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Programmer tries to explain binary search to the police

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  • Your adding things that would allow a binary search work, but the question was in a situation where the only evidence is the conflict itself

    2 guys enter one guy punches the other guy they both leave. Nothing is moved no blood was created,

    you could not use a binary search effectively to duduce when it occurred.

    • Your adding things that would allow a binary search work, but the question was in a situation where the only evidence is the conflict itself

      I'm describing the vast majority of fights that happen in the public. Also, you're trying to move the goalposts by focusing on a fight, when the discussion is about the theft of a bike.

      Edit: One thing we didn’t even mention, AI can also be used these days to notice subtle changes in the video. If a video is a static image of an alley, then two people walk in the alley and fight, even though they leave no traces behind, that moment of the fight is caught on the video with activity/movement. Motion sensor movement, basically.

      • What does that have to do with a binary search If a camera has AI on it then two things. A you have a system that already would be capturing movement or motion so you already have flags that you can check which would make a binary search mostly unnecessary. and B it's not binary search. Which is this whole discussion.

        Cool you're adding information to the question to make yourself "right" but even your comment says that's only the vast majority of fights and also you had to clarify in public so there are edge cases where the situation still stands that binary search wouldn't work or wouldn't be feasible.

        A solution doesn't have to work for 100% of things for it to still be a good solution.

        • What does that have to do with a binary search If a camera has AI on

          You can have a AI do the actual binary search as described by the OP in his comment pic. Doesn't have to be a human being that does it, but the process would be done the same way by either.

          My mentioning motion detection is just that an AI would be able to detect the moment of change in the video, the focus point more readily than a human being, is all.

        • Cool you’re adding information to the question to make yourself “right”

          No, I'm not. Within the moment I'm creating a comment I might save and then edit, because in the past I lost whole comments when I switch tabs in my browser. But when I'm done and hit that save I'm done, and then a few cases when I'm not I add an "Edit:" to it.

          but even your comment says that’s only the vast majority of fights and also you had to clarify in public

          Well most fights are in public, if a public camera is recording it. If a fight is private then it's probably not being done where a camera is.

          so there are edge cases where the situation still stands that binary search wouldn’t work or wouldn’t be feasible.

          The only edge case I could think of would be if something happens in a split second and then the scene is static again, the same before and after that.

          But even then if you're talking about a static scene on the camera AI would probably be able to catch that split second change happening, so binary searching can still be done.

      • I'm describing the vast majority of fights that happen in the public.

        But the comment you replied to already addressed those fights, and bike thefts, and the vast majority of cases that you're talking about, by saying

        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.

        No one is moving goalposts. The parent comment said that binary search is useful in situations like bike thefts where visual cues are present, and not useful in situations where visual cues are not present.

        In your hypothetical situation involving AI, the AI would use visual cues that are present, and so the situation is covered by the parent comment's second paragraph. In a situation where there are no visual cues for the AI to use, it would be covered by the third paragraph. They still aren't wrong about anything.

        • The parent comment said that binary search is useful in situations like bike thefts where visual cues are present, and not useful in situations where visual cues are not present.

          Just repeating myself at this point, but I was responding to this (the bolded part) …

          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.

          • 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.

            Then you should be responding to the "leaves no visual cues" part, not the "binary search is useless" part. If there WERE a situation that left no visual cues, THEN binary search WOULD be useless. It does not matter whether there ARE such situations.

            • Then you should be responding to the “leaves no visual cues” part, not the “binary search is useless” part.

              I did, by disagreeing with that statement, and listing reasons why.

              • No, you are either lying or wildly confused. You explicitly just stated that what you were responding to was the "binary search is useless" part. If you were responding to the "leaves no visual cues" part, you would have bolded it. You just said that what you responded to was the "binary search is useless" part. That means that logically, your argument IS that even in situations where there are no visual cues, binary search WOULD be useful, which is incorrect.

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