I have taken running more seriously over the past year and cannot emphasize finding a running group more. Committing to run with others will build it into a habit. I have written about my experiences with running here http://aviadas.com/blog/2016/02/09/10-things-i-learnt-going-...
We have used Feathers to build http://www.zeek.ai/ and have been really happy with it so far. The consistency between the client and server libraries makes developing with Feathers fast.
Great to see a fellow PayPal Austinite on HN Chris! For a lot of people really quick and easy way to have a personal site up and running. Couple suggestions, possibly add system requirements and deploy instructions (possibly deploy to heroku/or deploy to digitalocean button) ?
From my experience of going to 20+ hackathons, few things come to mind
1. Have a well defined target audience and reach out early. People make weekend plans.
2. Be very clear about judging criteria.
3. Heavy presence of organizers throughout the event. It's not always easy for newbies at hackathon's, and organizers/mentors being around during the whole thing is great motivation.
4. A good venue where people can find quiet space/at the same time space to socialize.
5. Find a good balance between cheerleading during the hackathon and people working. Sponsor events are important, but continuous interruptions do not help flow work.
Great side projects btw, if you don't mind me asking, how to do choose to allocate time amongst side projects and keep yourself focused? It seems that with side projects, one challenge is to avoid the trap of too many interesting ones to start working on.