("Orthogonal" is a jargony way of saying "opposed.")
Update: Several commenters raised questions about my gloss of "orthogonal." So I emailed Basu to ask him how he was using the word here. His answer: "Orthogonal interests are interests pulling in opposite directions."
Yeah... someone needs a refresher in linear algebra and a reminder not to use words the meaning of which he doesn't know.
Parallel can mean in the same direction, or it can mean in exactly opposite directions. North and south train lines might run parallel to each other, for example.
In plain English, two things are orthogonal if they are unrelated or independent of each other.
In linear algebra, this meaning is given a more specific technical meaning of perpendicular; transforming a point p by a vector u that is orthogonal to a basis vector v to get p' means that p and p' have the same multiplier on v (i.e. the contribution of v is independent of transformations orthogonal to v)
Sure, in that case the vectors are instructions and registers. So if you change from using instruction p to instruction p' it doesn't change the register you're using.
Yeah... someone needs a refresher in linear algebra and a reminder not to use words the meaning of which he doesn't know.