Meandering Tour

Country Music, AI Cheating, Mikey Madison, Hydration, and Warren Buffett

5) Three Chords and Closed Captions

I have a confession: I’ve never liked country music. Something about the twang.

But my mind - and ears - might be opening thanks to “Landman,” the new Taylor Sheridan series on Paramount+ about the oil business in West Texas. Starring an uncharacteristically non-creepy and hilariously sarcastic Billy Bob Thornton, the drama explores the business and personal lives of roughnecks, wildcat billionaires, lawyers, criminals, and fixers in the “patch.”

The series drips with Country music, and when I decided to turn on the closed captions so I could follow the lyrics, I began to understand why Country singer Harlan Howard famously described the essence of his genre as “three chords and the truth.” The lyrics are a perfect plot accompaniment, and these particular tunes, perhaps partially de-twanged, somehow appeal to my Indie Rock tastes.

But what do I know? I’m a rookie. And maybe Texas Country (if that’s the sub-genre I’m listening to) is regarded by aficionados as second-rate. Still, this short video list and this article seem to suggest the music is the real deal. And I just plain like this song by Josh Meloy in Episode 3 (and sure enough, it features only three chords).

I’d appreciate reading more informed perspectives in the comments section below. (Cue remarks by Rick Rubin — a musician and contemporary furniture maker, not the music producer.) One thing I am certain of: the best musical feature of the show is the ringtone Billy Bob’s character has assigned to his ex-wife. Check it out.

Source: Paramount+

4) Teacher’s Vet

Back in high school, Anno Domini Never Mind, we were required to write and sign the following statement when we turned in tests and reports: “I have acted honorably in writing this paper.” It was an old-fashioned reminder of the importance of adhering to the school’s honor code.

For those who didn’t, it was pretty easy for Mr. Vishio and Mr. Barker to figure out who had cheated. Now, of course, Large Language Models (LLMs) have changed the game, and cases of AI-enabled plagiarism are mounting.

What to do? One longtime college teacher I know has surrendered. This semester, she offered at least a B to her students if they do all the required reading, annotate the texts to demonstrate comprehension, participate meaningfully in class, and pledge not to use AI for their essays — in her writing class! A fair trade-off, she reasons, to ensure a degree of competence in composition, style, and rhetoric.

But new AI detection systems might restore some order. WIRED has been reporting on a raft of cheating identification tools, including one that focuses on so-called “giveaway words” that appear more frequently than reasonably expected. In one study, of 14 million biomedical abstracts published between 2010 and 2024, researchers found that the use of certain words (e.g., delve, showcase, underscore, crucial) were extremely uncommon before LLMs were introduced, then surged afterwards.

“In the post-LLM period,” according to one account of the study, “the researchers found hundreds of words with sudden, pronounced increases in scientific usage that had no common link to world events.”

Here at Meandering Tour, we will continue to showcase AI trends as we delve into crucial topics that underscore how our lives are changing.

3) Max, I Hardly Knew Ya

I just saw the Oscar-nominated and Palme D’Or-winning film “Anora” and was captivated — not by the debauchery (I’m too avuncular for that; I worry about the actors’ parents seeing their kids naked on screen) but by the Altmanesque quality of the filmmaking, especially the overlapping dialogue (in multiple languages) and the striking visuals amid utter chaos.

Mikey Madison gives a mesmerizing performance as the title character, a stripper who takes up with the rich son of a Russian oligarch in a series of frantic encounters that crisscross Manhattan, Brooklyn, and Las Vegas.

What I found most jarring, though, was the realization that Madison, here a sex worker, had previously starred as a volatile but sweet teenager named Max in one of my favorite TV shows: the FX dramedy “Better Things,” in which she played the eldest of three daughters of a single mother and working actress played by the series creator Pam Adlon.

So, it was upsetting for Uncle Scott to see Max become Anora. But my friend Warren pointed out that I should have been prepared for this transmogrification since Madison played Susan “Sadie” Atkins, a member of the Manson cult, in Quentin Tarantino’s “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood,” where she appeared in the climactic scene with Leonardo DiCaprio. (Warning: it’s violent and scary.)

I loved “Once Upon a Time” but didn’t realize that Sadie was Mikey. Unconscious denial perhaps, or some other defense mechanism.

Source: Neon

2) Sidetracks

• Speaking of TV show soundtracks (see the “Landman” item above), “Better Things” turned me on to so much inventive music, including this song during the Season 2 celebration of Max’s birthday.

• Really? According to a study out of the University of Portsmouth in the UK, drunk witnesses are less likely to remember a suspect's face.

• There’s an app called Tuna Scope that uses AI to grade the quality of tuna, and one called Melon Meter that can detect the ripeness of watermelons by listening to the sound produced when you thump it, but there apparently is no app that can tell you if a cantaloupe is ripe. We really need that.

• Hydration, pros and cons.

  • Vishvaa Rajakumar, who won the Memory League World Championship by memorizing 80 random numbers in 13.5 seconds, partially attributes his success to drinking a lot of water. “Hydration is very important because it helps your brain,” Rajakumar told the New York Times. “If you don’t drink a lot of water, your speed will be a bit low. If you drink a lot of water, it will be more and more clear and you can read it faster.”

  • On the other hand, do not drink in the middle of a soccer match. (h/t Professor Capetta)

1) Do the Right Thing

Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway paid $26.8 billion in corporate taxes in 2024, according to Business Insider, which reported that the amount was the most of any U.S. company in history and about 5% of the total American corporate taxes paid last year.

Berkshire sold stocks with a net worth of $134 billion, hit a $1 trillion market value, and now has more than $300 billion in cash. Buffett himself already has pledged billions to charity.

“Spend it wisely, Buffett, 94, wrote of Berkshire’s 2024 tax payments in his annual shareholder letter. “Take care of the many who, for no fault of their own, get the short straws in life. They deserve better.”

Correction

Last week, I misspelled the last name of TOTO guitarist Steve Lukather. (Thanks for the catch, Chris.)