🎥 Forest Defense Screening
2023-10-13 18:30 - 20:30 (America/New_York) | Iffy Books (319 N. 11th St.), 319 N. 11th St. #2I, Philadelphia, PA, 19107, United States
We’re having a film screening y’all!!!
Description: Forest Defense Screening!
Friday the 13th double feature!
At Iffy Books! 319 N.11th street
Free Drinks! Free Snacks!
October 13 Doors at 18:30
First Film Starts at 19:00

🪡 Spook & Sew Workshop
2023-10-14 18:00 - 21:00, 2023-10-21 18:00 - 21:00 | Iffy Books (319 N. 11th St.), 319 N. 11th St. #2I, Philadelphia, PA, 19107, United States
➡️ Register on Eventbrite
Join us for an evening of crafts and creativity at the Spook & Sew: Pillows & Purses for Beginners! In this 3-hour workshop, you will learn the basics of using a sewing machine, simple pattern making and construction techniques. Attendees will select a pattern from our variety of Halloween-Pumpkin Patch themed styles and learn how to create a handmade pillow, purse or both.
This workshop is perfect for anyone that has never used a sewing machine or who wants to refresh their skills and challenge themselves. We’ll provide all the materials you’ll need, so just bring your yourself and your enthusiasm for learning!
Don’t miss out on this exciting opportunity to learn new skills and meet other sewing enthusiasts. Register now to secure your spot!
This in-person workshop will take place at 319 N 11th Street, Philadelphia, PA 19107.
IMPORTANT: Classes are held on the 3rd floor. You will receive and email from the instructor on how to enter the building prior to your session (there is a code).
Presented by Dark Spaces Studio.

🔊Turn data into sound & back with Minimodem
2023-10-15 13:00 - 15:00 | Iffy Books (319 N. 11th St.), 319 N. 11th St. #2I, Philadelphia, PA, 19107, United States
In this workshop you’ll convert text data into audio using the program minimodem, then record the audio to a cassette tape. Then you’ll use minimodem to play back your text onscreen in real time. We’ll provide computers and tape decks, and everyone who signs up will get a few free cassette tapes.
We’ve been using Bell 202-style ASCII encoding at 100 baud (bits per second) because it works reliably and plays back at a comfortable reading speed. Using these encoding settings, a 60-minute cassette tape can store ~34 KB of data. If you want to record a specific text file to a cassette tape, we recommend bringing it on a USB drive.
We’ll have computers to share, but you’re welcome to bring a laptop too. Here’s a link to the zine we’ll use for the workshop (a work in progress).
Register:

﻿Download the
MP4
video.
This workshop is free, but donations are welcome.

💾🌾 Iffy Books Permacomputing Meetup
2023-10-15 15:30 - 17:30 | Iffy Books (319 N. 11th St.), 319 N. 11th St. #2I, Philadelphia, PA, 19107, United States
Our next permacomputing meetup is on Sunday, October 15th at 3:30 PM EDT. You can join us in person at Iffy Books (319 N. 11th St. #2I, 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)

✏️ The Writing Room
2023-10-18 17:00 - 19:00 | Iffy Books (319 N. 11th St.), 319 N. 11th St. #2I, Philadelphia, PA, 19107, United States
This week The Writing Room ends at 7 p.m. because we’re hosting an author event. Sorry for the inconvenience!
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.

👨‍🦲 Reading and Q&A with Kashmir Hill, author of 'Your Face Belongs to Us: A Secretive Startup's Quest to End Privacy as We Know It'
2023-10-18 19:00 - 21:00 | Iffy Books (319 N. 11th St.), 319 N. 11th St. #2I, Philadelphia, PA, 19107, United States
On Wednesday, October 18th we’re hosting a reading and Q&A with Kashmir Hill, author of Your Face Belongs to Us: A Secretive Startup’s Quest to End Privacy as We Know It. Doors at 7 p.m., reading starts at 7:30. Hope to see you there!
The story of a small AI company that gave facial recognition to law enforcement, billionaires, and businesses, threatening to end privacy as we know it
New York Times tech reporter Kashmir Hill was skeptical when she got a tip about a mysterious app called Clearview AI that claimed it could, with 99 percent accuracy, identify anyone based on just one snapshot of their face. The app could supposedly scan a face and, in just seconds, surface every detail of a person’s online their name, social media profiles, friends and family members, home address, and photos that they might not have even known existed. If it was everything it claimed to be, it would be the ultimate surveillance tool, and it would open the door to everything from stalking to totalitarian state control. Could it be true?
In this riveting account, Hill tracks the improbable rise of Clearview AI, helmed by Hoan Ton-That, an Australian computer engineer, and Richard Schwartz, a former Rudy Giuliani advisor, and its astounding collection of billions of faces from the internet. The company was boosted by a cast of controversial characters, including conservative provocateur Charles C. Johnson and billionaire Donald Trump backer Peter Thiel—who all seemed eager to release this society-altering technology on the public. Google and Facebook decided that a tool to identify strangers was too radical to release, but Clearview forged ahead, sharing the app with private investors, pitching it to businesses, and offering it to thousands of law enforcement agencies around the world.
➡️ Get the audiobook on Libro.fm

🌸 What's the Deal with Native Plants?
2023-10-21 13:00 - 15:00 | Iffy Books (319 N. 11th St.), 319 N. 11th St. #2I, Philadelphia, PA, 19107, United States
In North America, we call plants that lived here prior to European colonization Native Plants. They evolved over tens of thousands of years to coexist with the soils, animals, insects, and humans of their specific bioregions. Although much of their habitat, and the cultures of stewardship that tended them over this long time period, have either been destroyed or seriously suppressed, a recent uptick in the popularity of gardening with native species is good news for our ability to rebuild meaningful relationships with the ecosystems around us.
In this workshop we’ll talk more about what native plants are; why growing them is fun, easy and important; how to pick the best ones to plant in your particular space; how to care for them; and where to find them.
The class will be most useful for people that have some space for in-ground plantings, but everyone curious is welcome! There is no fee for the class, but we encourage attendees to make a $5 (or more!) donation to the Nanticoke Lenni-Lenape tribal nation in southern New Jersey: https://nllhonorarium.carrd.co.
About the presenter:
Goda Trakumaite has been working with native plants in various ways since 2017: she has propagated them, sold them retail, installed and tended native landscapes, and is currently working in native plant seed production.
Register:

🦇 The Spooky Ukie Market
2023-10-21 14:00 - 21:00 | Ukie Club, 847 N. Franklin St., Philadelphia, PA, 19123, United States
Philly Makers Syndicate Presents:
The Spooky Ukie Market
Sat, October 21st, 2–9 p.m.
at the Ukie Club
847 N. Franklin St., PHL
70+ Vendors
Full bar & food
Nighttime programming by
Lither’s Midfright Snack, Hexx, Boston Head, Zorn, On the Water, Ugli, & Diuretic
$2–8 donation NOTAFLOF
8 steps to inside // service animals only
Wheelchair accessible bathroom available

🚂 Model Internet Club
2023-10-22 13:00 - 17:00 | Iffy Books (319 N. 11th St.), 319 N. 11th St. #2I, Philadelphia, PA, 19107, United States
The Model Internet Club meets again on Sunday, October 22nd, 1–5 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. There’s a local bulletin board in the works, and we’re considering our options for connecting wi-fi access points.
We’re looking for websites to run on our local network! If you have an idea, email iffybooks@iffybooks.net or join us on October 22nd.
Here’s a photo of the model internet in action:

And here’s a diagram of our plans for the network (so far):

✏️ The Writing Room
2023-10-25 17:00 - 19:00, 2023-11-01 17:00 - 20:00, 2023-11-08 17:00 - 20:00, 2023-11-15 17:00 - 20:00, 2023-11-22 17:00 - 20:00 | Iffy Books (319 N. 11th St.), 319 N. 11th St. #2I, Philadelphia, PA, 19107, United States
Wednesdays 5–8 p.m.
(5–7 p.m. the last Wednesday of the month)
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.

💊 Speculative Futures Reading Group: 'Oryx and Crake' by Margaret Atwood
2023-10-25 19:00 - 20:30
On Wednesday, October 25th at 7:00 p.m. we’ll meet to discuss the novel Oryx and Crake (2003) by Margaret Atwood. Hope to see you there!
Get the audiobook on Libro.fm.
Snowman, known as Jimmy before mankind was overwhelmed by a plague, is struggling to survive in a world where he may be the last human, and mourning the loss of his best friend, Crake, and the beautiful and elusive Oryx whom they both loved. In search of answers, Snowman embarks on a journey—with the help of the green-eyed Children of Crake—through the lush wilderness that was so recently a great city, until powerful corporations took mankind on an uncontrolled genetic engineering ride. Margaret Atwood projects us into a near future that is both all too familiar and beyond our imagining.

⚡️ Intermediate Soldering Session
2023-10-26 18:00 - 20:00 | Iffy Books (319 N. 11th St.), 319 N. 11th St. #2I, Philadelphia, PA, 19107, United States
On Thursday, October 26th from 6–8 p.m. we’re hosting an intermediate soldering session. 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:

💻 Philly JS Club Hack Night
2023-10-27 17:00 - 20:00 | Iffy Books (319 N. 11th St.), 319 N. 11th St. #2I, Philadelphia, PA, 19107, United States
Bring your laptops and hang out with fellow community members of Philly JS Club for an evening of hacking on personal projects.
The Philadelphia JavaScript Club, founded in 2022, is a place for developers of all skill and experience levels to connect, show off their work, and learn new things.
We are devoted to being good citizens: we’re here to help support individual and organizational development, to connect developers with the events going on in Philadelphia, and to provide a safe space for people to try new things. We want to empower everyone who joins us to build the best things they can build; we want to help make instant friends amongst the developers who call Philadelphia home.
We’re happy for you to join us.

⚡️ Beginner Circuit Workshop
2023-10-29 13:30 - 15:30 | Iffy Books (319 N. 11th St.), 319 N. 11th St. #2I, Philadelphia, PA, 19107, United States
On Sunday, October 29th at 1:30 p.m. we’re hosting an electronics workshop for beginners. No soldering required! We’ll use A Beginner’s Guide to Circuits by Øyvind Nydal Dahl as our guide.
This workshop is free to attend, but you’ll need to buy an electronics kit for $12 to complete the projects. The kit contains the parts you’ll need to complete all nine projects in the book A Beginner’s Guide to Circuits. We’ll also have copies the book for sale for $17.95. (9-volt battery not included. We’ll have batteries to share at the event.)
Register:

🔓 First Friday TOOOL Meetup
2023-11-03 18:00 - 21:00 | Iffy Books (319 N. 11th St.), 319 N. 11th St. #2I, Philadelphia, PA, 19107, United States
On Friday, November 3rd, 6–9 p.m. we’re hosting a meetup run by the Philadelphia Chapter of the Open Organization of Lockpickers.
> Come join us for our monthly First Friday 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.

🎤 Disengineering Society Vape Mic Workshop
2023-11-04 13:00 - 15:00 | Iffy Books (319 N. 11th St.), 319 N. 11th St. #2I, Philadelphia, PA, 19107, United States
Vape Mic: Build a DIY mic using parts from a disposable vape
a workshop led by the Disengineering Society
In a world of products planned for obsolescence, disposable vapes reign supreme as pieces of modern technology that are almost never properly recycled. While the vape juice may run out, the battery, sensor, and sturdy housing are still perfectly usable. Disengineering’s “post-nicotine” design makes use of these would-be disposed-of components by adding a mic element, some simple DIY engineering, and an aux output to get the vape mic.
This project introduces electret microphones, waste component rewiring, and a simple power supply circuit. The goal of this project is to create a microphone housing from a disposable nicotine vape, using a few of the components inside the vape.
The Disengineering Society will have some discarded vape devices to share for this project. But feel free to bring your own if you have one.
We’re doing a $5–10 suggested donation for this workshop. It’s fine if you can’t afford it.
Register:

The Disengineering Society is a group that takes a non-conventional approach to the engineering space by facilitating an environment for people to work together to hack hardware, software, and e-waste for sonic repurposing and re-engineering. We aim to combat the notion of “planned obsolescence” by pointing to DIY culture as a tool through which awareness can be raised, people can be educated, and strange sounds can be made regardless of skill level or prior knowledge pertaining to electronics or music. Throughout the past year (our inaugural year as an official student organization) we have achieved this through hosting weekly workshops, which we hold in our lab space at Wesleyan, where we introduce basic DIY audio electronics concepts and provide opportunities for participants to experiment hands-on with these concepts.

We believe in dispelling the notion often reinforced by the DIY ethos that singular innovations are created by isolated individual geniuses in a linear progression of new objects and styles. Instead, in our meetings and approach to engineering, we recognize the outcomes of creative labor as ongoing and adaptive processes that, in turn, feed back into community building.

Philly Socialists Meetup
2023-11-05 13:00 - 15:00 | Iffy Books (319 N. 11th St.), 319 N. 11th St. #2I, Philadelphia, PA, 19107, United States
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.
This is a meeting for new and interested members to learn about Philly Socialists’ history, organizing style, and how to get involved in building a base for socialist politics.

⚙️ Neo-Luddite Reading Group: ‘The Human Use of Human Beings’ by Norbert Wiener (Chs. 3–7)
2023-11-07 18:30 - 20:30 | Iffy Books (319 N. 11th St.), 319 N. 11th St. #2I, Philadelphia, PA, 19107, United States
Our current book for the Neo-Luddite Reading Group is The Human Use of Human Beings by Norbert Wiener (1950, revised 1954). On Tuesday, November 7th we’re meeting to discuss chapters 3–7.
Meetup link
After this book we’ll read Race After Technology by Ruha Benjamin (could maybe pair it with chapters from Artificial Whiteness, unless we just feel like reading it in its entirety in the future.

⚡️ Beginner Soldering Workshop
2023-11-09 18:00 - 20:00 | Iffy Books (319 N. 11th St.), 319 N. 11th St. #2I, Philadelphia, PA, 19107, United States
On Thursday, November 9th at 6:00 p.m. we’re running 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:

🚂 Model Internet Club
2023-11-11 13:00 - 17:00 | Iffy Books (319 N. 11th St.), 319 N. 11th St. #2I, Philadelphia, PA, 19107, United States
The Model Internet Club meets again on Saturday, November 11th, 1–5 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. There’s a local bulletin board in the works, and we’re considering our options for connecting wi-fi access points.
We’re looking for websites to run on our local network! If you have an idea, email iffybooks@iffybooks.net or join us on November 11th.
Here’s a photo of our current setup:

💾🌾 Iffy Books Permacomputing Meetup
2023-11-12 13:00 - 15:00 | Iffy Books (319 N. 11th St.), 319 N. 11th St. #2I, Philadelphia, PA, 19107, United States
Our next permacomputing meetup is on Sunday, November 12th at 1:00 PM EST. You can join us in person at Iffy Books (319 N. 11th St. #2I, PHL) or via Jitsi Meet.
This month we’re discussing the talk “An approach to computing and sustainability inspired from permaculture” by Devine Lu Linvega. [Video link]
➡️ 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)

📙 A reading by Treatbaby, Silt, Ferrucci & Skrabalak
2023-11-17 19:00 - 21:00 | Iffy Books (319 N. 11th St.), 319 N. 11th St. #2I, Philadelphia, PA, 19107, United States
Hi Philly poetry pals,

Next Friday, November 17th, four of my favorite people and poets will be in our fair city to give readings. There will also be a surprise! Please join me in welcoming this legendary quartet— seriously, you won’t want to miss this.

Nora Treatbaby is a writer and artist based in New York State. Her first book, Our Air, arrives next spring from Nightboat Books. She has published two chapbooks, I <3 2 Swim (2022) and Hope Is Weird (2020).

Irene Silt writes about power, anti-work feeling, joy, and deviance. Their essays and poems have been published in Mask Magazine, ANTIGRAVITY, Spoil, LESTE, Trou Noir, Poiesis Journal and in the Tripwire pamphlet series. They live in New York.

Ryan Skrabalak is a writer, worker, and organizer from upstate “New York” currently based in “Kansas.” He is a member of AFT 6403 and edits the poetry micropress Spiral Editions.

Carolyn Ferrucci is a poet writing lately about misunderstanding, the weather, and centers. Work can be found in Works and Days, Spoil, the Brooklyn Rail, Changes, Fieldnotes UK, Form IV, and No Dear.

We’ll be convening at IFFY BOOKS (319 N. 11th St. #2I) at 7p on Friday, November 17. Readings will begin at 7:30p or so. Please see attached flyer featuring a windswept Cliff for your pleasure.

See you soon!
xoted

🏴 Tabling at the Anarchy Skill Fair
2023-11-18 12:00 - 17:00 | 49th & Botanic Ave.
See y’all at the anarchy skill fair on Saturday, November 18th!

💻 Future of Coding Meetup
2023-11-19 13:00 - 15:00 | Iffy Books (319 N. 11th St.), 319 N. 11th St. #2I, Philadelphia, PA, 19107, United States
Future of Coding is an online community with a welcoming, cooperative, and revolutionary spirit. We are unified in the belief that the common practice of programming is tragically less humane than it could be. There’s a world of possibilities that get more beautiful the further away from the norm you go. We’re here to explore this world together, to discuss ideas about theory and practice, and to champion and support our members’ research and development efforts to reimagine computing.

Closed November 23
2023-11-23
We’ll be closed on Thursday, November 23rd. Sorry for the inconvenience!
