5 ms·

Pareto Front

258 points by binyu 2mo ago

soupspaces 2mo ago
https://www.mayerowitz.io/blog/mario-meets-pareto https://www.mayerowitz.io/blog/mario-meets-pareto
- cubefox 2mo ago
  https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49195231 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49195231
Aachen 2mo ago
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 doesn't use Latin script made the best font!), but it's not widely shipped so you need to figure out how to include font files whenever you want to use it
- adornKey 2mo ago
  I'd also be interested in the Pareto Front of Fonts. That would be the final font collection - to rule them all.
- joshka 2mo ago
  lol same :D
- gadders 2mo ago
  I thought it was some sort of Italian activism group. "The Pareto Front today claimed responsiblity for...."
  - orthoxerox 2mo ago
    ...20% of the attacks causing 80% of the casualties?
    - mdnahas 2mo ago
      As someone with an Italian grandmother and both a CS and Econ degree, I got a great laugh out of this joke! Bravo!
    - pphysch 2mo ago
      No!! That is the Front of Pareto[1], a totally different group. Our Pareto Front only causes 20% of the casualties. [1] - http://montypython.50webs.com/scripts/Life_of_Brian/8.htm http://montypython.50webs.com/scripts/Life_of_Brian/8.htm
  - lucaslazarus 2mo ago
    You mean the People’s front of Pareto!
    - croisillon 2mo ago
      splitters!
- airstrike 2mo ago
  Inter with optional open type features turned on? https://rsms.me/inter/ https://rsms.me/inter/
  - Aachen 2mo ago
    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!
    - airstrike 2mo ago
      Yeah, those features are awesome! Sadly support for them is quite lacking in applications... Tabular numbers are awesome!
      - notpushkin 2mo ago
        I feel like there should be a GUI tool to bake in any alternates into the font itself.
        airstrike 2mo ago
        Ok, I'll make it!
        cheesecakegood 2mo ago
        You mean like Commit Mono does? https://commitmono.com/ https://commitmono.com/
        notpushkin 2mo ago
        Something like that! But for any font. I think fontTools instancer could work here, though it’s a CLI: https://fonttools.readthedocs.io/en/latest/varLib/instancer.html#module-fontTools.varLib.instancer https://fonttools.readthedocs.io/en/latest/varLib/instancer....
- __s 2mo ago
  Trouble with fonts is sometimes monospace good, sometimes monodpace bad Anyways I'll namedrop Iosevka as perfect monospace font for working on 13" laptop
  - throw-the-towel 2mo ago
    Seconding Iosevka, it's great for code! And you can get a version without ligatures.
    - Aachen 2mo ago
      That looks... swingy! Took a second to get used to it but I think I like the refreshing take for a monospace font :) https://fonts.google.com/specimen/Iosevka+Charon+Mono https://fonts.google.com/specimen/Iosevka+Charon+Mono
- arduanika 2mo ago
  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.
  - Aachen 2mo ago
    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)
    - arduanika 2mo ago
      It's not that I don't like them. It's more just that some of these design considerations are not worth the effort to fret over, and if you're smart about your time, doing 1/5 of the work will get you something like ~4/5 of the results.
      - notpushkin 2mo ago
        ...so it is the Pareto font indeed!
- peesem 2mo ago
  look at Atkinson Hyperlegible? commissioned by the Braille foundation for low-vision readers which means it's very readable
  - Aachen 2mo ago
    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 :)
bhanu786 2mo ago
may, anyone explain what is this
- ChrisMarshallNY 2mo ago
  Basically, prioritization. It’s really that simple. Eschew obfuscation.
  - bhanu786 2mo ago
    you have confused me
  - Lerc 2mo ago
    Almost the complete opposite of prioritisation. The Pareto points are where you sacrifice the least of anything to get the most of everything. There's the saying about buying computers. Good, Cheap, Fast, pick any two. That's where you would prioritise. If someone makes something that better, cheaper, and faster, or even pretty close to the best on two of those and clearly better on the other. It's a Pareto point. Over time computers are getting better, cheaper and faster (software notwithstanding). The leading edge of that advance of all of the things is the Pareto front.
    - jrrv 2mo ago
      Given this in the TFA > a Pareto front represents the set of solutions where no solution outperforms any other solution in the set at every objective I do not believe you are correct when you say > something that better, cheaper, and faster, or even pretty close to the best on two of those and clearly better on the other. It's a Pareto point. Since that would outperform on every objective GP's point that it's prioritisation does not seem incorrect to me. Prioritisation involves considering trade-offs of various approaches and deciding which aspects & attributes to optimise for, at the expense of others.
      - Lerc 2mo ago
        [dead]
denismenace 2mo ago
I'm assuming you must have discovered this through the OpenRouter LLM performance graphs.
- miyuru 2mo ago
  artificialanalysis for me. https://artificialanalysis.ai/#intelligence-comparison-tabs https://artificialanalysis.ai/#intelligence-comparison-tabs
  - trash_cat 2mo ago
    I think the one from hugging face is much clearer, albeit its an arena metric and a bit tricky to find the pareto view. Look for the the top Navigation Bar (Agent Chat Code Image Video). Chat -> (dropdown) Text -> (Side panel) View as Pareto. https://huggingface.co/spaces/lmarena-ai/arena-leaderboard https://huggingface.co/spaces/lmarena-ai/arena-leaderboard
- Aachen 2mo ago
  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
gpt5 2mo ago
You can see the Pareto Frontier well in DeepSWE's chart here - https://deepswe.datacurve.ai/ https://deepswe.datacurve.ai/ ChatGPT 5.6 Luna on the right (cheaper) cover most of the frontier, with a point for Deepseek flash, and higher performance overlapping heavily between 5.6 Sol and Fable. That DeepSeek point will probably move back towards Luna as deepseek announced a "significant" price increase coming to their API [1], which kind of demonstrates that beating the Pareto frontier is where the difficulty actually is). [1] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-08-06/deepseek-plans-significant-price-increase-for-its-ai-services https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-08-06/deepseek-...
- kooi 2mo ago
  I've been wondering if OpenAI make Luna artificially cheap to get people into their eco system. I think it's great and hope the price can stay the same.
  - bob1029 2mo ago
    I think Luna might be just small enough to provide some kind of stepwise improvement in how it is hosted. Going from 81GB of weights to 79GB of weights can mean a 50% reduction in GPU capacity required. If you can fit a model in just one GPU (or rack) as opposed to across an entire datacenter, the latency gains can be substantial too. If you can reduce token latency by half, that would double the amount of customers you could support.
CodeIsTheEnd 2mo ago
I am training for a marathon, and, as I increase both by distance and pace, I am always excited when I have a "Pareto run": a run along the Pareto frontier of me trying to maximize distance and speed. When explaining it to some coworkers, I stumbled on a fairly intuitive explanation: "I've run farther before, and I've run faster before, but I've never run _this_ far, _this fast." There was some pushback about why not just call it a PR (personal record), but I would only use that term for fixed distances (1mi, 5k, 10k, etc.) or a consistent route that I've run many times before. Nobody would say "I set my 7.40 mile PR today." More importantly, it misses the comparison to all farther (and faster) runs—it's not exciting to set a 5k PR just because you've barely run that distance before, and the pace is actually slower that a 10k you've done. (Had a Pareto run of 7.40 miles @ 6:28/mi last week!)
- reedf1 2mo ago
  The cycling equivalent is your power curve, i.e. the longest you've held a power for a certain time interval.
- froxtrot 2mo ago
  Not relevant to pareto, but that's a really fun way to look at running. Not quite as fast as your pareto run shows, but I'll definitely keep that metric back of mind to keep the psyche high for running.
- voidhorse 2mo ago
  So, while it's true that your runs with high speed and distance when both are considered are Pareto points, your max speed run and max distance run overall are also Pareto points. So calling these high distance+speed runs "Pareto" doesn't actually distinguish them completely from other runs. A point is Pareto so long as it is non-dominated—that is, you're not looking for dominating points, you're looking for points that are "no worse" than all others, in all criteria, when you consider that point as a reference. So your Pareto Runs are indeed Pareto points. However, your run with your fastest possible speed, even if your distance was really bad, is also still a Pareto efficient point. (Taking >= as more efficient here) By definition, the point A is Pareto if there is no point B such that in all criteria, B >= A, and for at least one criteria B > A. Take the run with the best speed. It is Pareto because we cannot find a single point B that satisfies both of these conditions. Your "Pareto Run" doesn't satisfy this set of conditions because it is worse in terms of speed, even if it has better distance than the max speed point. The only way your Pareto runs would be the only Pareto points in your record is if they simultaneously hit maxima for distance and speed when compared to all other points. So, for them to be the sole Pareto point, the clause ""I've run farther before, and I've run faster before..." would have to be false! The point would have to break both your all time records to be the solitary Pareto point. With running, because of how speed and distance are related this will basically never happen. The definition of Pareto efficiency is essentially negative in nature--it's not about finding specific dominating points, it's about finding points that are not dominated by any others on any criterion, period. All criteria are weighted equally in the search for Pareto points. It doesn't build in any weighting like considering maximum across criteria as "better" than points that only maximize one criteria. For a "biobjective" problem like your runs, the Pareto set will always contain the points (MAX, -) and (-, MAX)--they may not be unique over the criteria but there will always be at least one representative for each, I believe.
vavikk 2mo ago
Nice, this is exactly what I use for the multi-objective optimizer on a quantum network simulator I'm building — scoring topologies on fidelity/latency/success rate tradeoffs.
- matsemann 2mo ago
  My thesis many years ago was on multi-objective optimization using evolutionary algorithms (in my profile), and maintaining a wide pareto front was what most algorithms (like NSGA-II) were attempting. If all individuals cluster around a small area (in for instance a weight/strength tradeoff), you will quickly get stuck. So should select solutions to keep for further search along the whole front (for instance some solution that is very strong but unfortunately also very heavy). Maybe keep some of them as candidates even if worse (not part of the pareto front), just to keep that part of the search space alive and avoid local optima. Of course, what's hard anyways when you have a good set of solutions that are pareto optimal, is to then choose between them. Especially as the dimensions (objectives) grow. In my example we can end up with many variants of strength/weight trade-offs that each are optimal, which one to choose?
lorey 2mo ago
Found this to display the optimal LLM choice while building evalry. It's such a useful tool, not only for thinking about it, but for visualization, too. Example: Which LLM gives me the best ELI5 explanations for a given price. https://evalry.com/benchmarks/explain-like-i-m-5-321 https://evalry.com/benchmarks/explain-like-i-m-5-321
bob1029 2mo ago
Pareto front sounds like an interesting way to optimize, but it suffers from the curse of dimensionality just like anything else. As the number of objectives (dimensions) increases, the number of samples you need to cover the frontier increases exponentially. You will very rarely find solutions that actually dominate other solutions in many practical optimization scenarios. With 2 dimensions you have a 25% chance of domination. With 10 dimensions it's a .098% chance. The most useful cases I've seen tend to occur where we just optimize for two things at once. The chances of domination are high, it's easy to visualize and very efficient to implement. As we get into higher dimensional spaces, things get weird really fast.
- krapht 2mo ago
  One I spent a few months working on was pathfinding for trucks. The goal is to find dominant solutions over {shortest time, lowest cost (tolls + fuel), avg road speed variance - traffic sensitivity} and then return 3-4 routes that are equal distance from each other in this dimensional space for users to pick from. As you say, the most useful things happen in low-dimensional spaces.
- peri-cl 2mo ago
  > "As we get into higher dimensional spaces, things get weird really fast." The geometric problem of computing a d-dimensional Pareto set of cardinality n https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maxima_of_a_point_set https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maxima_of_a_point_set has a truly weird property not covered by the computational complexity discussion on that page. It says there's an algorithm achieving O(n log(n)^(d-3) log log n), which is true and also a lie. The algorithm that achieves that asymptotic form is a galactic algorithm; and not an ordinary one in the sense of "has a large constant multiplicative factor", but one with this property (I've never found any other algorithm which exhibits it): The runtime is within a bounded constant factor of n^2, for all n up to some critical N whose size is exponential in d (I think it was exactly 2^d or something). I.e. the runtime has "two shapes": it's purely quadratic up to a galactically-large constant, and thereafter has a transition into to a slower function. The asymptotic version in the textbooks isn't achievable in the real world (for all but very small dimension). There's an elementary proof using generating functions. edit to add: If anyone's curious about it, a simplified version of the recurrence relation that's enough to exhibit this behavior (you can instantly see it if you graph this numerically) is f(n,d=0) = 1 f(n=1,d) = 1 f(n,d) = n + 2f(⌊n/2⌋, d) + 2f(⌊n/2⌋, d-1)
Whitespace 2mo ago
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 that I can lift them—if I lifted 50kg for 10 reps then I can definitely do 50kg for 9 reps, so that cell is green. But if e1RM(50,10) > e1RM(40,15) then I can probably do that too so it's light green. The visualization naturally becomes Pareto-like. If I'm feeling strong I can aim for higher weight, lower reps. Or if I'm feeling weak I can close out a (weight, reps) that's below my current e1RM but I haven't accomplished yet. The end result is that I'm always "accomplishing" some sort of PR no matter how I feel. I call this e1RM Bingo.
- joncrane 2mo ago
  This is a cool way to gamify weightlifting. Cheers!
  - godwinson__4-8 2mo ago
    Indeed, GP should take a spin at turning into an app. Could be worthwhile to have Claude take a first stab at a MVP. If pursued, good luck!
    - jerkstate 2mo ago
      If this is something you are interested in, I did make a mobile friendly SPA similar to this: https://curvefit.app https://curvefit.app
      - xnx 2mo ago
        Clever name
- cman1444 2mo ago
  Could you please share this spreadsheet? I would really love to have my own version of this.
jethkl 2mo ago
[dead]
voidhorse 2mo ago
One nuance that people sometimes miss is that pareto optimality in the continuous case and discrete case are distinct. Using continuous case algorithms on discrete feasible set optimization problems will make you miss the interior optimal points--only extremal/supported points on the positive orthant hull are identified by the continuous algos. Matthias Ehrgott's books on multicriteria optimization explain Pareto efficiency very well without sacrificing rigor. I think they do a better job than this article.
stevefan1999 2mo ago
I wonder why LLM love this word so much. Same as mint, seam, tier.
- amingilani 2mo ago
  A seam is a place where you can alter behavior in your program without editing in that place “Chapter 4: The Seam Model”, Michael C. Feathers, Working Effectively with Legacy Code
joncrane 2mo ago
Question: in auto racing, could one have a Pareto Front balancing single lap pace (qualifying optimization) and race pace (pace over an entire stint of e.g. 20+ laps)?
- transitorykris 2mo ago
  You’d be looking at fuel level affecting choices of ride height, brake bias, etc. Possibly changes in line and distance travelled too. But, I’m curious how psychology can fit in here (or not. How do you measure it?). Driver concentration and confidence are important when trimming out aero or other adjustments for single lap flyers.
hnnbxu2nwi 2mo ago
[dead]
cpa 2mo ago
At $JOB, I use the Pareto frontier all the time. If one option is at least as good on every relevant dimension and better on one, just pick it. That's not really a trade-off, and it shouldn't need escalation. Eg, if two SaaS tools cost the same and have similar support, but one fits your use case better, you choose that one. Otherwise, you just suck at your job! The interesting decisions only start once you're already on the frontier, where getting more of one thing means giving up something else. If the better tool costs 50% more, now you're trading capability against cost, and that may need sign-off. Basically, everyone should be able to get to the frontier on their own. Coordination and arbitration at higher levels of the org / between different departments should happen on the frontier, where the trade-offs involve several people or teams.
shermantanktop 2mo ago
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 really mean to be rigorous. They are just trying to justify cutting scope.
- MarkusQ 2mo ago
  Managers trying to justify _cutting_ scope... Is your planet accepting immigrants? I think I'd like it there
  - shermantanktop 2mo ago
    They don’t cut the visible scope. They cut the monitoring, failover, automated patching, test coverage, deployment improvements, documentation, etc.
- nonameiguess 2mo ago
  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.
- bellowsgulch 2mo ago
  I don't think power law distributions are the same thing. However, actually, in different fields, power law distributions are descriptive enough you can use them as targets for abstract criteria.
- CGMthrowaway 2mo ago
  Using the 80/20 rule to plan, is like that other old saw "Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted. The trouble is, I don't know which half"
tug2024 2mo ago
[dead]
chermi 2mo ago
We used to just call that efficiency. Overusage of "pareto frontier" annoys me almost as much people talking about "electrons" instead of just saying electricity or power.
solomonb 2mo ago
Now I want a hat with the Agnostic Front logo but that says Pareto Front.
hnfwd5lqmp 2mo ago
Simple idea, big payoff
pmarreck 2mo ago
A very useful concept to know!
myroon5 2mo ago
(A few years outdated) AWS EC2 instance type pareto frontier: https://github.com/PatMyron/cloud#compute--memory-unit-prices-by-virtual-machine-type https://github.com/PatMyron/cloud#compute--memory-unit-price...
dancemethis 2mo ago
The real Pareto is the lawyer who was the victim of the Telerj prank call in the 80s. Don't be fooled!
kazinator 2mo ago
> and every solution not in the set is outperformed by at least one solution in the Pareto front in every objective Is that trying to say: "for every solution not in the set, there exists at least one objective such that at least one solution in the Pareto set beats that solution in that objective" i.e. every non-Pareto-front solution is beaten in some objective(s) by a Pareto-front solution, however it may be unbeaten in other objectives. Or is it: "for every objective in the system, every solution that is not in the set is beaten in that objective by one or more Pareto-set solutions." Or is it: "For every solution not in the set, there exists at least one Pareto solution which beats it in every objective."
- speedstyle 2mo ago
  The latter. Every solution not in the set is 'dominated' (outperformed in every objective) by some specific point in the set.
  - kazinator 2mo ago
    The way it's written is misleading. The Pareto front solutions are all dominators of the non-solutions, but not dominators of each other. For A to dominate B, A has to be at least as good (i.e. no worse) than B in every objective under consideration and A has to be strictly better than B in at least one objective. Every solution in the Pareto front set dominates every solution not in that set: is at least as good in all optimization parameters and strictly better in at least one. Among the front set, there is no mutual dominance: if we pick any pair out of the set, one may be better than the other in one or more parameters, but worse in one or more. If it were not worse in one or more than the other, that other would not belong in the front set due to being dominated. Consider a space where we have two solutions. One is no worse than the other in every objective, and strictly better in one objective. Here, our Pareto front set contains that one solution and the other one is not in the set. Yet, the one not in the set is not beaten in every objective, just in that objective where the dominator is strictly better.
    - speedstyle 2mo ago
kazinator 2mo ago
A kind of Pareto domination criterion is used in C++ for determining overload resolution: which function overload gets the call. The objectives are matching arguments to parameters. A set of functions is identified among the candidates: those that are possible for the call at all, like having a compatible number of parameters. Essentially, the overload rule says that the Pareto front set of candidates must contain one member, otherwise the call is considered ambiguous, and diagnosable rule violation. The objectives being optimized are individual parameter positions, each in the dimension of suitability: being a better match. One candidate is better than another if it is no worse a type match in every parameter, and strictly better in at least one parameter.
kazinator 2mo ago
In the formula given in the Definition, what is the point of including the y'' /= y' condition, given that y'' >- y'? Could a solution ever Pareto-dominate itself? If we know that A dominates B, do we not know that they are distinct?

Pareto Front

258 points by binyu 2mo ago

soupspaces 2mo ago

https://www.mayerowitz.io/blog/mario-meets-pareto https://www.mayerowitz.io/blog/mario-meets-pareto

cubefox 2mo ago
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49195231 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49195231

Aachen 2mo ago

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 doesn't use Latin script made the best font!), but it's not widely shipped so you need to figure out how to include font files whenever you want to use it

adornKey 2mo ago
I'd also be interested in the Pareto Front of Fonts. That would be the final font collection - to rule them all.
joshka 2mo ago
lol same :D
gadders 2mo ago
I thought it was some sort of Italian activism group. "The Pareto Front today claimed responsiblity for...."
- orthoxerox 2mo ago
  ...20% of the attacks causing 80% of the casualties?
  - mdnahas 2mo ago
    As someone with an Italian grandmother and both a CS and Econ degree, I got a great laugh out of this joke! Bravo!
  - pphysch 2mo ago
    No!! That is the Front of Pareto[1], a totally different group. Our Pareto Front only causes 20% of the casualties. [1] - http://montypython.50webs.com/scripts/Life_of_Brian/8.htm http://montypython.50webs.com/scripts/Life_of_Brian/8.htm
- lucaslazarus 2mo ago
  You mean the People’s front of Pareto!
  - croisillon 2mo ago
    splitters!
airstrike 2mo ago
Inter with optional open type features turned on? https://rsms.me/inter/ https://rsms.me/inter/
- Aachen 2mo ago
  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!
  - airstrike 2mo ago
    Yeah, those features are awesome! Sadly support for them is quite lacking in applications... Tabular numbers are awesome!
    - notpushkin 2mo ago
      I feel like there should be a GUI tool to bake in any alternates into the font itself.
      - airstrike 2mo ago
        Ok, I'll make it!
      - cheesecakegood 2mo ago
        You mean like Commit Mono does? https://commitmono.com/ https://commitmono.com/
        notpushkin 2mo ago
        Something like that! But for any font. I think fontTools instancer could work here, though it’s a CLI: https://fonttools.readthedocs.io/en/latest/varLib/instancer.html#module-fontTools.varLib.instancer https://fonttools.readthedocs.io/en/latest/varLib/instancer....
__s 2mo ago
Trouble with fonts is sometimes monospace good, sometimes monodpace bad Anyways I'll namedrop Iosevka as perfect monospace font for working on 13" laptop
- throw-the-towel 2mo ago
  Seconding Iosevka, it's great for code! And you can get a version without ligatures.
  - Aachen 2mo ago
    That looks... swingy! Took a second to get used to it but I think I like the refreshing take for a monospace font :) https://fonts.google.com/specimen/Iosevka+Charon+Mono https://fonts.google.com/specimen/Iosevka+Charon+Mono
arduanika 2mo ago
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.
- Aachen 2mo ago
  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)
  - arduanika 2mo ago
    It's not that I don't like them. It's more just that some of these design considerations are not worth the effort to fret over, and if you're smart about your time, doing 1/5 of the work will get you something like ~4/5 of the results.
    - notpushkin 2mo ago
      ...so it is the Pareto font indeed!
peesem 2mo ago
look at Atkinson Hyperlegible? commissioned by the Braille foundation for low-vision readers which means it's very readable
- Aachen 2mo ago
  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 :)

bhanu786 2mo ago

may, anyone explain what is this

ChrisMarshallNY 2mo ago
Basically, prioritization. It’s really that simple. Eschew obfuscation.
- bhanu786 2mo ago
  you have confused me
- Lerc 2mo ago
  Almost the complete opposite of prioritisation. The Pareto points are where you sacrifice the least of anything to get the most of everything. There's the saying about buying computers. Good, Cheap, Fast, pick any two. That's where you would prioritise. If someone makes something that better, cheaper, and faster, or even pretty close to the best on two of those and clearly better on the other. It's a Pareto point. Over time computers are getting better, cheaper and faster (software notwithstanding). The leading edge of that advance of all of the things is the Pareto front.
  - jrrv 2mo ago
    Given this in the TFA > a Pareto front represents the set of solutions where no solution outperforms any other solution in the set at every objective I do not believe you are correct when you say > something that better, cheaper, and faster, or even pretty close to the best on two of those and clearly better on the other. It's a Pareto point. Since that would outperform on every objective GP's point that it's prioritisation does not seem incorrect to me. Prioritisation involves considering trade-offs of various approaches and deciding which aspects & attributes to optimise for, at the expense of others.
    - Lerc 2mo ago
      [dead]

denismenace 2mo ago

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

miyuru 2mo ago
artificialanalysis for me. https://artificialanalysis.ai/#intelligence-comparison-tabs https://artificialanalysis.ai/#intelligence-comparison-tabs
- trash_cat 2mo ago
  I think the one from hugging face is much clearer, albeit its an arena metric and a bit tricky to find the pareto view. Look for the the top Navigation Bar (Agent Chat Code Image Video). Chat -> (dropdown) Text -> (Side panel) View as Pareto. https://huggingface.co/spaces/lmarena-ai/arena-leaderboard https://huggingface.co/spaces/lmarena-ai/arena-leaderboard
Aachen 2mo ago
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

gpt5 2mo ago

You can see the Pareto Frontier well in DeepSWE's chart here - https://deepswe.datacurve.ai/ https://deepswe.datacurve.ai/ ChatGPT 5.6 Luna on the right (cheaper) cover most of the frontier, with a point for Deepseek flash, and higher performance overlapping heavily between 5.6 Sol and Fable. That DeepSeek point will probably move back towards Luna as deepseek announced a "significant" price increase coming to their API [1], which kind of demonstrates that beating the Pareto frontier is where the difficulty actually is). [1] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-08-06/deepseek-plans-significant-price-increase-for-its-ai-services https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-08-06/deepseek-...

kooi 2mo ago
I've been wondering if OpenAI make Luna artificially cheap to get people into their eco system. I think it's great and hope the price can stay the same.
- bob1029 2mo ago
  I think Luna might be just small enough to provide some kind of stepwise improvement in how it is hosted. Going from 81GB of weights to 79GB of weights can mean a 50% reduction in GPU capacity required. If you can fit a model in just one GPU (or rack) as opposed to across an entire datacenter, the latency gains can be substantial too. If you can reduce token latency by half, that would double the amount of customers you could support.

CodeIsTheEnd 2mo ago

I am training for a marathon, and, as I increase both by distance and pace, I am always excited when I have a "Pareto run": a run along the Pareto frontier of me trying to maximize distance and speed. When explaining it to some coworkers, I stumbled on a fairly intuitive explanation: "I've run farther before, and I've run faster before, but I've never run _this_ far, _this fast." There was some pushback about why not just call it a PR (personal record), but I would only use that term for fixed distances (1mi, 5k, 10k, etc.) or a consistent route that I've run many times before. Nobody would say "I set my 7.40 mile PR today." More importantly, it misses the comparison to all farther (and faster) runs—it's not exciting to set a 5k PR just because you've barely run that distance before, and the pace is actually slower that a 10k you've done. (Had a Pareto run of 7.40 miles @ 6:28/mi last week!)

reedf1 2mo ago
The cycling equivalent is your power curve, i.e. the longest you've held a power for a certain time interval.
froxtrot 2mo ago
Not relevant to pareto, but that's a really fun way to look at running. Not quite as fast as your pareto run shows, but I'll definitely keep that metric back of mind to keep the psyche high for running.
voidhorse 2mo ago
So, while it's true that your runs with high speed and distance when both are considered are Pareto points, your max speed run and max distance run overall are also Pareto points. So calling these high distance+speed runs "Pareto" doesn't actually distinguish them completely from other runs. A point is Pareto so long as it is non-dominated—that is, you're not looking for dominating points, you're looking for points that are "no worse" than all others, in all criteria, when you consider that point as a reference. So your Pareto Runs are indeed Pareto points. However, your run with your fastest possible speed, even if your distance was really bad, is also still a Pareto efficient point. (Taking >= as more efficient here) By definition, the point A is Pareto if there is no point B such that in all criteria, B >= A, and for at least one criteria B > A. Take the run with the best speed. It is Pareto because we cannot find a single point B that satisfies both of these conditions. Your "Pareto Run" doesn't satisfy this set of conditions because it is worse in terms of speed, even if it has better distance than the max speed point. The only way your Pareto runs would be the only Pareto points in your record is if they simultaneously hit maxima for distance and speed when compared to all other points. So, for them to be the sole Pareto point, the clause ""I've run farther before, and I've run faster before..." would have to be false! The point would have to break both your all time records to be the solitary Pareto point. With running, because of how speed and distance are related this will basically never happen. The definition of Pareto efficiency is essentially negative in nature--it's not about finding specific dominating points, it's about finding points that are not dominated by any others on any criterion, period. All criteria are weighted equally in the search for Pareto points. It doesn't build in any weighting like considering maximum across criteria as "better" than points that only maximize one criteria. For a "biobjective" problem like your runs, the Pareto set will always contain the points (MAX, -) and (-, MAX)--they may not be unique over the criteria but there will always be at least one representative for each, I believe.

vavikk 2mo ago

Nice, this is exactly what I use for the multi-objective optimizer on a quantum network simulator I'm building — scoring topologies on fidelity/latency/success rate tradeoffs.

matsemann 2mo ago
My thesis many years ago was on multi-objective optimization using evolutionary algorithms (in my profile), and maintaining a wide pareto front was what most algorithms (like NSGA-II) were attempting. If all individuals cluster around a small area (in for instance a weight/strength tradeoff), you will quickly get stuck. So should select solutions to keep for further search along the whole front (for instance some solution that is very strong but unfortunately also very heavy). Maybe keep some of them as candidates even if worse (not part of the pareto front), just to keep that part of the search space alive and avoid local optima. Of course, what's hard anyways when you have a good set of solutions that are pareto optimal, is to then choose between them. Especially as the dimensions (objectives) grow. In my example we can end up with many variants of strength/weight trade-offs that each are optimal, which one to choose?

lorey 2mo ago

Found this to display the optimal LLM choice while building evalry. It's such a useful tool, not only for thinking about it, but for visualization, too. Example: Which LLM gives me the best ELI5 explanations for a given price. https://evalry.com/benchmarks/explain-like-i-m-5-321 https://evalry.com/benchmarks/explain-like-i-m-5-321

bob1029 2mo ago

Pareto front sounds like an interesting way to optimize, but it suffers from the curse of dimensionality just like anything else. As the number of objectives (dimensions) increases, the number of samples you need to cover the frontier increases exponentially. You will very rarely find solutions that actually dominate other solutions in many practical optimization scenarios. With 2 dimensions you have a 25% chance of domination. With 10 dimensions it's a .098% chance. The most useful cases I've seen tend to occur where we just optimize for two things at once. The chances of domination are high, it's easy to visualize and very efficient to implement. As we get into higher dimensional spaces, things get weird really fast.

krapht 2mo ago
One I spent a few months working on was pathfinding for trucks. The goal is to find dominant solutions over {shortest time, lowest cost (tolls + fuel), avg road speed variance - traffic sensitivity} and then return 3-4 routes that are equal distance from each other in this dimensional space for users to pick from. As you say, the most useful things happen in low-dimensional spaces.
peri-cl 2mo ago
> "As we get into higher dimensional spaces, things get weird really fast." The geometric problem of computing a d-dimensional Pareto set of cardinality n https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maxima_of_a_point_set https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maxima_of_a_point_set has a truly weird property not covered by the computational complexity discussion on that page. It says there's an algorithm achieving O(n log(n)^(d-3) log log n), which is true and also a lie. The algorithm that achieves that asymptotic form is a galactic algorithm; and not an ordinary one in the sense of "has a large constant multiplicative factor", but one with this property (I've never found any other algorithm which exhibits it): The runtime is within a bounded constant factor of n^2, for all n up to some critical N whose size is exponential in d (I think it was exactly 2^d or something). I.e. the runtime has "two shapes": it's purely quadratic up to a galactically-large constant, and thereafter has a transition into to a slower function. The asymptotic version in the textbooks isn't achievable in the real world (for all but very small dimension). There's an elementary proof using generating functions. edit to add: If anyone's curious about it, a simplified version of the recurrence relation that's enough to exhibit this behavior (you can instantly see it if you graph this numerically) is f(n,d=0) = 1 f(n=1,d) = 1 f(n,d) = n + 2f(⌊n/2⌋, d) + 2f(⌊n/2⌋, d-1)

Whitespace 2mo ago

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 that I can lift them—if I lifted 50kg for 10 reps then I can definitely do 50kg for 9 reps, so that cell is green. But if e1RM(50,10) > e1RM(40,15) then I can probably do that too so it's light green. The visualization naturally becomes Pareto-like. If I'm feeling strong I can aim for higher weight, lower reps. Or if I'm feeling weak I can close out a (weight, reps) that's below my current e1RM but I haven't accomplished yet. The end result is that I'm always "accomplishing" some sort of PR no matter how I feel. I call this e1RM Bingo.

joncrane 2mo ago
This is a cool way to gamify weightlifting. Cheers!
- godwinson__4-8 2mo ago
  Indeed, GP should take a spin at turning into an app. Could be worthwhile to have Claude take a first stab at a MVP. If pursued, good luck!
  - jerkstate 2mo ago
    If this is something you are interested in, I did make a mobile friendly SPA similar to this: https://curvefit.app https://curvefit.app
    - xnx 2mo ago
      Clever name
cman1444 2mo ago
Could you please share this spreadsheet? I would really love to have my own version of this.

jethkl 2mo ago

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voidhorse 2mo ago

One nuance that people sometimes miss is that pareto optimality in the continuous case and discrete case are distinct. Using continuous case algorithms on discrete feasible set optimization problems will make you miss the interior optimal points--only extremal/supported points on the positive orthant hull are identified by the continuous algos. Matthias Ehrgott's books on multicriteria optimization explain Pareto efficiency very well without sacrificing rigor. I think they do a better job than this article.

stevefan1999 2mo ago

I wonder why LLM love this word so much. Same as mint, seam, tier.

amingilani 2mo ago
A seam is a place where you can alter behavior in your program without editing in that place “Chapter 4: The Seam Model”, Michael C. Feathers, Working Effectively with Legacy Code

joncrane 2mo ago

Question: in auto racing, could one have a Pareto Front balancing single lap pace (qualifying optimization) and race pace (pace over an entire stint of e.g. 20+ laps)?

transitorykris 2mo ago
You’d be looking at fuel level affecting choices of ride height, brake bias, etc. Possibly changes in line and distance travelled too. But, I’m curious how psychology can fit in here (or not. How do you measure it?). Driver concentration and confidence are important when trimming out aero or other adjustments for single lap flyers.

hnnbxu2nwi 2mo ago

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cpa 2mo ago

At $JOB, I use the Pareto frontier all the time. If one option is at least as good on every relevant dimension and better on one, just pick it. That's not really a trade-off, and it shouldn't need escalation. Eg, if two SaaS tools cost the same and have similar support, but one fits your use case better, you choose that one. Otherwise, you just suck at your job! The interesting decisions only start once you're already on the frontier, where getting more of one thing means giving up something else. If the better tool costs 50% more, now you're trading capability against cost, and that may need sign-off. Basically, everyone should be able to get to the frontier on their own. Coordination and arbitration at higher levels of the org / between different departments should happen on the frontier, where the trade-offs involve several people or teams.

shermantanktop 2mo ago

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 really mean to be rigorous. They are just trying to justify cutting scope.

MarkusQ 2mo ago
Managers trying to justify _cutting_ scope... Is your planet accepting immigrants? I think I'd like it there
- shermantanktop 2mo ago
  They don’t cut the visible scope. They cut the monitoring, failover, automated patching, test coverage, deployment improvements, documentation, etc.
nonameiguess 2mo ago
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.
bellowsgulch 2mo ago
I don't think power law distributions are the same thing. However, actually, in different fields, power law distributions are descriptive enough you can use them as targets for abstract criteria.
CGMthrowaway 2mo ago
Using the 80/20 rule to plan, is like that other old saw "Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted. The trouble is, I don't know which half"

tug2024 2mo ago

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chermi 2mo ago

We used to just call that efficiency. Overusage of "pareto frontier" annoys me almost as much people talking about "electrons" instead of just saying electricity or power.

solomonb 2mo ago

Now I want a hat with the Agnostic Front logo but that says Pareto Front.

hnfwd5lqmp 2mo ago

Simple idea, big payoff

pmarreck 2mo ago

A very useful concept to know!

myroon5 2mo ago

(A few years outdated) AWS EC2 instance type pareto frontier: https://github.com/PatMyron/cloud#compute--memory-unit-prices-by-virtual-machine-type https://github.com/PatMyron/cloud#compute--memory-unit-price...

dancemethis 2mo ago

The real Pareto is the lawyer who was the victim of the Telerj prank call in the 80s. Don't be fooled!

kazinator 2mo ago

> and every solution not in the set is outperformed by at least one solution in the Pareto front in every objective Is that trying to say: "for every solution not in the set, there exists at least one objective such that at least one solution in the Pareto set beats that solution in that objective" i.e. every non-Pareto-front solution is beaten in some objective(s) by a Pareto-front solution, however it may be unbeaten in other objectives. Or is it: "for every objective in the system, every solution that is not in the set is beaten in that objective by one or more Pareto-set solutions." Or is it: "For every solution not in the set, there exists at least one Pareto solution which beats it in every objective."

speedstyle 2mo ago
The latter. Every solution not in the set is 'dominated' (outperformed in every objective) by some specific point in the set.
- kazinator 2mo ago
  The way it's written is misleading. The Pareto front solutions are all dominators of the non-solutions, but not dominators of each other. For A to dominate B, A has to be at least as good (i.e. no worse) than B in every objective under consideration and A has to be strictly better than B in at least one objective. Every solution in the Pareto front set dominates every solution not in that set: is at least as good in all optimization parameters and strictly better in at least one. Among the front set, there is no mutual dominance: if we pick any pair out of the set, one may be better than the other in one or more parameters, but worse in one or more. If it were not worse in one or more than the other, that other would not belong in the front set due to being dominated. Consider a space where we have two solutions. One is no worse than the other in every objective, and strictly better in one objective. Here, our Pareto front set contains that one solution and the other one is not in the set. Yet, the one not in the set is not beaten in every objective, just in that objective where the dominator is strictly better.
  - speedstyle 2mo ago

kazinator 2mo ago

A kind of Pareto domination criterion is used in C++ for determining overload resolution: which function overload gets the call. The objectives are matching arguments to parameters. A set of functions is identified among the candidates: those that are possible for the call at all, like having a compatible number of parameters. Essentially, the overload rule says that the Pareto front set of candidates must contain one member, otherwise the call is considered ambiguous, and diagnosable rule violation. The objectives being optimized are individual parameter positions, each in the dimension of suitability: being a better match. One candidate is better than another if it is no worse a type match in every parameter, and strictly better in at least one parameter.

kazinator 2mo ago

In the formula given in the Definition, what is the point of including the y'' /= y' condition, given that y'' >- y'? Could a solution ever Pareto-dominate itself? If we know that A dominates B, do we not know that they are distinct?