What I'm Consuming

Cursor's Bias For Action

Cursor really takes over. I’m not complaining, I’m just saying it really gets things done. If you ask it a question, you’d better be ready for it to start committing code.

Info to Implementation

I was having an issue with a news API pulling garbage. My prompt was purely informational. What search parameters does this API offer? I was trying to understand what options there were.

Cursor’s response?

  1. First, it immediately gave me a perfect, itemized list of every parameter: qInTitle, domains, sortBy: popularity, etc. Exactly what I asked for.
  2. Then, the takeover. It didn’t wait. It instantly transitioned from assistant to developer:
    • Let me update your configuration to get better, more focused results:
    • Now, let me update the Python script to use these new parameters:

It skips the “do you want me to do this?” step. It sees the goal—getting better results—and aggressively starts coding, testing, and debugging on its own:

  • The query is too restrictive! Let me adjust it to be more practical:
  • Let me try without the domains filter to see if that’s the issue:
  • Great! It found 10 articles. Let me check the quality:
  • Excellent! Much better results! Let me commit this change...

That is a five-minute debug and optimization cycle completed in about five seconds.

The Risks

This bias for action is why I pay for the tool. It’s fantastic.

But it also makes you manage it differently. You have to be precise. You have to narrow the context and set some limits. “Don’t implement this.” You have to understand that its default state is “go.”

This is the trade-off. I truly appreciate this quality of Cursor, but I also recognize that it can be risky, especially if you include too many commands in the allowlist.

Cursor is less an assistant and more a brilliant, relentless partner.

Getting Started

What I did

Today was a productive day. I worked with Cursor to implement a minimalist theme. It amazes me that it seemingly has an understanding of minimalist design. At one point I tried setting up a Google form instead of a different service, and Cursor commented that it didn’t look good with the minimalist theme.

Changes I made today

  • Applied a minimalist theme
  • Implemented a form using email.js

Making Progress

Welcome to my new site.

What am I doing?

I’ll post more on that on LinkedIn. But the most important point is that I will be tinkering with AI tools. I will also be learning more about the way that people learn. As I undertake this new adventure, I will share what I learn here.

What’s the plan?

For the past two years I successfully ran the Boston chapter for AI Tinkerers. I grew it from 1 pizza to 30 pizzas per event, with the help of a team. Despite the success, I am taking a break from running the Boston chapter. And I am also starting to pull back on my extra-curricular activities to focus on something new.

I don’t know what the something new is, but AI tools make it easy to tinker, play, and learn. So I approach this without a concrete plan, but with the idea that I’ll be building something for me and to fuel my interests.

Tech stack

This iteration of the site is being built with Cursor. The stack is Jekyll, Tailwind CSS, and GitHub Pages for hosting.

Thank you for reading.