[elcritch]

Exactly, the authors get to eschew the formalism required in papers. Often the core ideas of research are simple in themselves and the real complexity lies in formally proving the results.

Also, I'd not be surprised if someone already invented and used this funnel hashing technique in say the 80's in some game or whatnot but just never realized what they had stumbled onto. Not to diminish the research, it's very ingenius.