I've been playing around with Cursor^[1] recently, and while I haven't started the paid plan yet, I am starting to think I will. I don't think it will replace any of my typical development, but it's well-suited for quick prototypes and small changes that I don't want to write myself.

One recent example was the sidebar design on the left of this blog. That was initially generated via Cursor.

Anyway... Yesterday I was thinking about the MCU, trying to work out what films I've seen, and if I've missed any out, based on the timeline. So I thought, surely I can just get Cursor to build me a basic timeline? Sure enough, it could.

Once I had a basic timeline, I wondered if I could use this as a challenge to see how far I could go with this site, purely using Cursor and not writing any code myself. So I've spent just a few hours, asking Cursor for new features, design tweaks, and small corrections to the actual source data when it missed a film or two.

As for the final result, you can find the code on GitHub.

The overall functionality is simple, it displays all MCU films (inc. multiverse, and related films like Venom), and lets you track which ones you have watched.

But there's also a grid mode for easier viewing.

A section for upcoming films.

And some overall statistics.

As you can see, it's not exactly the most complex site. But for a personal tool, I think it's perfect. And this type of quick project is one of the main reasons why I expect I will continue using Cursor.

Which leads me to my recent thoughts about this type of AI-powered programming. I'm starting to imagine a future where this type of code is not generated like I did here, which is to keep feeding suggestions until a result is delivered, before using that as a "product". But rather, these types of tools/UIs can be built dynamically and in real-time.

This shifts from asking to 'build a website showing all MCU films...' to simply saying 'show me the MCU films,' with the timeline UI being generated and displayed in real-time. In the future maybe we won't have developers generating code via AI tools, maybe people will use AI, and the AI can provide relevant visualisations/results directly.

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1. An AI code editor. ↩︎

The more I use AI tools, such as Cursor and Perplexity, it becomes even more incredible to me how terrible Siri is.

This probably isn't revolutionary, but I've been thinking about this for a while, and I think I have a perfect use case for AI. And that is property searching.

I heard Rory Sutherland^[1] talk about property searching a while ago, and he was explaining how the tools used to search for properties, and the housing market in general, isn't fit for purpose. Primarily because your search is built around what your perfect house is, e.g. you can look for houses in a good catchment area for schools. But he proposes that a better way of seearching for a house is to work out what can you live with, that other people would hate. His example was living near a railway line, he would enjoy this, most people would hate it.

This example alone got me thinking about AI. And especially tools like Perplexity, as you can explain your exact scenario and what you're looking for, but also what things you absolutely can't live with, and what you could live with.

For example, you could say "We are family of 4, I require school access, but as I work remotely, I don't require any particular transport links" or something like "I'm a single man, working in London, with no need for school or transport links, as long as I can get to work within 1 hour, and I don't mind being in a noisy area as I go to bed late".

There are probably better examples, but I'm sure you get the idea.

I think if you had an AI model that had full access to a property database, with enough information that it could understand the fine details of each property, placing a prompt-based interface on top of that would be perfect.

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1. British advertising/marketing genius. Wikipedia ↩︎

A younger version of myself would laugh at what I'm about to say. But if there's one thing that I can take from last year, it's that becoming a parent is the greatest thing a human being can do. Who would have thought?

When I think about games that had lasting effects on me, there’s honestly hardly any.

For starters, I have to give games like Pokémon and World of Warcraft their own category. I’ve played them both for massive chunks of my life, and even if a sequel isn’t great, I’m playing it. They’ve probably both affected me somehow, but in a more longer-term way that’s hard to measure.

I guess I could also say the FIFA and Call of Duty games are similar, in that it’s not really about the quality of the game, the benefit is really the experience playing live with other people.

The game that had the biggest “wow, this is incredible” was Firewatch. It was a really good length, the story had me hooked the whole way through, and the whole gameplay experience was great.

But there is one game that I seem to have a lot of nostalgia for, and that is The Last of Us. I can’t put my finger on the exact reason. Was it the gameplay, the story, or just my life at the time? I don’t know.

But when I think back to playing the game, or see photos on social media, all I can remember is being completely immersed, taking everything one step at a time, never wanting to miss a single second. I really want to play through it again. But I wonder if it just won’t have the same feeling as the first time.

One thing is for certain, I want to start playing more games. And I don’t just mean endless hours on Call of Duty or World of Warcraft. Real games, with enthralling stories, that leave something behind in me.

If using a ThinkPad on holiday has taught me one thing, it's that my next "main" laptop will have some form of a matte display. Whether it's some form of Linux laptop, or a MacBook with the new coating, being able to use a laptop with zero issues in the sun feels like a revelation after all the years using a Mac with a glossy screen.

Every single I see this advert, I'm amazed at how brilliant just a single bit of conversation is. It's probably my favourite bit of marketing ever.

Person 1: *spots Head and Shoulders*

Person 1: "I didn't know you had dandruff?"

Person 2: "I don't."

Is it weird that I find that absolutely brilliant? If you have dandruff (luckily I don't), then what better way could you have a product marketed to you?

★ Favourite: To question is to consider, not refute | Derek Sivers

This post is confirmation that I have somehow managed to set up blog posting via the Quill web interface

It also means that I have enabled IndieAuth correctly, and have built a Vercel function to power a micropub endpoint that creates and stores posts in the GitHub repo as Markdown files. Very interesting stuff.

Isn't the Indie Web great?