<rss version="2.0" xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/" xmlns:atom="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom"><channel><title>Hacker News: RowanH</title><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=RowanH</link><description>Hacker News RSS</description><docs>https://hnrss.org/</docs><generator>hnrss v2.1.1</generator><lastBuildDate>Mon, 20 Apr 2026 22:27:47 +0000</lastBuildDate><atom:link href="https://hnrss.org/user?id=RowanH" rel="self" type="application/rss+xml"></atom:link><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by RowanH in "Welcome (back) to Macintosh"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>They've done something with the printer system in Tahoe. Brother removed support for native drivers on certain label printers on Tahoe (!!!) when you go searching you find other printer issues.<p>Like, why. Why would you need to change the printer system? It works.. has worked for a very long time, there's no reasonable need to change it.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Mon, 02 Mar 2026 21:48:17 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47224635</link><dc:creator>RowanH</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47224635</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47224635</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by RowanH in "People who come off slimming jabs regain weight four times faster than dieters"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Yes. Queens English countries it's the phrase used (New Zealand - that's what we use).</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Fri, 09 Jan 2026 14:14:55 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46554038</link><dc:creator>RowanH</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46554038</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46554038</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by RowanH in "Why insurers worry the world could soon become uninsurable"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>I don't know. Certainly the frequency and severity is just eye opening. We had 2 1 in 50's with 1 in 100 in 3 weeks (!!!).<p>I know you guys have also had it bad over there.<p>I expect the insurance companies will start removing flood cover soon. Which then becomes a bit of a shit show with mortgages. Or will raise the premiums so high that they're effectively uninsurable.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Sun, 10 Aug 2025 23:02:57 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44859137</link><dc:creator>RowanH</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44859137</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44859137</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by RowanH in "Why insurers worry the world could soon become uninsurable"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Chunks of NZ are becoming very expensive to uninsurable, and extreme impact weather events are getting more frequent.<p>It would be fair say a good portion of the population don't understand the maths of a weather event just how astronomically expensive a sudden flood is.<p>In our small town in the last 5 years, we've had 2-3 different "1 in 100 year" floods within 30km of each other (highly localised dramatic flooding and slips). To the point "1 in 100 year" is now a standing joke.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Sun, 10 Aug 2025 22:19:44 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44858803</link><dc:creator>RowanH</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44858803</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44858803</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by RowanH in "Atlassian terminates 150 staff"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>In New Zealand we have an absolutely shit employment law process where the company has to 'propose' a restructure (in a formal fashion). Then 'consult' with employees for feedback. Then 'consider' the feedback. And then 99% of the time it's all just the same and people get made redundant.<p>It is absolutely brutal as it invites the chance of hope during the downsizing - and implies staff will be able to provide alternative suggestions. Which is quite plainly bananas.<p>It's enshrined in law and if you don't follow the process as an employer you can get taken to task by the governing body around it.<p>It's just far easier, and less harmful emotionally, to rip the band aid and provide a good package.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Fri, 01 Aug 2025 20:38:50 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44762219</link><dc:creator>RowanH</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44762219</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44762219</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by RowanH in "Electric cars produce far less brake dust pollution than combustion-engine cars"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>To be fair EV's can have some very high initial torque delivery, and are heavy = tyre shredding beasts.<p>I know I know, people aren't supposed to be taking off from every light at full chat, but, given the capability some people can't help themselves.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Thu, 24 Jul 2025 04:15:22 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44666863</link><dc:creator>RowanH</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44666863</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44666863</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by RowanH in "The side hustle from hell"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>> Something about the side hustle continues to lure people into thinking it’s a way out, until they burn themselves out and sabotage their day job while doing it.<p>Sample size of 1<p>- Side hustle #1 funded my toy habit for a long time and gave me the confidence "I can build & support something from start to finish".<p>- Got to C Level working for 'the man' (aka the board). But regardless of level you're never in control of your destiny, especially with the eventuality of PE. For some that's okay, for others that's not...<p>- Which lead to Side Hustle #2. 
Left my day job 3 years ago....<p>Now have some of the best in our wee niche using our product, a number of team members, gradually growing it in bootstrapped fashion.<p>No investors, no funding rounds, no chasing growth targets. As "pure" as it can get - adding features, capturing more market, getting positive word of mouth, picking up new countries, finding new edge cases, adding new package upgrades. I think we're around 40% of new clients are referrals/word of mouth.....<p>In the first 6 months of turning billing on you're going "what the heck am I doing...." now I'm "oh I wouldn't give this up..." immensely rewarding bringing other new people into the business, and seeing that flow through to the finished product for our clients.<p>At least in NZ, side hustles are the genesis of a lot of tech companies.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Mon, 28 Apr 2025 18:29:55 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43824463</link><dc:creator>RowanH</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43824463</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43824463</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by RowanH in "Apache ECharts"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Oooo thank you for mentioning that. Looks quite feature rich  !</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Tue, 08 Apr 2025 22:20:46 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43627050</link><dc:creator>RowanH</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43627050</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43627050</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by RowanH in "Ask HN: How do you handle VAT / Sales Tax accounting as B2C SaaS?"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>How does Anrok charge? is it based on a per filing basis or %age of rev? If %age can you share broadly speaking what it costs?</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Wed, 12 Mar 2025 01:34:41 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43339100</link><dc:creator>RowanH</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43339100</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43339100</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by RowanH in "School smartphone ban results in better sleep and improved mood: study"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Fascinating. I'm wondering how the app manages to control notification behaviour & gatekeeps other apps. Obviously the APIs to do it must be there, just surprised Apple (of all ...) let's a 3rd party app do that..<p>Neat idea</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Sun, 15 Dec 2024 06:12:51 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42421855</link><dc:creator>RowanH</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42421855</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42421855</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by RowanH in "Busy Status Bar"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Echoing this, loved the product feature callout diagram. Immediately 'view source' to figure out how it was done.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Mon, 14 Oct 2024 20:55:13 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41841890</link><dc:creator>RowanH</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41841890</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41841890</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by RowanH in "Starlink offering free internet access for 30 days for Hurricane Helene victims"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>In New Zealand we're very much natural disaster prone. I run a SaaS working out of home - we wired the house for generator backup and have a starlink unit that sits in a box exactly for this reason, even if the proverbial hits the fan for a week I can still keep on top of the business.<p>Every couple of months the geny gets sparked up and everything tested. For a very small investment it's very comforting to know we've always got power/internet, regardless of what happens.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Thu, 03 Oct 2024 20:15:15 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41734505</link><dc:creator>RowanH</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41734505</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41734505</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by RowanH in "Initial details about why CrowdStrike's CSAgent.sys crashed"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>After this I imagine there will be an option "do you want updates immediately, or updates when released - n, or n+2, n+6, n+24, n+48 hrs?"<p>Given the choice I bet there's going to be surprisingly large number of orgs go "we'll take n+24hrs thanks"</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Sun, 21 Jul 2024 08:37:51 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41023476</link><dc:creator>RowanH</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41023476</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41023476</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by RowanH in "Panic at the Job Market"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>That's a high bar - in my experience (New Zealand) 1/3 of candidates can't even write any form of code to retrieve a random element from an array. 1/3 have to be nudged along and asked some leading questions, and 1/3 are "what the heck are you asking me that for, I can do that in my sleep, that better not be indicative of the quality of coders... "<p>There is just so much misrepresentation out there it's insane.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Thu, 18 Jul 2024 01:04:27 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40991668</link><dc:creator>RowanH</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40991668</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40991668</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by RowanH in "Pwning a Brother labelmaker, for fun and interop"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>The PT-P models (we've got and a lot of our clients use the PT-P900W) - it does a very nifty "half cut" on laminated tape labels that makes it super easy to peel and stick.<p>Love the API it has, aside from some quirks - we can control the printer from within our Android/iOS apps - literally can tell it to half cut the labels or not.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Sat, 06 Jul 2024 10:13:15 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40889421</link><dc:creator>RowanH</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40889421</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40889421</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by RowanH in "Ask HN: Who wants to be hired? (July 2024)"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>I run one but I don't runn one - I've met the other Rowan</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Thu, 04 Jul 2024 07:13:33 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40872986</link><dc:creator>RowanH</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40872986</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40872986</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by RowanH in "Ask HN: Who wants to be hired? (July 2024)"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Another (recently former!) Jafa. Possibly crossed paths also, given how many years in the industry :)</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Tue, 02 Jul 2024 08:32:20 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40854647</link><dc:creator>RowanH</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40854647</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40854647</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by RowanH in "Car dealerships revert to pens and paper after cyberattacks on software provider"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Wow so you work at CDK. I wouldn't wish the sh-t storm you guys must be going through on our worst enemy.<p>I was talking with one of your clients today (we're not competitors) and you just don't realise how far screwed some of these companies are right now.<p>It actually made an instant upsell today of 'here's our additional cloud sync' feature. No questions, no umming and ahhing, it's just 'yep done, add it, turn it on'. Heck we probably undersold it by 10x.<p>I hope you guys start getting some sense of normality soon and get systems back online.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Tue, 25 Jun 2024 23:28:39 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40794861</link><dc:creator>RowanH</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40794861</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40794861</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by RowanH in "Car dealerships revert to pens and paper after cyberattacks on software provider"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Close to this market - ShopMonkey is doing it for general garage work, and we, GlobalWorkshop, are doing it for high end/custom vehicles (restoration/restomods/small motorsport teams).<p>I'm pretty sure one of our recent trialling companies have been using CDK and desperate to get away from it for their restoration work.<p>"It hasn't been updated in years" was the quote last week..</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Mon, 24 Jun 2024 18:55:48 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40779440</link><dc:creator>RowanH</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40779440</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40779440</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by RowanH in "Kino: Pro Video Camera"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>30+ years in the software industry. Everyone did this back in the day - then it changed for 3 reasons (1) completely unsustainable (2) people didn't upgrade, or being forced to upgrade and pay large prices got grumpy about it. (3) the money people figured out subscriptions were more profitable.<p>There's tonnes of companies that have legacy 'pay upfront' models, that hit the wall as they'd saturated their markets, then their revenue stream dropped off and all of a sudden saw the wall of transitioning to web/mobile needing to happen and didn't have the funds to pull it off.<p>I'd almost completely forgotten about it until I was challenged by a prospect in a meeting monday 'is this one of these new lease software systems, I want to own it!" had to educate him on the way the world worked now...</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Thu, 30 May 2024 18:41:29 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40527227</link><dc:creator>RowanH</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40527227</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40527227</guid></item></channel></rss>