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Pareto Front

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Re: Pareto Front

#71
post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Inter with optional open type features turned on? https://rsms.me/inter/

I didn't know fonts can have options. Another learning curve on how to enable that in Latex/Html/Libreoffice/anywhere else I use fonts ^^'. But still helpful to know about! ss02 disambiguation seems to be the one I'd be wanting to turn on, with tnum for monospace numbers being a good option as well that I hadn't even realised I wanted from a font!

Yeah, those features are awesome! Sadly support for them is quite lacking in applications...

Tabular numbers are awesome!

Re: Pareto Front

#72

I’m sadly twitchy when I hear “Pareto” - having endured numerous middle managers suggesting they can deliver 80% of the scope in 20% of the time (unrelated to the frontier topic here). Do that at each level of an org and the nonsense multiples rapidly. The 80/20 “rule,” as far as I know, is meant to be descriptive after the fact. It can’t be used as a planning assumption. To be fair to those managers, they don’t real…

That's the "Pareto Principle" whereas the frontier is talking about Pareto efficiency. They have the same name because both were first developed by the economist Vilfredo Pareto, but they're not actually otherwise related.

Re: Pareto Front

#73

I have a weightlifting spreadsheet with weight on the vertical axis and reps on the horizontal axis. The value of each cell is the estimated 1 rep max if I accomplish that lift. In theory if my e1RM is 100kg then I can lift any permutation of (weight,reps) that have the same e1RM. This is akin to knowing Pareto Frontier of my current strength. I use conditional formatting to color cells according to the probability t…

Respectfully, it’s nothing new. Weightlifting industry has known this concept forever, it’s often just expressed as charts rather than graphs, as it is easier to interpret.

But they go even a step further, they extend into 3 dimensions to also add body weight as a variable. So your graph would really have to be a 3D volume. Because different levels of body weight have different capabilities.

Re: Pareto Front

#74
post #20
post #3

Misread the title and got excited about a Pareto font, that is, the best possible font (presumably: distinct l/I, O/0, scores within error margins of the top readability and reading speed scores, widely available, etc.) Maybe in vein but did anyone already figure this one out? The closest I got was PT sans, open-licensed commissioned by the Russian ministry for communication (I found it surprising that a country that…

I thought it was some sort of Italian activism group. "The Pareto Front today claimed responsiblity for...."

You mean the People’s front of Pareto!

Re: Pareto Front

#75
post #3

Misread the title and got excited about a Pareto font, that is, the best possible font (presumably: distinct l/I, O/0, scores within error margins of the top readability and reading speed scores, widely available, etc.) Maybe in vein but did anyone already figure this one out? The closest I got was PT sans, open-licensed commissioned by the Russian ministry for communication (I found it surprising that a country that…

No, it's far from the best possible font, but to its credit, it gets most aspects of typography right by just focusing on the ~1/5 of the requirements that actually really count.

What are the 4/5ths that you don't like, and which one(s) would you recommend instead? (I'm mostly interested/focussed on the sans variant but also happy to hear about serif and mono)

Re: Pareto Front

#77

I have a weightlifting spreadsheet with weight on the vertical axis and reps on the horizontal axis. The value of each cell is the estimated 1 rep max if I accomplish that lift. In theory if my e1RM is 100kg then I can lift any permutation of (weight,reps) that have the same e1RM. This is akin to knowing Pareto Frontier of my current strength. I use conditional formatting to color cells according to the probability t…

Respectfully, that's a cool illustration of the idea of xRMs etc but is missing the whole point of programming for higher or lower reps. E.g. lower reps are more stressful / higher cost of recovery but more strength-specific; high reps are better for hypertrophy work. But then, any well designed program will have you working across a range of rep ranges and so on. Please don't make an app based on this.

Respectfully, that's missing the point of the comment. It's a fun thing to hit PRs, not everything needs a 'well actually'

Re: Pareto Front

#78
post #37
post #3

Misread the title and got excited about a Pareto font, that is, the best possible font (presumably: distinct l/I, O/0, scores within error margins of the top readability and reading speed scores, widely available, etc.) Maybe in vein but did anyone already figure this one out? The closest I got was PT sans, open-licensed commissioned by the Russian ministry for communication (I found it surprising that a country that…

look at Atkinson Hyperlegible? commissioned by the Braille foundation for low-vision readers which means it's very readable

Huh, I'm positive this was one of the first I considered (or perhaps it was a different dyslexia font) but I can't find the reason why I would have preferred PT Sans over this. Each has some pros and cons: PT Sans has same-width digits; Hyperlegible has a nicer-looking Q (imo); PT Sans has a normal-looking zero (not struck); Hyperlegible has a normal-looking 'fi' combination (no ligature that merges the two characters into a new one); Hyperlegible has a 6 distinct from an inverted 9; PT Sans needs a bit less horizontal space. The font specifically designed for accessibility should be the easy winner if all else is equal anyway

They apparently released Hyperlegible Next in 2025 which, flipping between tabs on Google Fonts (since the original website doesn't show the fonts), is nearly identical but has five new weight settings (nobody should imo ever use thin fonts though, it noticeably harms readability for me and my sight is only the tiniest bit below normal vision, but ok it's an option) and improved kerning (the original font had extremely little space between 'll', for example)

The 2025 version sadly doesn't ship with my version of TexLive, but the original (from 2020) already does so that makes it easy to use as well! Cool stuff, thanks for the tip :)

Re: Pareto Front

#79

I'm assuming you must have discovered this through the OpenRouter LLM performance graphs.

First mention in chats for me was September 2016. Not sure how that topic came up but LLMs aren't the only way to get there. It's also a rather obvious principle to come up with, at least I'm pretty sure I was doing it without thinking I should name the concept of picking the option that best fits your requirements

Re: Pareto Front

#80
post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m not sure how that’s the opposite of prioritizing, but if I’m wrong, then I’ll happily admit it. We choose our items/workflows/technologies/whatever, so we get the best/most efficient/most effective/whatever, across the widest possible set. Sounds like prioritizing, to me, but I’m just a dumb hick, so I suppose I can be wrong.

Prioritising is when you choose something over another. A drag racer prioritises time to travel a quarter mile. Going for the Pareto is when you elect not to prioritise. It is explicitly deciding to not choose one property over another ant to keep everything as much as you can.

I read it as finding the point of maximum effectiveness. The point at which the most is done for the most.

Getting to that point can be calculated (in some cases), but I suspect most folks get there by trial and error. Finding out what is effective, and what is not, and choosing what is effective, over what is not, until there's no longer a choice. That often becomes tribal knowledge, and is handed down. There's always someone trying to improve it, and when they figure it out, that gets added to the tribal knowledge. Basically, that's how nature does it, so there's some serious prior art. Natural Selection is brutal prioritization.

In Morocco, they used to announce the end of the Ramadan fast, by holding up a black thread and a white thread, and waiting until they could not tell the difference.

Then, they'd fire a cannon, and everybody would dig into some awesome soup. Sort of the same thing.

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