>>> from timeit import timeit
>>> timeit(lambda: [i for i in j if i >= 5]) # Michael Mrozek
1.4558496298222325
>>> timeit(lambda: filter(lambda x: x >= 5, j)) # Justin Ardini
0.693048732089828
>>> timeit(lambda: filter((5).__le__, j)) # Mine
0.714461565831428
>>>
So Justin wins!!
With number=1:
>>> from timeit import timeit
>>> timeit(lambda: [i for i in j if i >= 5],number=1) # Michael Mrozek
1.642193421957927e-05
>>> timeit(lambda: filter(lambda x: x >= 5, j),number=1) # Justin Ardini
3.421236300482633e-06
>>> timeit(lambda: filter((5).__le__, j),number=1) # Mine
1.8474676011237534e-05
>>>
So Michael wins!!
>>> from timeit import timeit
>>> timeit(lambda: [i for i in j if i >= 5],number=10) # Michael Mrozek
4.721306089550126e-05
>>> timeit(lambda: filter(lambda x: x >= 5, j),number=10) # Justin Ardini
1.0947956184281793e-05
>>> timeit(lambda: filter((5).__le__, j),number=10) # Mine
1.5053439710754901e-05
>>>
The code inside of the brackets, j >= 5, produces a list of True or False values, which then serve as indices to select the desired values in j. Finally, we sort with the sort function built into numpy.