybrids and 12,594 pounds for gasoline-only cars.
WSJ
3 Satellite images threaten privacy
For decades, privacy experts have been wary of snooping from space. They feared satellites powerful enough to zoom in on individuals, capturing close-ups that might differentiate adults from children or suited sunbathers from those in a state of nature. Now, quite suddenly, analysts say, a startup is building a new class of satellite whose cameras would, for the first time, do just that. “We’re acutely aware of the privacy implications,” Topher Haddad, head of Albedo Space, the company making the new satellites, said in an interview. His company’s technology will image people but not be able to identify them, he said. Albedo, Mr. Haddad added, was nonetheless taking administrative steps to address a wide range of privacy concerns.Anyone living in the modern world has grown familiar with diminishing privacy amid a surge security cameras, trackers built into smartphones, facial recognition systems, drones and other forms of digital monitoring. But what makes the overhead surveillance potentially scary, experts say, is its ability to invade areas once seen as intrinsically off limits.
NYT
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/20/science/satellites-albedo-privacy.html
4 Pentagon aims to mass produce cheap drones
Ed. note: earlier this week we published a number of stories on drones. Those articles are good context for this article.
9/20/23
The U.S. Department of Defense recently unveiled an ambitious initiative aptly named Replicator, aimed at rapidly scaling capabilities in the face of strategic competition with the People’s Republic of China. Replicator’s first task will be to quickly scale and field thousands of attritable autonomous systems within the next 18 to 24 months, leveraging AI, robotics, and commercial technology. This initiative is the latest in a series of institutional pushes the Department of Defense is making to transition advances in emerging technologies into realized and ready-to-use capabilities. The initiative’s intent is to keep pace with China’s efforts to “intelligentize” its military by leveraging an array of cutting-edge technologies to pursue its foreign policy goals in the Indo-Pacific. Replicator’s goal is to integrate emerging technologies — and particularly those originating in the private sector — into the military’s operational framework. However, there is growing concern that the Department of Defense’s recent initiatives and existing processes may not be sufficient to meet the immediate challenges, that the planned degree of change isn’t sufficient, and that the department risks falling down a path of risky incrementalism. The planned changes, such as the launch of a generative AI task force or efforts to conduct extensive AI training and education of the Department of Defense workforce, are long-term investments that won’t yield immediate results. This leaves the United States potentially vulnerable in the short term as China continues to rapidly build up to blunt current U.S. operational advantages.
War on the Rocks
CULTURE WARS
5 AL rules frozen embryos to be children
An Alabama Supreme Court’s ruling that frozen embryos in test tubes should be considered children has sent shock waves through the world of reproductive medicine, casting doubt over fertility care for would-be parents in the state and raising complex legal questions with implications extending far beyond Alabama.
NYT
2/22/1980 U.S. hockey team beats the Soviets in the “Miracle on Ice”
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