How Habits are Like Firmware

Res Extensa #52 :: Mastering a craft through automating the repetitive

"Civilization advances by extending the number of operations we can perform without thinking about them." —Alfred North Whitehead

In computer science, a computing system's elements are broken into layers — hardware, software, and firmware in between.

The hardware layer is obvious: the silicon boards, transistors, magnetic spinning disks, solid-state memor…