When you optimize technology, you have to make choices about what is important. You can, at best, optimize for maybe two characteristics; usually you optimize for one. The structural design for a building frame can be optimized for lowest first cost, or for least perceptible movement, or for greatest future architectural-use flexibility.
The picture above is from the SailGP races in the Hudson River this weekend. If you look closely, you can see the sails of four of the racing boats. They are marvelous artifacts of technological specialization, optimized for short-term speed. There was a good wind blowing on Friday and I was astonished at how fast those boats were moving. I wouldn’t want to take a cruise on one, but that’s not what they were designed for.
