Does anyone remember that old game: "Bureaucracy"? The aim was too keep your blood pressure low enough not to have a stroke and die while dealing with everyday issues. Maybe a remake with this sort of controller is in order, then it could measure your real blood pressure.
Then, maybe, someone can use the measurements as evidence in a suit against... well basically every cable, internet, or phone company, building contractors, and government institution.
The banks, on the other hand, are very easy to "kill" — just stop using them.
Except when the government steps in with your taxes to bail out the bank that goes bankrupt because everyone stopped using it; and that is assuming Joe Consumer actually has a big enough effect in the first place, because banks don't get deposits only from the man on the street. The money is in the loans. And you can't just stop using a bank if you have a loan. Can't buy a house without a loan either generally, and buying often makes more sense than paying off your landlord's mortgage.
actively promotes federal whistleblowing through lawful disclosures (Emphasis Mine)
It's not about disclosing illegal activities. It's about disclosing activities that shouldn't be legal, or activities the public should be made aware of because their government is doing it behind their backs, even if legally. Yes, the ballot box is supposed to be the place to sort it out, but the ballot box presumes an informed citizenry. An informed citizenry presumes a system where whistle blowers are protected if they're actions are indeed in the public interest.
There can be no lawful disclosure if revealing legally classified documents is unlawful, even if the legal system facilitating the classification of those documents doesn't enjoy the broad support of the people. The correct term, that doesn't allow legal weaselling is "the public interest".
This means that we tend to focus on treatments for currently untreatable cancers, and once we have something that is semi-OK, the rate of improvement goes way down. It doesn't go to zero, by any means, but the incentives shift in a way that is both perfectly logical and kind of perverse.
It's called the law of diminishing returns, and applies to nearly everything sadly
Two things:
1. The cost of MS license in the third world is really high comparatively, even with academic and non-profit discounts. I've worked at a school in South Africa where the licensing costs of a small lab could have hired an extra teacher. You don't get academic/non-profit discounts if you buy once-off licenses, to get those you've had to go with subscription model since at least 2003
2. The support offered by Microsoft at the school did not cover desktop support, or if it did, that support was so slow in coming as to be useless. That's one reason I had a job. IN this case using off-the-shelf software carries no support advantage, and little usability advantage. Chances are nobody at the school can use a Access, or even excel particularly well. From the original poster suggestion of running it on a VPS I assume they have internet, and are probably more familiar with a browser and word than excel.
All that said, the idea of just using a spreadsheet makes a lot of sense. From a reporting perspective, it makes life easy, and getting data to UNICEF et al is as easy as emailing a copy. I'd avoid Microsoft though, and go with libreoffice.
If you are into learning, and don't already have a specific goal you can work towards, I strongly suggest re-inventing the wheel, specifically the file manager wheel, it covers a LOT of ground and will earn you invaluable experience. After writing one you will have solid experience in
Notably, this lacks some other fundamental stuff to programming: SQL (a little knowledge here goes a long way too), graphics coding (the basics I learnt before openGL have stood me in good stead over the years), and I'm sure there's more. Still, a file manager is a good choice IMHO
UNIX is hot. It's more than hot. It's steaming. It's quicksilver lightning with a laserbeam kicker. -- Michael Jay Tucker