Charles Baker wrote:
> 
> [snipped a bunch of seriously brilliant observations]

Thank you Charles. Couldn't have said it better myself.
I left my last job because high-level management replaced
stable HP workstations w/ NT boxes and then blamed the engineers
for not being as productive. It's difficult to do a finite element
analysis that may run for several days on a machine that can only measure
uptime in hours or minutes.

Job M. van Zuijlen wrote:
> If someone finds a Linux version of 3D Studio Max or a similar
> 3D animation program, let me know.

You may want to check out http://www.linuxartist.org/. There
are 3D programs, probably not as complete as 3D Studio Max,
but the price is right.