Iffy Books | 404 S. 20th St., PHL

🏠 Host a Website at Home
2024-05-11 13:00 - 16:00 (America/New_York) | Iffy Books, 404 S. 20th St., Philadelphia, 19146, United States
▶ How-to zine on GitHub
Join us on Saturday, May 11th from 1–4 p.m. for the workshop Host a Website at Home. You’ll learn to run an Apache web server on a single-board computer, letting you host a website from your home internet connection. Then you’ll register a domain name (or create a subdomain for a domain you already own) and set up Dynamic DNS, letting folks access your site even if your home IP address changes.
We’ll have home server kits available for $49, which include an Orange Pi Zero 2W single-board computer and all the hardware you’ll need. If you prefer, you can bring your own single-board computer (e.g., a Raspberry Pi) with Ubuntu Server installed. If you have questions, email iffybooks@iffybooks.net.
Here’s what’s in the kit:
• Orange Pi Zero 2W single-board computer w/1 GB of RAM
• 32 GB microSD card
• microSD card reader
• 2 A USB power supply
• USB-C power cable
• Mini HDMI to HDMI adapter
• USB-C to 2x USB-A adapter
• USB-A to Ethernet adapter
• Ethernet cable
Register:

🩹 Bleeding Control Basics (*canceled this month!)
2024-05-15 18:00 - 19:30 | Iffy Books, 404 S. 20th St., Philadelphia, 19146, United States
This month’s Bleeding Control Basics class is canceled. Sorry for the inconvenience! We’ll host another one on Wednesday, June 12th.
Face masks required!
Presented by Untitled Medical Collective in association with Philly SRA, Bleeding Control Basics will go over first aid as it applies to severe bleeding. We will cover scene safety, injury assessment, basic bleeding control, and tourniquet application. This class doesn’t provide any kind of certification, and is just meant to provide essential information to as many people as possible.

✏️ The Writing Room
2024-05-16 17:00 - 19:30, 2024-06-06 17:00 - 19:30, 2024-06-25 17:00 - 19:30, 2024-07-02 17:00 - 19:30 | Iffy Books, 404 S. 20th St., Philadelphia, 19146, United States
Come co-work with other writers in three 40-minute units of silent writing. Writers and projects of any type welcome. 10-minute breaks and accountability check-ins between units. BYO coffee, water, computer chargers, notepads, etc.

🔓 TOOOL Lock Picking Meetup
2024-05-17 18:00 - 20:00, 2024-06-21 18:00 - 20:00 | Iffy Books, 404 S. 20th St., Philadelphia, 19146, United States
The third Friday of every month from 6–8 p.m. we host a meetup run by the Philadelphia Chapter of the Open Organization of Lockpickers.
> Come join us for our monthly open pick night at Iffy Books! Whether you’re a novice who just stumbled upon LockpickingLawyer, a seasoned safecracker, or somewhere in between, come join us for a evening of fun as we pop some locks.

🏠 Host a Website at Home
2024-05-18 13:00 - 16:00 | Iffy Books, 404 S. 20th St., Philadelphia, 19146, United States
▶ How-to zine on GitHub
Join us on Saturday, May 18th from 1–4 p.m. for the workshop Host a Website at Home. You’ll learn to run an Apache web server on a single-board computer, letting you host a website from your home internet connection. Then you’ll register a domain name (or create a subdomain for a domain you already own) and set up Dynamic DNS, letting folks access your site even if your home IP address changes.
We’ll have home server kits available for $49, which include an Orange Pi Zero 2W single-board computer and all the hardware you’ll need. If you prefer, you can bring your own single-board computer (e.g., a Raspberry Pi) with Ubuntu Server installed. If you have questions, email iffybooks@iffybooks.net.
Here’s what’s in the kit:
• Orange Pi Zero 2W single-board computer w/1 GB of RAM
• 32 GB microSD card
• microSD card reader
• 2 A USB power supply
• USB-C power cable
• Mini HDMI to HDMI adapter
• USB-C to 2x USB-A adapter
• USB-A to Ethernet adapter
• Ethernet cable
Register

⚡️ Intermediate Soldering Session
2024-05-23 18:00 - 19:30
We host an intermediate soldering class on the fourth Thursday of every month. We’ll have soldering irons and solder to share for free, as well as DIY electronics kits for sale. Or bring your own project!
Register for April

Register for May
(coming soon)

🎤 Audio Recording Basics
2024-05-24 15:00 - 17:00 | Iffy Books, 404 S. 20th St., Philadelphia, 19146, United States
Join us for a workshop on the basics of recording audio! We’ll discuss mic technique, audio hardware, recording conditions, and software options. Everyone will get a chance to make a recording with Audacity and start editing with Reaper.
Register

💾🌾 Iffy Books Permacomputing Meetup
2024-05-26 13:00 - 15:00, 2024-06-23 13:00 - 15:00 | Iffy Books, 404 S. 20th St., Philadelphia, 19146, United States
The Iffy Books Permacomputing Meetup is every fourth Sunday at 1:00 PM ET. You can join us in person at Iffy Books (404 S. 20th St., PHL) or via Jitsi Meet.
➡️ Meetup Link
From Permacomputing.net: Permacomputing is a more sustainable approach to computer and network technology inspired by permaculture. Permacomputing is both a concept and a community of practice oriented around issues of resilience and regenerativity in digital technology. In a time where computing epitomizes industrial waste, permacomputing encourages a more sustainable approach, maximizing hardware lifespans, minimizing energy use and focussing on the use of already available computational resources. We do this because humans are part of nature and technology is an extension of humans, and we acknowledge that technology has been used to harm nature. We want to find out how we can practice good relations with the Earth by learning from ecological systems to leverage and re-center existing technologies and practices. We are also interested in investigating what a permacomputing way of life could be, and what sort of transformative computational culture and aesthetics it could bring forward. If you want to know more, please start reading about what is permacomputing in essence, and then dive into its principles.
Permacomputing Aesthetics: Potential and Limits of Design Constraints in Computational Culture by Mansoux, Howell, Barok, and Heikkilä (2023)

🎵 Open Cassette Mixtape Session
2024-05-29 13:00 - 17:00, 2024-06-26 13:00 - 17:00 | Iffy Books, 404 S. 20th St., Philadelphia, 19146, United States
Bring a playlist on your phone/computer and we’ll help you record it to an audio cassette tape. We have plenty of tapes!
We’ll host two sessions, at 1 p.m. and 3 p.m. This event is free/by donation.
Register for 1 p.m.

Register for 3 p.m.

🪐 Speculative Futures Reading Group: 'The Mountain in the Sea' by Ray Nayler
2024-05-29 19:00 - 20:30 | Iffy Books, 404 S. 20th St., Philadelphia, 19146, United States
On Wednesday, May 29th at 7 p.m. we’ll meet to discuss The Mountain in the Sea by Ray Nayler. See you then!

📚 Philly Socialists Reading Group
2024-06-02 16:00 - 17:30 | Iffy Books, 404 S. 20th St., Philadelphia, 19146, United States
Continuing on journey into mutual aid after Hinterland, we are reading After the Flood: Perpetual crisis and recovery in Eastern Kentucky by Tarence Ray.
This group is open to anyone committed to collective learning and liberation whether they are a member of Philly Socialists or not. We aim to tackle challenging theoretical texts together. Rather than finding ‘the correct reading’ of a text, the goal of group is to collectively find tools from texts for creating a better world.
Philly Socialists is a political organization committed to creating a just and sustainable future for ourselves and our planet. As socialists, we believe in freedom, democracy, and the right to basic human dignity. Capitalism denies us all these. Only revolutionary change that ends capitalism will win us the future we deserve. And only a massive, organized force can get us there. If you are interested in finding out more, please find us at our reading website or email us admin@phillysocialists.org

💻 Philly 2600 Meetup
2024-06-07 18:00 - 20:00 | Iffy Books, 404 S. 20th St., Philadelphia, 19146, United States
> The Philly 2600 meeting is a monthly gathering of local hackers, phreaks, nerds, geeks, activists, tinkerers, developers, infosec professionals, and other interesting people.

🏠 Host a Website at Home
2024-06-08 13:00 - 16:00 | Iffy Books, 404 S. 20th St., Philadelphia, 19146, United States
▶ How-to zine on GitHub
Join us on Saturday, June 8th from 1–4 p.m. for the workshop Host a Website at Home. You’ll learn to run an Apache web server on a single-board computer, letting you host a website from your home internet connection. Then you’ll register a domain name (or create a subdomain for a domain you already own) and set up Dynamic DNS, letting folks access your site even if your home IP address changes.
We’ll have home server kits available for $49, which include an Orange Pi Zero 2W single-board computer and all the hardware you’ll need. If you prefer, you can bring your own single-board computer (e.g., a Raspberry Pi) with Ubuntu Server installed. If you have questions, email iffybooks@iffybooks.net.
Here’s what’s in the kit:
• Orange Pi Zero 2W single-board computer w/1 GB of RAM
• 32 GB microSD card
• microSD card reader
• 2 A USB power supply
• USB-C power cable
• Mini HDMI to HDMI adapter
• USB-C to 2x USB-A adapter
• USB-A to Ethernet adapter
• Ethernet cable
Register

🩹 Bleeding Control Basics (Postponed to July 17th)
2024-06-12 18:00 - 19:30 | Iffy Books, 404 S. 20th St., Philadelphia, 19146, United States
This event is postponed until July 17th. Sorry for the inconvenience! You can register for next month’s session here.

Face masks required!
Presented by Untitled Medical Collective in association with Philly SRA, Bleeding Control Basics will go over first aid as it applies to severe bleeding. We will cover scene safety, injury assessment, basic bleeding control, and tourniquet application. This class doesn’t provide any kind of certification, and is just meant to provide essential information to as many people as possible.
Register:

⚡️ Beginner Soldering Workshop
2024-06-13 18:00 - 19:30 | Iffy Books, 404 S. 20th St., Philadelphia, 19146, United States
On the second Thursday of every month we run a soldering workshop for beginners! Anyone can attend for free, but you’ll need to buy a circuit board with components for $6 to complete the project.
Here’s what’s included in the kit:

1 x Weevil-shaped PCB
2 x LEDs
1 x 47k Ohm resistor
1 x miniature photocell
1 x 2N3904 transistor
2 x 220 Ohm resistors
1 x CR2032 coin cell battery
1 x 20mm coin cell battery holder

Register:

🏠 Host a Website at Home
2024-06-14 14:00 - 17:00 | Iffy Books, 404 S. 20th St., Philadelphia, 19146, United States
▶ How-to zine on GitHub
Join us on Friday, June 14th from 2–5 p.m. for the workshop Host a Website at Home. You’ll learn to run an Apache web server on a single-board computer, letting you host a website from your home internet connection. Then you’ll register a domain name (or create a subdomain for a domain you already own) and set up Dynamic DNS, letting folks access your site even if your home IP address changes.
We’ll have home server kits available for $49, which include an Orange Pi Zero 2W single-board computer and all the hardware you’ll need. If you prefer, you can bring your own single-board computer (e.g., a Raspberry Pi) with Ubuntu Server installed. If you have questions, email iffybooks@iffybooks.net.
Here’s what’s in the kit:
• Orange Pi Zero 2W single-board computer w/1 GB of RAM
• 32 GB microSD card
• microSD card reader
• 2 A USB power supply
• USB-C power cable
• Mini HDMI to HDMI adapter
• USB-C to 2x USB-A adapter
• USB-A to Ethernet adapter
• Ethernet cable
Register

☀️ Build a Solar-Powered Music Synth
2024-06-15 13:00 - 15:00 | Iffy Books, 404 S. 20th St., Philadelphia, 19146, United States
On Saturday, June 15th at at 1:00 p.m. we’ll run our workshop Build a Solar-Powerered Music Synth. No soldering required! The workshop is free to attend, but you’ll need to purchase a kit for $11 to complete the project.
Here’s a link to the how-to zine we’ll use.
And here’s a diagram of the oscillator circuit we’ll build:

Register:

✏️ The Writing Room
2024-06-18 17:00 - 19:30 | Iffy Books, 404 S. 20th St., Philadelphia, 19146, United States
The Writing Room is switching to Tuesdays! And we’re doing it every week through the summer! Starting on 6/18, join us every Tuesday from 5–7:30 p.m. and make some progress on whatever you’re writing.
Come co-work with other writers in three 40-minute units of silent writing. Writers and projects of any type welcome. 10-minute breaks and accountability check-ins between units. BYO coffee, water, computer chargers, notepads, etc.

🚂 Model Internet Club
2024-06-22 13:00 - 17:00 | Iffy Books, 404 S. 20th St., Philadelphia, 19146, United States
The Model Internet Club meets again on Saturday, June 22nd, 1:00–5:00 p.m. Newcomers are welcome.
The network is up and running! We now have a DHCP server, a DNS server with custom domain names, and handful of websites running as virtual hosts in Apache. We now have a wi-fi access point and a chat server.
We’re looking for websites to run on our local network. If you have an idea, email iffybooks@iffybooks.net or join us for our next meeting. If you’ve never created a website with HTML before, here’s a guide to get you started.

📚 Philly Socialists Reading Group: 'Neither Vertical nor Horizontal: A Theory of Political Organization' by Rodrigo Nunes
2024-06-23 16:00 - 17:30 | Iffy Books, 404 S. 20th St., Philadelphia, 19146, United States
We’re reading Neither Vertical nor Horizontal: A Theory of Political Organization by Rodrigo Nunes.

How do we organize in a world after both Occupy and the Sanders campaign?
A decade ago, a wave of mass mobilisations described as “horizontal” and “leaderless” swept the planet, holding the promise of real democracy and justice for the 99%. Many saw its subsequent ebb as proof of the need to go back to what was once called “the question of organisation”. For something so often described as essential, however, political organisation remains a surprisingly under-theorised field. In this book, Rodrigo Nunes proposes to remedy that lack by starting again from scratch. Redefining the terms of the problem, he rejects the confusion between organisation and any of the forms it can take, such as the party, and argues that organisation must be understood as always supposing a diverse ecology of different initiatives and organisational forms. Drawing from a wide array of sources and traditions that include cybernetics, poststructuralism, network theory and Marxism, Nunes develops a grammar that eschews easy oppositions between “verticalism” and “horizontalism”, centralisation and dispersion, and offers a fresh approach to enduring issues like spontaneity, leadership, democracy, strategy, populism, revolution, and the relationship between movements and parties.

This group is open to anyone committed to collective learning and liberation whether they are a member of Philly Socialists or not. We aim to tackle challenging theoretical texts together. Rather than finding ‘the correct reading’ of a text, the goal of group is to collectively find tools from texts for creating a better world.
Philly Socialists is a political organization committed to creating a just and sustainable future for ourselves and our planet. As socialists, we believe in freedom, democracy, and the right to basic human dignity. Capitalism denies us all these. Only revolutionary change that ends capitalism will win us the future we deserve. And only a massive, organized force can get us there. If you are interested in finding out more, please find us at our reading website or email us admin@phillysocialists.org

🪐 Speculative Futures Reading Group: 'Always Coming Home' by Ursula K. Le Guin
2024-06-26 19:00 - 20:30 | Iffy Books, 404 S. 20th St., Philadelphia, 19146, United States
The Speculative Futures reading group meets on Wednesday, June 26th at 7 p.m. to discuss the book Always Coming Home by Ursula K. Le Guin. Hope to see you there!
Get the audiobook on Libro.fm
Midway through her career, Le Guin embarked on one of her most detailed, impressive literary projects, a novel that took more than five years to complete. Blending story and fable, poetry, artwork, and song, Always Coming Home is this legendary writer’s fictional ethnography of the Kesh, a people of the far future living in a post-apocalyptic Napa Valley.
Having survived ecological catastrophe brought on by relentless industrialization, the Kesh are a peaceful people who reject governance and the constriction of genders, limit population growth to prevent overcrowding and preserve resources, and maintain a healthy community in which everyone works to contribute to its well-being. This richly imagined story unfolds through a series of narrated “translations” that illuminate individual lives, including a woman named Stone Telling, who travels beyond the Valley and comes to reside with another tribe, the patriarchal Condor people. With sharp poignancy, Le Guin explores the complexities of the Kesh’s unified society and presents to us–in exquisite detail–their lives, histories, adventures, customs, language, and art.
In addition to poems and folk tales, Le Guin created verse dramas, records of oral performances, recipes, and even an alphabet and glossary of the Kesh language. The novel is illustrated throughout with drawings by artist Margaret Chodos and includes a musical component–original recordings of Kesh songs that Le Guin collaborated on with composer Todd Barton–bringing this utterly original and compelling world to life.
Ursula Kroeber Le Guin (1929-2018) was a celebrated author whose body of work includes 23 novels, 12 volumes of short stories, 11 volumes of poetry, 13 children’s books, five essay collections, and four works of translation. The breadth and imagination of her work earned her six Nebula Awards, seven Hugo Awards, and SFWA’s Grand Master, along with the PEN/Malamud and many other awards. In 2014 she was awarded the National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters, and in 2016 joined the short list of authors to be published in their lifetimes by the Library of America.

⚡️ Intermediate Soldering Session
2024-06-27 18:00 - 19:30
We host an intermediate soldering class on the fourth Thursday of every month. We’ll have soldering irons and solder to share for free, as well as DIY electronics kits for sale. Or bring your own project!
Register:

🏠 Host a Website at Home
2024-06-28 14:00 - 17:00 | Iffy Books, 404 S. 20th St., Philadelphia, 19146, United States
▶ How-to zine on GitHub
Join us on Friday, June 28th from 2–5 p.m. for the workshop Host a Website at Home. You’ll learn to run an Apache web server on a single-board computer, letting you host a website from your home internet connection. Then you’ll register a domain name (or create a subdomain for a domain you already own) and set up Dynamic DNS, letting folks access your site even if your home IP address changes.
We’ll have home server kits available for $49, which include an Orange Pi Zero 2W single-board computer and all the hardware you’ll need. If you prefer, you can bring your own single-board computer (e.g., a Raspberry Pi) with Ubuntu Server installed. If you have questions, email iffybooks@iffybooks.net.
Here’s what’s in the kit:
• Orange Pi Zero 2W single-board computer w/1 GB of RAM
• 32 GB microSD card
• microSD card reader
• 2 A USB power supply
• USB-C power cable
• Mini HDMI to HDMI adapter
• USB-C to 2x USB-A adapter
• USB-A to Ethernet adapter
• Ethernet cable
Register

📡 Meshtastic 101
2024-06-29 13:00 - 15:00 | Iffy Books, 404 S. 20th St., Philadelphia, 19146, United States
On Saturday, June 29th at 1:00 p.m. we’re hosting an introduction to Meshtastic, an application that lets you send private text messages over the air using pocket-sized LoRa radios. We’ll show you how to flash the latest Meshtastic firmware to the device and customize the settings.
Here’s a link to our zine on LoRa + Meshtastic.
Register:
