Interview, &c

I actually went in for an interview yesterday, and it seemed to go pretty well.  I didn't get thrown out early, at least, which I take to be a positive sign.  The interviews themselves were 'large': in the first, it was with most of the team (five people), and the second was with four people.  I feels to me, at this time, that I could possibly get an offer, but again I don't think that they were put up anything near my current salary, which is at a pretty ludicrous level for what I am doing.

I have almost broken even on the Barnes & Noble 'membership' card that I got.  It was $25, but I have saved around $24 so far.  The question is, would I have bought the books if not for 'saving' money on them?  Perhaps not.  But I am enjoying everything so far, and one item purchased was a nifty little co-op board game, Castle Panic, which my five-year-old daughter can also play (with some help).  So, comme ci, comme ca.  But, the latest book I bought is pretty interesting: Physics for Future Presidents.  So far, I am only a couple of chapters into it, but I am learning a lot.  For example: the three major types of nuclear weapons are the uranium, the plutonium, and the hydrogen bombs.  The uranium bomb is easy to build, but the uranium fuel for it (U235) is very difficult to obtain, because most natural uranium is 99% U238.  It takes a lot of science, sophistication, and cash to separate the two.  Plutonium, on the other hand, is easy to obtain (spent fuel from nuclear reactors contain it) and easy to separate, but building a plutonium bomb is very difficult (it needs a very precise implosion as a trigger).  Hydrogen bombs require one of the other types of bomb as the trigger, so if you can't make those, you can't make this.  The bombs dropped in WWII were the first two.  The uranium version had never been tested, as the US had only manufactured enough U235 for one shot.  The plutonium had been tested at Alamogordo.

I really enjoy stuff like this.  I knew there were different types of nuclear weapons, but could not have told you the differences.  And I figured that the weapons used in WWII would both have been uranium, I guess because 'plutonium' just sounds more exotic? advanced? something.  So, now I know.  Other sections of the book include global warming, space exploration, and the like.  I am looking forward to finishing it.