This argument did not go well
You can’t convince people to do their job with logic when they just don’t want to do their job. After minorities, the thing cops hate most is doing their job.
Programmer tries to explain binary search to the police
Submitted 11 months ago by The_Picard_Maneuver@startrek.website to programmer_humor@programming.dev
https://startrek.website/pictrs/image/14129b6b-6cd5-4c12-89da-0fd23e294fc7.jpeg
Comments
xantoxis@lemmy.world 11 months ago
SPRUNT@lemmy.world 11 months ago
WRONG! After minorities, it’s poor people. Then doing their job. :P
HawlSera@lemm.ee 11 months ago
Come on, don’t disparage our hard-working Boys in blue. Without police who’s going to come to your house to take notes about the crime that you have sufficient evidence to prove, and even have a likely suspect for, and then never follow up?
buzz@lemmy.world 11 months ago
Nah, they just dont care about your dumb bike.
merc@sh.itjust.works 11 months ago
I assume he doesn’t have access to it. He just knows there’s a camera pointing at the place where his bike was stolen, and that the police have access to the footage.
Micromot@feddit.de 11 months ago
They might not know when in the footage it happened
CosmicCleric@lemmy.world 11 months ago
when they just don’t want to do their job.
It might also be a matter of getting a directive from their management not the care, because there’s not enough cops to go around for the ‘important’ stuff.
They don’t want to waste their limited time for simple property theft, which is ironic considering that’s what police are supposed to be doing (stopping theft).
The answer would be then to hire more police, but unfortunately that would mean higher taxes for the citizenry, and that seems to be a hard glass ceiling.
trolololol@lemmy.world 11 months ago
Wrong
The police exists to protect the status quo. Try overthrowing any immoral law or legally but immoral behavior and you’ll see how efficiently they move about.
HawlSera@lemm.ee 11 months ago
No, the police just don’t want to do any work. In my hometown you can’t get the police to do shit unless you are a black man who “fits the description” or “smells like weee” then they will gladly try to make your death look as much your fault as possible.
DroneRights@lemm.ee 11 months ago
More police wouldn’t cost more money if they stopped buying tanks.
Pazuzu@midwest.social 11 months ago
I thought this had to be hyperbole, so I did the math myself. I’m assuming human history is 200,000 years as google says, and we want to narrow this down to the second the bike disappeared. also that the bike instantly vanished so there’s no partially existing bike.
each operation divides the time left in half, so to get from 200k years (6.311×10^12 seconds) to 1 would take ~42.58 divisions, call it 43. even if we take a minute on average to seek and decide whether the bike is there or not it would still be less than an hour of manual sorting
hell, at 60fps it would only take another 6 divisions to narrow it down to a single frame, still under an hour
rckclmbr@lemm.ee 11 months ago
I regularly bisect commits in the range of 200k (on the low end) for finding causes of bugs. It takes me minutes. Pretty crazy
Moneo@lemmy.world 11 months ago
Lemmy learns exponential math.
Mostly joking, thanks for doing the math.
psud@aussie.zone 11 months ago
History is about 10k years, the 200k years is mostly pre-history. People didn’t write stuff down until they invented agriculture and needed to track trade between owners, workers, etc
PointAndClique@hexbear.net 11 months ago
True and interesting to note, OOP says ‘dawn of humanity’ though, not recorded history, so taking that as ‘human history’ is valid.
rekabis@lemmy.ca 11 months ago
Combine AI pattern recognition and quantum computing, and this search could be completed before it was even started.
madcaesar@lemmy.world 11 months ago
We can go deeper!
MagnoliaMayhem@programming.dev 11 months ago
Just watch at 3X!
Syldon@feddit.uk 11 months ago
A minute to decide if there is a bike in the picture really ?
Deuces@lemmy.world 11 months ago
As a robot, finding bikes in pictures is really hard, okay
Pazuzu@midwest.social 11 months ago
Takes time to precisely seek to each timestamp, but really I just meant that an hour was reasonable even with a lazy cop doing the search
sukhmel@programming.dev 11 months ago
They must be really bad at solving CAPTCHA
stockRot@lemmy.world 11 months ago
Ever heard of a logarithm? If you haven’t, you just reinvented it.
Also, your math is wrong: log base 2 of 200,000 is ~18
CoderKat@lemm.ee 11 months ago
You did 200k years. You need to do seconds. Their math is right.
dejected_warp_core@lemmy.world 11 months ago
This didn’t go down well.
IT consulting pro-tip: Customers would rather pay for your time and expertise, than be made to feel stupid that they didn’t think of something so simple themselves.
mwknight@lemmy.world 11 months ago
After working in desktop support for a year after college, I realized that people just wanted their problem solved and to not feel frustrated. That realization made my job immensely easier because I pivoted from copying a file in 30 seconds and walking away to talking to them a little bit and letting them feel good after we were done. My ticket closing speed slowed down a little but people felt better and I consistently got positive feedback.
Riven@lemmy.dbzer0.com 11 months ago
Dude same here. I usually say stuff along the lines of ‘yea it took me forever the first time to figure it out’ or ‘it’s a common issue that a lot of people have, I’ll get it sorted in a sec for you no problem’. Make it seem like they’re not stupid, regardless of the truth and then fix it, keeps em happy and more willing to cooperate with you as well.
I also talk through what I’m doing and if they show interest I’ll teach them so they can fix it in the future, ‘ah I’ve seen this before, took me like a hour to figure it out on my computer, for me it was a chrome update that broke how downloaded files open. Here let me right click the file, and go to open with, we hit Adobe pdf and check the always open with this program button, that should do it let’s test it out. OK seems like its good to go. Let me know if you have any more issues’. If they don’t show interest then it’s no problem.
BakedGoods@sh.itjust.works 11 months ago
When I started in support 15 years ago my boss said: “First you solve the person, then you solve the problem”.
He was a good dude.
dejected_warp_core@lemmy.world 11 months ago
Same story here, actually. I cut my teeth on internet telephony (modems) support for an ISP. People would call up furious about not being able to connect. I learned that chatting people up during a long Windows reboot, did a lot to humanize their struggle and get them to calm down and loosen up. FIrst few times were organic, then I started looking for pretenses to do this, just to bring the temperature down for the rest of the call.
ICastFist@programming.dev 11 months ago
Just yesterday, I was helping this manager set up a new system of ticket line (the kind where you get a ticket number and wait for it to be called in a panel). He complained that they didn’t have a proper printer just for these tickets, so he made the tickets in excel and printed them. To the right of the number, someone would mark the service, from a list of 6.
“Why not use a single letter prefix and print different piles of passwords? (A01, A02, A03; B01, B02, etc)”
That’ll use too much paper. We’ll also need more tickets than before
“That will use less paper, you can print 2 tickets using the same space. Also, the amount of tickets always depends on the number of people that show up, but you’ll have a better idea of which service is being needed each day”
Mr manager didn’t like the idea and moved on to another problem.
xantoxis@lemmy.world 11 months ago
Eh, it’s less intuitive than you might think, as someone who already knows how to do it.
I once had to explain this process to a software engineer who was quite senior to me. The guy wasn’t any idiot, he was a pretty competent engineer, he just didn’t know this trick.
The cops might even already know how to do it, they just don’t want to, because they’re cops.
Zehzin@lemmy.world 11 months ago
Officer Zeno then said it’s impossible to find the exact moment of the theft with this method
SamirCasino@lemm.ee 11 months ago
I love you for that joke.
TrenchcoatFullofBats@belfry.rip 11 months ago
I heard that he wanted to get Officer Thomson and his lamp on the case, but the request form was incomplete.
frezik@midwest.social 11 months ago
I’m a little surprised the police didn’t already know about that method. Seems like they’d encounter enough CCTV footage that’d it’d be standard training.
I once again overestimate the training levels of the police.
rockSlayer@lemmy.world 11 months ago
They probably do know. They just aren’t meant for protecting your personal property
tiramichu@lemm.ee 11 months ago
Right.
What they really want to say is “We aren’t interested in investigating your personal theft. Things get stolen all the time and we really can’t be bothered. You are not important to us.”
But they can’t say that, so they instead come up with some excuse that puts the onus back on the other person.
SkepticalButOpenMinded@lemmy.ca 11 months ago
I dunno. “Don’t attribute to malice what can be sufficiently explained by stupidity.” I can totally believe that the average police officer has not thought this through. “5 hours of footage! We don’t have 5 hours to look for one bike.”
Cannacheques@slrpnk.net 11 months ago
And Detective Conan Doyle O’Brien really did just let his bro fuck around and watch porn and even bring a stripper into the station during footage reviewing hours. Of course, Stuart was quite shocked to hear he was not invited to the stag do later that weekend
fox@hexbear.net 11 months ago
For sure they know, it’s just cops are lazy and aren’t paid to solve crimes
Laticauda@lemmy.ca 11 months ago
I imagine it’s utilized in more “serious” investigations and they just can’t be arsed for theft.
roofuskit@lemmy.world 11 months ago
In the US most their training involves how to be more aggressive veiled as training to be assertive.
BowtiesAreCool@lemmy.world 11 months ago
It’s a somewhat narrow situation. You won’t always have the object of interest in plain view of a camera. What if it’s behind a door? Well now you do have to scrub through all the footage
SameOldInternet@lemmy.world 11 months ago
This post just shows that the police rarely if ever review any video as this method would’ve been learned as a result of repeatedly reviewing video.
charonn0@startrek.website 11 months ago
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.
CosmicCleric@lemmy.world 11 months ago
If the event lasts only a moment and leaves no visual cue (e.g. an assault), then binary search is practically useless.
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.
null@slrpnk.net 11 months ago
But you will see the event happen though.
Not with a binary search.
captain_aggravated@sh.itjust.works 11 months ago
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.
DaleGribble88@programming.dev 11 months ago
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.
TheBlue22@lemmy.blahaj.zone 11 months ago
Police try to understand anything challenge (100% impossible) (gone sexual) (gone violent)
doctorcrimson@lemmy.today 11 months ago
I once had a friend who was robbed of all kinds of stuff including a PS3, and that the guy was signed into his Netflix changing accounts the very same day. I told him he can just get a tracking number by calling Playstation and that the active police officer can use to track them. Thing is, the officer ghosted him for like 8 months despite having everything they needed to immediately find the exact location of the perpetrator actively using the stolen property.
Cihta@lemmy.world 11 months ago
They don’t care really. As has been my experience anyway.
I once had my car window smashed, a mix of gear taken…some was expensive, some was personal to me. I felt violated. Called the police, explained, gave S/Ns to what I could, told them exactly who did it. He didn’t give a shit. Actually made me feel like I was wasting his time. I think Seinfeld covered this…
“We’ll let you know if we find anything” “Do you ever find anything?” “No”
But oh, my reg is out of date and the plate scanner picked it up? Boom, they really kick it into gear. So that’s $130… i could just go take care of the tags immediately with a friendly warning but now don’t even want to. And in the end I end up pretty fucked.
If only they put that effort into other things I just might have gotten my linear power amps back. Props to anyone who knows that product.
TerrificTadpole@lemmy.world 11 months ago
We just give all the tools to solve crimes to people who have no idea how to use them, no biggie.
Madison420@lemmy.world 11 months ago
*have a perverse incentive to not know how to use them or to know things about their job generally.
DarkThoughts@kbin.social 11 months ago
That's how I look for broken mods too. Move half of them into a temp folder, launch the game. If it works, put half of the sorted out ones back. if it doesn't work, remove another half and try again.
Weirdfish@lemmy.world 11 months ago
This is all fine and good till it’s a conflict between two specific mods. Damn you FO4 on PS4, why you gotta be like that?
DarkThoughts@kbin.social 11 months ago
You would still at least figure out one of the conflicting mods and could look for updates / further information about conflicts.
Zehzin@lemmy.world 11 months ago
Then it’s even easier, just remove one of them
MonkderZweite@feddit.ch 11 months ago
Btw, this is why i have given up on Early Access on Steam; can’t disable updates and have to fix your 100 mods then.
DarkThoughts@kbin.social 11 months ago
I love Steam, but the fact that you cannot permanently disable auto updates for specific titles is definitely infuriating.
Haus@kbin.social 11 months ago
When I want to see a broken mod, I just surf over to Reddit.
KSPAtlas@sopuli.xyz 11 months ago
Yeah, pretty great in my minecraft modding experience
nullPointer@programming.dev 11 months ago
just tell them there is a black man at the moment of theft, they will get on it lickety split!
Grimble@hexbear.net 11 months ago
- Binary search: O(log(n))
- Sequential search: O(n)
- Linear search: O(n)
- Police ethnicity database search: O(0)
Localhorst86@feddit.de 11 months ago
“Exactly my point. We will not be investing an hour looking at the footage to pinpoint the time of theft, now get out!”
T1000@lemm.ee 11 months ago
Sounds about right. Cops have low iqs
Alph4d0g@discuss.tchncs.de 11 months ago
I’m sure it didn’t go well. If it was somehow framed in a sycophantic way where the police were led to believe it was their idea, I’m sure it would have gone better. Wait that might not be too difficult to do.
Mubelotix@jlai.lu 11 months ago
It would have taken 5 minutes at most
FALGSConaut@hexbear.net 11 months ago
Their method actually does make sense, you just have to remember they aren’t cops to solve (boring) crimes like petty theft. Why get it done as efficiently as possible when you can milk it for hours of overtime? 12 hours of footage means 6+ hours of overtime even watching it at x2 speed, and it’s the kind of thing you can basically have going on in the background. Cops being willfully ignorant for their own benefit makes sense to me
rekabis@lemmy.ca 11 months ago
“This argument did not go down well.”
🤣🤣🤣 LMAO
What an awesome punchline, should have been on its own line for more impact.
HawlSera@lemm.ee 11 months ago
Jesus fucking Christ, I know police are dumb, in fact if your IQ is too high you can actually be legally barred from employment as a police officer in the United States of america. Look it up. But fuck incompetence of these Jokers continue to tickle my asshole in a negative way
Kalkaline@leminal.space 11 months ago
God damn, programmers are a clever group of people. I would have never come up with that on my own.
lemming741@lemmy.world 11 months ago
When troubleshooting physical systems, it’s called half-splitting
groucho@lemmy.sdf.org 11 months ago
The final project in my instrumentation class was to tune a PID controller for a hot/cold mixing valve. I (CS/ENG) was paired up with an engineering student and a lot of it was throwing parameters in, seeing if weird shit happened, and then turning down or up based on the result. I had a programming final and something else I was supposed to be studying for, so I just started doing a binary search with the knobs. We got the thing tuned relatively fast and my partner acted like I was a wizard.
iAvicenna@lemmy.world 11 months ago
Oh yea this is how I managed to convince our building management company to identify bicycle thieves in our communal garage.
CurlyMoustache@lemmy.world 11 months ago
This is how I look for the best bits in porn
lingh0e@sh.itjust.works 11 months ago
A police officer being unable to think in such a fashion is exactly why no one could solve the see-saw riddle on Brooklyn 99.
comrade_pibb@hexbear.net 11 months ago
acab
HubertManne@kbin.social 11 months ago
that dawn of humanity is only going to work if the rewind/fast forward is instantaneous.
Ddhuud@lemmy.world 11 months ago
They’re paid by the hour.
rgb3x3@beehaw.org 11 months ago
I’m realizing now that this would have been super useful when I worked in Loss Prevention way back when. Wish I had known…
Dukeofdummies@kbin.social 11 months ago
I mean, in the era of VHS this won't work because ultimately you're fast forwarding and rewinding. So you're gonna watch it anyway. but in the digital era I thought this would be what any Police officer did?
Like... they're not even gonna spend 10 minutes on a theft?
skydivekingair@lemmy.world 11 months ago
In Artillery you call it bracketing/straddling.
teft@startrek.website 11 months ago
Yeah, pigs don’t like to be corrected. Ever.
tquid@kbin.social 11 months ago
And they absolutely hate ever doing anything about bicycle theft in particular.
clay_pidgin@sh.itjust.works 11 months ago
I have heard that very often. I wonder if bikes are harder to track down than other property for some reason.
lars@programming.dev 11 months ago
I reported my bike stolen in college and I got a call the next day that they had found it parked in front of a nearby church.
It was stolen on a Sunday. I guess someone didn’t want to be late to service.
superduperenigma@lemmy.world 9 months ago
FTFY
Sheeple@lemmy.world 11 months ago
Fun fact. Cops on average have lower IQ and often fail literacy tests. Furthermore it appears that critical thinking is discouraged in the job, with candidates being selected who lack critical thinking abilities over those that have them.
Shiggles@sh.itjust.works 11 months ago
Certain departments specifically have IQ tests, in order to ensure you aren’t smart enough to easily get a better job elsewhere.
XEAL@lemm.ee 11 months ago
It sounds like this could be applied to the military too