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Programmer tries to explain binary search to the police (startrek.website)

submitted 11 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] [email protected] -1 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

You didn’t get what was talked about here. Re-read the topmost parent comment.

I was responding to this ...

Part of my job is to review security footage for reported incidents.

If there is a long-lasting visual cue that the event has or has not happened yet (e.g. a window is either broken or not), then a binary search is very useful.

If the event lasts only a moment and leaves no visual cue (e.g. an assault), then binary search is practically useless.

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.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 11 months ago (1 children)

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?

[–] [email protected] -1 points 11 months ago

You have no before or after visual clue as to when the event took place.

That wouldn't necessarily be true. If you shook it hard enough to move the contents inside the vending machine and the vending machine had a glass front then you would have a static change that would last from the time the event happened until a human being came to work on the machine. That change would be detectable.

Or from the shaking the vending machine is moved an inch forward and an inch to the left. That change would be detectable.

Everyone arguing against me is trying to focus the point that the event is such a short duration that it's not detectable afterwards, and what I've been arguing the whole time and that people keep ignoring is that most of the time after an event happens that the environment around the event changes, and it's detectable afterwards.