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Comment on Programmer tries to explain binary search to the police

starman2112@sh.itjust.works ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

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.

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CosmicCleric@lemmy.world ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

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.

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- starman2112@sh.itjust.works ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  
  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.
  
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  - CosmicCleric@lemmy.world ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    
    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.
    
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    starman2112@sh.itjust.works ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    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.
    
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