[wisemang]

Sure, but my overall point was meant to refute this:

> But that's a miss, it's like one of those Neal Stephenson moments where the creator is using the right language […snip…] but they don't understand what's actually going on.

And to support the commenter who expressed surprise about that given Vernor Vinge is a mathematician. Clearly he does know what’s going on. And I think the fact you just posted supports this even more.

Anyways I have no horse in this race, haven’t read the book, just another internet pedant who saw something on HN that could be corrected.

[benlivengood]

For some context, I am guessing that people lower than the Transcend are uncertain about whether P=NP in the Transcend, which would make OTPs relevant.