Very common to make these for Chinese new years or big festivals where the family came from (South China). My grandmother's were the best, there can be no argument on this point. Those the ones OP made look perfect.

We often fill with lotus nut paste.

I think 'mochi fritters' probably conveys what they are to non-Asians who are familiar with glutinous rice flour through that snack but haven't seen these.

They were the equal to GE in terms of the range of what they produced. They even had CBS to match GE's NBC.

A problem was that at the end Westinghouse's strongest business divisions (ones that bore the brand) were not consumer facing and strong units that were (like CBS) didn't really carry the Westinghouse name. So over time the brand faded.

In the 1990s, GE which actually grew stronger as a brand as it got rid of its consumer facing businesses like consumer electronics (radios and the like). To replace the consumer recognition, remember all those ads in the Jack Welch era promoting GE products that your average joe Blow would never buy (MRI machines and such). Sure they had to create that equipment but if they didn't advertise would you know what brand your doctor used for a medical imager.

It does seem to take a dim view of the idea of 'human progress' and suggest that 'cyclical rise and fall' is the fate of humans.

>A monk spends fifteen years making a gilded copy of a diagram (of a transistor) he does not understand only to have that “worthless” gilded copy destroyed by robbers

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The whole book is an allegorical retelling of the fall of antiquity, the dark ages and the Renaissance. Specifically events such as the sacking of the Library of Alexandria as the knowledge of antiquity was lost. It is a bit fanciful, but it is possible that the ancient Greeks were only a century or so from inventing things like the steam engine. Certainly objects like the Antikythera mechanism show what kinds of technology they were be capable of at the end of the Hellenistic age.

It would be 1500+ years before we could make machines as complicated again.

I think you have it reversed.

Beta receptors are receptors for epinephrine (adrenaline). Activation of the receptors among other effects, increases heart rate and force of contraction, and constricts blood vessels (these raise blood pressure). It can also make you more alert to the point of jitteryness. Beta2 receptors are found in the airway can cause the bronchioles to open improving breathing. So commonly used puffers for asthma etc probably contain the B2 activator.

A B-blocker blocks these responses from happening. So they block increases cardiac output associated with excitement or stress, and keep your heart and breathing at baseline.

And that is why B blockers are banned in precision sports such as snooker or target shooting. B2 Activators such as those asthma puffers are banned in cardio heavy sports because they improve the ability to pull oxygen through the airway.

Probably not specific, but plague was so deadly that it killed a lot of people without the mutation, so it became more widespread in the population where there were high rates of bubonic plague.

Let's say hypothetically the mutation is also helpful against a common upper respiratory infection. but having it means you only have the sniffles twice a year versus three times a year. Lacking that sort of helpfulness doesn't prevent an individual from passing on their genes to the next gen.