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Programmer tries to explain binary search to the police
(startrek.website)
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this post was submitted on 30 Nov 2023
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But you will see the event happen though.
It's a matter of if you can identify who the perpetrator is or not, but at least that due diligence should be done by police, looking at the person doing the crime and see if they can be identified.
Not with a binary search.
Edit: just collapse this thread and move on. Cosmic Cleric is an obvious troll.
Well now I HAD to read the thread
What an absolute weirdo.
Yes you will.
A binary search is just what it says, it's just for searching only.
When you find that moment in time where the bike was there one moment, and then the next moment the bike's not there, then you view at regular or even slow-mo at those few seconds of the bike in the middle of disappearing, and see the perpetrator, and hopefully can identify them.
You didn't get what was talked about here. Re-read the topmost parent comment.
How do you binary search for two people arriving, one punches the other, they both leave?
I was responding to this ...
I disagree with the "leaves no visual cue" part, as I've commented on. There's ALWAYS something caught on the video to help determine things. Maybe not enough, but never nothing.
Maybe I'm not understanding both arguments here but I'd like to understand. I've had to review footage of a vending machine being shaken to release drinks.
You have no before or after visual clue as to when the event took place. The only indication is when you physically see it happening. The same could be said for an assault. If nothing is changed in the before or after static still how can you pinpoint the incident?
You either don't know what binary search is or you completely missed the context of this conversation
I'm a computer programmer. I know exactly what a binary search is. I've written binary searches before.
The search is to get you to the point where you can watch the video to see the crime happening, in hopes of indentifying the perpretrator.
Then you missed the point of this conversation
You're being intellectually dishonest, in an attempt to kill the message.
This is what was said in the origional OP pic...
Yes, but, as you noted in an earlier post, that isn't what you're responding to. The point of the post you stated you are responding to is: if an event occurs that leaves no change to the visual context before and after the occurrence, then binary search is ineffective.
The fact that you're wasting this much time trying to defend such a simple error is confusing. The reasonable response is, "oh, yes, in that particular case, binary search is ineffective."
Binary search only works on sorted data, i.e. you know which side of the mid point is pointing towards the incident. If the incident leaves no trail, you can't know whether you can discard the left side or the right side, making it a complicated linear search at that moment.
That doesn't apply to the comment you replied to.
Let's use the example of a bike theft. We enter into evidence a 4-hour security cam video that shows the thief with the bike.
Scenario A: The camera can directly see the bike rack, and the bike in question is visible at the beginning of the video, and not visible at the end. Somewhere in this 4-hour video, someone walks up to the bike and takes it out of the bike rack. You can use a binary search to find the moment that happens in this video because you can pick a frame and say "Ah, this was before the theft; the bike is still there" or "ah, this was after the theft; the bike is gone."
Scenario B: The camera can't directly see the bike rack, but can see the doorway you have to walk through to get to the bike rack. So somewhere in 4 hours of doorway footage, someone walks through the door, then a short time later walks back through the door with the bike. A binary search won't help here because the door looks the same at the beginning or end of the video. A simple binary search won't work here because the door looks the same before and after.
This is the explanation that CosmicCleric needs in order to understand binary search.
Because as it is, (s)he’s failing abysmally at demonstrating any understanding whatsoever of that subject.
I'm just a random guy stumbling across this thread hours after the fact. I want to say that after reading many of these comments. I feel like I'm starting to get a handle on what your position is. You aren't wrong, but you are communicating your idea horribly.
Your position seems to be "Thankfully, many crimes do leave behind lasting visual cues, so you can still do a binary search for those situations if you are clever about what to look for."
What you've actually been communicating is that "If there really was no lasting visual cue, then just find a lasting visual cue anyway, then do a binary search on that and it'll work!" - It's all about how you choose to present, order, and emphasize your comments. Your message is more than just the words you type. I hope this message helps clarify the debate and confusion for you and anyone else who stumbles upon this long chain.