Web Excursions 2022-01-04
The Thinner Book: Atomic Habits by James Clear
The Fundamentals
From a biological perspective, the purpose of habits is to preserve energy by offloading the cognitive effort spent on repetitive tasks from the conscious to the subconscious.
As you repeat a certain behavior, the connection between the neurons associated with that behavior become stronger.
After enough repetitions, the connection becomes so strong that the behavior is automatic
We must shift our focus from achievement to trajectory.
The Three Layers of Behavior Change: Identity - Process - Outcome
Identity is what you believe, process is what you do, and outcome is what you get.
The reason most people fall short of their aspirations in life is that they are solely focused on outcomes, without considering the systems that lead to those outcomes.
To change your identity, start by asking how someone with your desired identity behaves.
just telling yourself you're going to start doing something is not an effective way to change your behavior.
Our brains are energy conservation machines, constantly analyzing the environment for ways to maximize immediate rewards while spending as little energy as possible.
Effective processes manipulate your environment so that the energy required for the desirable behavior is less than the energy required for the undesirable behavior
The Four Steps of Habit Formation: Cue - Craving - Response - Reward
The Four Laws of Behavior Change: Make it obvious, attractive, easy, & satisfying
Each law maps to one of the four steps of habit formation: obvious → Cue; attractive → Craving; easy → Response; satisfying → Reward
Make it Obvious
Implementation Intentions: I will [BEHAVIOUR] at [TIME] in/at [LOCATION]
Habit Stacking: After [CURRENT HABIT], I will [NEW HABIT]
Habit Scorecard: At the end of the day, mark each behavior as either bad, neutral, or good.
Make it Invisible
To break a bad habit, remove the cues associated with that habit from your environment.
The Behavior Function
our behavior results from the combination of our personal traits and the environment we inhabit.
You can't easily modify the P in f(P,E), but you can change the E.
Build new habits in new environments, and whenever possible, avoid mixing the environment of one habit with another.
The Influence of Vision
visual cues in our environment are the most effective at influencing our behavior.
When designing your environment, make the cues for good habits highly visible and the cues for bad habits invisible.
Environment > Discipline
The more you have to practice self-restraint, the less you will be able to resist the next temptation.
Each act of self-restraint drains your tank of willpower.
Instead of spending energy on self-restraint, invest in eliminating temptations from your environment.
Self-control is a short-term strategy, environment design is a long-term one.
Make it Attractive
The Outdated Utility of Dopamine: We have the brains of our ancestors, but temptations that they could have never imagined.
Exaggerated Reality: Modern industry is filled with supernormal stimuli that overwhelm our primitive instincts and motivate us to consume.
Anticipation Drives Action: The anticipation of the reward drives us to action, not the reward itself. Additionally, our brains have more neural circuitry allocated for wanting rewards than actually liking rewards.
Temptation Bundling
Leverage the desire to belong
we imitate three groups of people: The close (friends and family); The many (people in our society); The powerful (people with status and prestige)
Underlying Motives
Our cravings are just arbitrary manifestations of a deeper underlying motive -- reduce uncertainty, win social acceptance and approval, or achieve status and prestige.
Modern-day products don't create new motivations, they latch onto the underlying motives of human behavior.
Our habits are modern solutions to ancient desires.
Predictive, Not Reactive: Our behavior is heavily dependent on how we interpret the events that happen to us, not necessarily the objective reality of the events themselves.
Make it Unattractive
Exposing how the bad habit inadequately addresses the underlying motive that caused its formation.
Replacing the bad habit with a good habit that more effectively addresses the underlying motive.
How To Enjoy Hard Habits
Instead of telling yourself that you "have to" do a hard habit, tell yourself that you "get to" do a hard habit.
This simple shift in words changes your interpretation of the habit, highlighting how the difficult behavior is an opportunity instead of a burden.
Make it Easy
Quantity Over Quality: If you want to master a habit, the key is to start with repetition, not perfection.
Motion vs Action: We're attracted to motion because it gives us the illusion of progress without the risk of failure. Action is more difficult than motion, but it's also more rewarding.
Neuroplasticity: Repetition leads to clear physical changes in the brain.
How long does it take to build a new habit? -- Reaching the point of automaticity, and thus forming a habit, is dependent on how many repetitions you've performed, not how long you've been performing them.
The Law of Least Effort: telling yourself to just "try harder" is rarely effective for developing new habits; It goes against the grain of human nature.
Eliminate Friction: Removing the friction associated with your habits allows you to do more with less time and effort. Think addition by subtraction.
Prime for next use: Preparing your environment for the performance of a habit serves as both a reminder and a mechanism for making the habit as convenient as possible.
Decisive Moments: The difference between a good day and a bad day is the result of the choices we make during decisive moments.
The 2 Minute Rule: Solves this problem by leveraging the fact that it's easier to continue what you're doing than to start something new.
Ritualize The Process: The more you ritualize the beginning of a process, the more likely you are to slip into a state of focus for performing the process.
Make it Difficult: Sometimes success is less about making good habits easy and more about making bad habits hard.
Onetime actions with longtime rewards: actions you can take that produce consistent long-term rewards.
Buying smaller plates to reduce caloric intake
Purchasing a comfortable mattress to increase sleep quality
Turning off notifications to reduce distractions
Asking service providers to lower your bills to save money
Buying a high-quality chair or standing desk to improve your posture
Make it Satisfying
Immediate-return environment to delayed-return environment
We have evolved to prefer rewards that are guaranteed in the present over possible rewards in the future.
This is why relying on willpower alone to make the right decision doesn't work.
It's human nature to gravitate towards the choice that delivers immediate satisfaction.
The Paradox of Instant Gratification: Always be suspicious of immediately pleasurable behaviors, for they are likely to be detrimental in the long term.
The Road Less Traveled: the one that requires persevering through the struggles of the present, knowing that they'll make you better off in the future.
Treat Yourself: the reward should reinforce the identity that is associated with the habit. A healthy smoothie reinforces the identity created by working out: a healthy person.
Track Your Progress: habit tracking shifts your focus from the end goal to the process that will get you there.
Never Miss Twice: When you miss a habit, focus on rebounding as soon as possible. It's okay to miss a workout every once and a while, just don't miss two in a row.
Bad > None: Cherish the days where you don't feel like performing a habit, for they provide an opportunity to strengthen your desired identity like no other.
Naïve Metrics: If you become too obsessed with the metric you've chosen to track your progress, you might lose sight of why you're doing the habit in the first place.
Make it Unsatisfying: The trick to stopping our bad habits is to make their consequences occur as soon as possible, be clearly visible, and be more painful than their worth.
Accountability Partners: Knowing that you're being monitored and judged can be a powerful motivator.
Listen to Yourself: You will be most likely to develop and stick to a habit if you shape it to match your inclinations.
How to find your habits: try answering the following questions:
What feels like fun to me but like work to others?
What makes me lose track of time?
Where do I experience greater returns than the average person?
What comes natural to me?
Escape competition by combining your interests
If you're unable to find a domain that caters to your natural inclinations, create one.
The modern environment is incredibly competitive.
Instead of trying to win at one of these ultra-competitive domains, escape competition by combining your skills to create a new domain.
The Goldilocks Zone: The key to sustaining motivation is to take on tasks that lie in the middle [of the spectrum of difficulty], in the "Goldilocks Zone".
Embrace boredom: The difference between professionals and amateurs is that professionals show up every day, even when they don't feel like it, even when they're bored. To become truly great at something you have to embrace boredom.
Avoiding Complacency: Reflect on and review your performance, [which require you] to measure your outcomes.
Keep Your Identity Small: The more you let your beliefs define you, the less adaptive you'll be to change. Life is full of surprises and you never know when unforeseen circumstances alter what you can and can't do. If your identity is brittle, changes beyond your control may break you.
Booting an M1 Mac From Hardware to Kexts: 1 Hardware
Booting an M1 series Mac consists of four main stages:
The Boot ROM, which is in the hardware, and can’t be changed.
In this context, its most important task is to verify the executable for the next stage, load and run it.
If that isn’t possible, then the fallback is to go into DFU mode and await a connection over USB.
The Low-Level Bootloader, LLB, which
verifies and reads stored security settings in the LocalPolicy,
locates and verifies the software for the next stage,
then hands over to it.
iBoot, popularly but incorrectly called the M1 ‘firmware’, which verifies a set of hashes used to guarantee the integrity of key information, by comparing a stored copy of the hash against a hash of that hash, termed its signature.
Among these is the root hash of the SSV, but iBoot doesn’t attempt to access the SSV or its hashes, merely passing on the verified root hash for the kernel to use later.
Once it has completed those checks according to LocalPolicy, iBoot verifies, loads and runs the macOS kernel.
macOS, whose kernel takes over from iBoot to start up the rest of the hardware, security systems, the SSV and other storage, and load all the required kernel extensions.
These ultimately bring the Mac to life, and the user login screen.
In the event that anything goes wrong, such as a verification failing, there are only two likely courses:
the Mac is put into DFU mode to await connection from another Mac, or
it’s put into Recovery instead.
Widespread and good practice for dealing with a boot loop is to force the Mac to shut down, then to try starting it up in Recovery.
Each of the first three stages loads only the code which it needs to access hardware to perform its tasks.
In the case of the Boot ROM, this is minimal, and includes support to access the Flash memory containing LLB, and basic USB support to connect to another Mac when in DFU mode.
That explains why DFU mode won’t work over a Thunderbolt connection, as that would require additional systems in the chip to be active to provide the hardware support necessary.
One of the most common questions people ask about M1 Macs is whether, like Intel Macs, they can boot fully from an external disk.
Problems come with securely stored data, particularly LocalPolicy, which must accessed by LLB.
Currently, those are largely stored in the
iSCPreboot
volume in theiBootSystemContainer
on the internal SSD.Another volume in that container which is key to Secure Boot is trusted storage for the Secure Enclave, in
xARTS
.The
RecoveryOSContainer
on the internal SSD is also indispensable
If that SSD or the Flash containing LLB fails or becomes corrupted, then the Mac will be unable to boot, and its only recourse will be DFU mode, in the hope that it can be restored successfully.