In a Bruce Sterling story (Kiosk), he has a fabber that could make all of its own parts but two — the two that had to be stronger than the material they're handling ("nozzle" and "comb", he called them).
Intuitively, though, it seems to me this could be solved by having three different nozzles; in the way of nontransitive dice or rock/paper/scissors, it should be possible to invent a set of three nozzle materials that can handle each other in a cycle.
⇦ The Age: The music industry is dying | ⇨ Buckywell fusion |
