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RowanH commented on Why insurers worry the world could soon become uninsurable   cnbc.com/2025/08/08/clima... · Posted by u/mooreds
ViscountPenguin · 15 days ago
When did the council last revise your flood models? Up here in Queensland, it caused a real stir when the council released updated flood models and lots of "1/1000" year flood houses turned into "1/10"
RowanH · 15 days ago
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 (!!!).

I know you guys have also had it bad over there.

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.

RowanH commented on Why insurers worry the world could soon become uninsurable   cnbc.com/2025/08/08/clima... · Posted by u/mooreds
RowanH · 15 days ago
Chunks of NZ are becoming very expensive to uninsurable, and extreme impact weather events are getting more frequent.

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.

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.

RowanH commented on Atlassian terminates 150 staff   cyberdaily.au/digital-tra... · Posted by u/speckx
Hammershaft · 24 days ago
Yeah I'm personally against the spectacle of empathy theater for layoffs at companies that long outgrew Dunbar's Number. The actual quality of severance packages and the dignity / professionalism of the process should be more central to how the public responds to these layoffs.
RowanH · 24 days ago
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.

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.

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.

It's just far easier, and less harmful emotionally, to rip the band aid and provide a good package.

RowanH commented on Electric cars produce less brake dust pollution than combustion-engine cars   modernengineeringmarvels.... · Posted by u/tzs
irjustin · a month ago
How is tire wear related to the method of power? It could be a steam engine for all it mattered.

Accelerating and decelerating, in regards to the tire, don't care what is causing the force.

RowanH · a month ago
To be fair EV's can have some very high initial torque delivery, and are heavy = tyre shredding beasts.

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.

RowanH commented on The side hustle from hell   blog.jacobstechtavern.com... · Posted by u/jakey_bakey
Aurornis · 4 months ago
This is the classic dead-end startup story from beginning to end. It checks all the boxes:

- 3 non-technical cofounders

- Flurry of activity for everything other than acquiring customers

- Attempt to outsource development followed by disappointment

- Relentless scope creep

- Zero go to market plan, just an incessant belief that more features in the app will solve all problems

There is also one less obvious point that is buried in the article:

> Simultaneously, my underpaid mid-level consultancy role passed me up for promotion again. I wanted out, double-time.

I did volunteer mentoring for a while. Few people went all-in on unpaid startup jobs as their primary role, but many were tempted to do it as side projects. They always believe it’s less risky. The risk they don’t see is that it distracts them from their main job, either slowing career growth or risking a PIP or layoff.

The common thread I kept coming back to was this: Ignore the side projects. Focus on career growth at your day job. Put your primary energy into growing your career or finding a job where you can.

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.

RowanH · 4 months ago
> 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.

Sample size of 1

- 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".

- 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...

- Which lead to Side Hustle #2. Left my day job 3 years ago....

Now have some of the best in our wee niche using our product, a number of team members, gradually growing it in bootstrapped fashion.

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.....

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.

At least in NZ, side hustles are the genesis of a lot of tech companies.

RowanH commented on Apache ECharts   echarts.apache.org/en/ind... · Posted by u/tomtomistaken
eigenvalue · 5 months ago
I think that’s because it’s a Chinese Project. Same thing with Ant Design Components, which are really awesome but not as well known as they should be.
RowanH · 5 months ago
Oooo thank you for mentioning that. Looks quite feature rich !
RowanH commented on Ask HN: How do you handle VAT / Sales Tax accounting as B2C SaaS?    · Posted by u/throw_1VJ51pMb
kipple_creator · 5 months ago
Anrok is great! Anrok generates and files US returns. We still have to file EU OSS returns quarterly (based on the Reports created by Anrok), but it's manageable. Stay far away from Avalara... it's unusable and the contracts are predatory IMO. Filing UK VAT has been a mess.

I'm @ a US-SaaS company using Stripe and Quickbooks.

RowanH · 5 months ago
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?
RowanH commented on School smartphone ban results in better sleep and improved mood: study   york.ac.uk/news-and-event... · Posted by u/jonatron
andrei_says_ · 8 months ago
I bought something called brick which lets me lock some apps with a Bluetooth app. I have to walk to a different room and touch my phone to the little cube magneted to my fridge in order to unlock them. Just this extra friction has halved my screen time. No phone in bed no phone while I’m working and no phone on weekends while I’m bored.

Instant improvement in mental clarity and quality of life.

RowanH · 8 months ago
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..

Neat idea

RowanH commented on Busy Status Bar   busy.bar/?hn... · Posted by u/aleksi
mxuribe · 10 months ago
Separate of the product itself...I have to compliment whoever designed the landing page! I'm not a UX/UI/page design expert, but here is what i experience:

* the page loads quick - without overlays, distractions, etc. the page gets to the point, and fast

* immediately i see a description of what the product is...this might sound funny, but tons of product sites lack this most basic thing!

* In addition, the very brief video at the top shows a human hand operating the product...so i know even more about its functions, or at least how to interact with product

* a call-to-action of "BUY" is present and impossible to miss, positioned right after/below the product intro/description

* as i scroll down, the experience is NOT janky...its a smooth scroll down the page

* scrolling down informs me more about the product, including its features, different angles of the physical product (to help denote the features), they even squeeze in that there are developer options - so i'm tipped off that its not only a consumer device, but that it can be integrated with other systems, expanded by devs, etc.!

* they include more product photos in order to show how the product may appear and/or be used in real life

* they even include photo and description of certain features - which serve almost as a very brief user guide, but again, i'm sure the intent is to show off the product's feature set

There probably are other great things about this page that i have not noted here...But, again, kudos to the person/team who designed this! I see many teams that are really intelligent, and might have great products/service, but they don;'t include half the elements present here. Because while i don't have interest in this product, damn, this an extremely compelling experience for their product! Cheers and kudos to all involved!!!!!!!

RowanH · 10 months ago
Echoing this, loved the product feature callout diagram. Immediately 'view source' to figure out how it was done.
RowanH commented on Starlink offering free internet access for 30 days for Hurricane Helene victims   starlink.com/support/arti... · Posted by u/ohjeez
jagtstronaut · a year ago
Despite the hate on the promo the tech they offer is still pretty cool. Only way I knew my in-laws were safe near Asheville was because one of their neighbors had starlink and a generator. Took a week for them to get power and cell phone service back and there is no way to get to them without a helicopter so if it wasn't for the product we would have just learned that they were alright.
RowanH · a year ago
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.

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.

u/RowanH

KarmaCake day636October 23, 2011View Original