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

⚙️ Neo-Luddite Reading Group: 'The Age of Surveillance Capitalism' by Shoshana Zuboff
2025-02-12 18:30 - 20:30 (America/New_York) | Iffy Books, 404 S. 20th St., Philadelphia, 19146, United States
Our next book for the Neo-Luddite Reading Group is The Age of Surveillance Capitalism by Shoshana Zuboff (2019).
➡️ Virtual Meetup Link
Discord: Email neoluddite@victorgom.es for an invite!
Full schedule: victorgom.es/neoluddite
If you’re joining for the first time, I’d suggest you read this before anything else for brief context: What the Luddites Really Fought Against by Richard Conniff.The only expectation is that you read the chapter(s) of the book that’s listed for that meeting. You’re still welcome to participate if you haven’t done the readings as long as you are mindful. For each chapter, I’ve also noted some optional readings for context, so I’d suggest checking those out rather than reading ahead in the book. And remember, if you ever find yourself struggling with any of the readings or concepts, reach out! Either directly to me over email or to the entire group over discord.

Meeting 1 (Dec. 11th):📖 Introduction & Part One: The Foundations of Surveillance Capitalism

1. Home or exile in the digital future

Gemini intelligence is coming to Google Home by Jennifer Pattison Tuohy

2. August 9, 2011: Setting the Stage for Surveillance Capitalism

🗞️ Artificial intelligence is going to supercharge surveillance by James Vincent

3. The Discovery of Behavioral Surplus

🗞️ Everyone should decide how their digital data are used – not just tech companies by Jathan Sadowski, Salomé Viljoen, Meredith Whittaker

4. The Moat Around the Castle

Google “We Have No Moat, And Neither Does OpenAI” by Dylan Patel and Afzal Ahmad

5. The Elaboration of Surveillance Capitalism: Kidnap, Corner, Compete

🗞️ Do platforms work? by George Zarkadakis

6. Hijacked: The Division of Learning in Society

🗞️ Writing and Learning to Write in the Age of AI by Jane Rosenzweig

Meeting 2 (Jan. 8th):📖 Part II: The Advance of Surveillance Capitalism

7. The Reality Business

TBA

8. Rendition: From Experience to Data

📜 Will we run out of data? An analysis of the limits of scaling datasets in Machine Learning by Pablo Villalobos, Jaime Sevilla, Lennart Heim, Tamay Besiroglu, Marius Hobbhahn, & Anson Ho

9. Rendition from the Depths.

TBA

10. Make Them Dance

TBA

11. The Right to the Future Tense

🎥 On Bureaucratic Technologies and the Future as Dream-Time by David Graeber

Meeting 3 (Feb. 12th):📖 Part III: Instrumentarian Power for a Third Modernity & Conclusion

12. Two Species of Power

TBA

13. Big Other and the Rise of Instrumentarian Power

TBA

14. A Utopia of Certainty

TBA

15. The Instrumentarian Collective

🎥 The Case Against B.F. Skinner by Noam Chomsky

16. Of Life in the Hive

🎥 Can’t Get You Out of My Head E1 by Adam Curtis

17. The Right to Sanctuary

TBA

18. A Coup from Above”

🎵 Spain by W.H. Auden

Additional resources

Outreach Resources & Guides

📜 Digital Defense Playbook: Community Power Tools for Reclaiming Data by Our Data Bodies
📜 A People’s Guide to AI by Mimi Onuoha and Mother Cyborg (Diana Nucera)
📜 Algorithmic Accountability: A Primer by Data & Society
🗞️ Prior to (or instead of) using ChatGPT with your students by Autumn Caines

Potential Future Reads

📖 Automating Inequality: How High-Tech Tools Profile, Police, and Punish the Poor by Virginia Eubanks
📖 Questioning Technology: Tool, Toy or Tyrant by John Zerzan & Alice Carnes
📖 Technofix: Why Technology Won’t Save Us or the Environment by Michael Huesemann & Joyce Huesemann
📖 Fight Like Hell: The Untold History of American Labor by Kim Kelly
📖 The Internet Con: How to Seize the Means of Computation by Cory Doctorow

Links to more links

📋 Critical Lenses on AI by Iris van Rooij
📋 Resources by Ruha Benjamin

More on Luddites

🗞️ I’m a Luddite. You should be one too by Jathan Sadowski
🗞️ Byron Was One of the Few Prominent Defenders of the Luddites by Kat Eschner

Poems

🎵 A Luddite Lullaby by Don Bogen
🎵 All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace by Richard Brautigan
🎵 I Am the People, the Mob by Carl Sandburg
🎵 They Say This Isn’t a Poem by Kenneth Rexroth
🎵 Under Which Lyre by W.H. Auden
🎵 When I Heard The Learn’d Astronomer by Walt Whitman

❤️ Soldering Practice: LED Heart Board
2025-02-12 14:00 - 15:30, 2025-02-11 12:00 - 13:30, 2025-02-10 13:30 - 15:00
Come out and get some soldering practice! This time we’re making a heart-shaped board with 22 LEDs, using an oscillator circuit to dim and brighten them at the speed you choose.
This project is ideal for folks who have soldered at least once before. Beginners are welcome to join us, but it may take you more than one session to finish. Working with a friend is encouraged!
The kit you’ll need to complete this project costs $5.50. We’re suggesting a $10–$25 donation for the class, no one turned away for lack of funds.
Register:
Registration for this event is now closed. We'll offer it again soon!

🎵 Cassette Mixtape Session
2025-02-12 12:00 - 13:30, 2025-02-11 10:00 - 11:30, 2025-02-10 12:00 - 13:30, 2025-02-09 10:30 - 12:00
Bring a playlist on your phone/computer and we’ll help you record it to an audio cassette tape! We have plenty of cassettes to share.
We’re suggesting a $5–$15 donation for this project. Thanks!
Register:
Registration for this event is now closed. We'll offer it again soon!

✏️ The Writing Room
2025-02-11 17:00 - 19:30, 2025-02-04 17:00 - 19:30
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.

📡 M̶e̶s̶h̶t̶a̶s̶t̶i̶c̶ ̶M̶o̶d̶s̶:̶ ̶B̶a̶t̶t̶e̶r̶i̶e̶s̶ ̶&̶ ̶C̶a̶n̶n̶e̶d̶ ̶M̶e̶s̶s̶a̶g̶e̶s̶ (postponed!)
2025-02-08 11:00 - 12:30
We’re postponing this workshop while we work out some issues with the rotary encoders we’re using. We’re sorry for the inconvenience! Stay tuned for a new date sometime in the next few weeks.
̶>̶ ̶I̶f̶ ̶y̶o̶u̶’̶r̶e̶ ̶a̶l̶r̶e̶a̶d̶y̶ ̶u̶s̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶M̶e̶s̶h̶t̶a̶s̶t̶i̶c̶ ̶a̶n̶d̶ ̶y̶o̶u̶’̶r̶e̶ ̶c̶u̶r̶i̶o̶u̶s̶ ̶a̶b̶o̶u̶t̶ ̶a̶d̶d̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶h̶a̶r̶d̶w̶a̶r̶e̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶y̶o̶u̶r̶ ̶L̶o̶R̶a̶ ̶r̶a̶d̶i̶o̶,̶ ̶t̶h̶i̶s̶ ̶w̶o̶r̶k̶s̶h̶o̶p̶ ̶i̶s̶ ̶f̶o̶r̶ ̶y̶o̶u̶!̶ ̶W̶e̶’̶l̶l̶ ̶s̶h̶o̶w̶ ̶y̶o̶u̶ ̶h̶o̶w̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶a̶t̶t̶a̶c̶h̶ ̶a̶ ̶l̶i̶t̶h̶i̶u̶m̶-̶i̶o̶n̶ ̶b̶a̶t̶t̶e̶r̶y̶ ̶a̶n̶d̶/̶o̶r̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶h̶a̶r̶d̶w̶a̶r̶e̶ ̶y̶o̶u̶’̶l̶l̶ ̶n̶e̶e̶d̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶u̶s̶e̶d̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶”̶c̶a̶n̶n̶e̶d̶ ̶m̶e̶s̶s̶a̶g̶e̶s̶”̶ ̶f̶e̶a̶t̶u̶r̶e̶.̶ ̶T̶h̶e̶r̶e̶ ̶w̶i̶l̶l̶ ̶b̶e̶ ̶s̶o̶l̶d̶e̶r̶i̶n̶g̶.̶ ̶S̶t̶a̶y̶ ̶t̶u̶n̶e̶d̶ ̶f̶o̶r̶ ̶d̶e̶t̶a̶i̶l̶s̶ ̶&̶ ̶r̶e̶g̶i̶s̶t̶r̶a̶t̶i̶o̶n̶!̶

💻 Philly 2600 Meetup
2025-02-07 18:00 - 20:00
> The Philly 2600 meeting is a monthly gathering of local hackers, phreaks, nerds, geeks, activists, tinkerers, developers, infosec professionals, and other interesting people.

❤️ Soldering Practice: LED Heart Board
2025-02-07 14:00 - 15:30
Come out and get some soldering practice! This time we’re making a heart-shaped board with 22 LEDs, using an oscillator circuit to dim and brighten them at the speed you choose.
This project is ideal for folks who have soldered at least once before. Beginners are welcome to join us, but it may take you more than one session to finish. Working with a friend is encouraged!
The kit you’ll need to complete this project costs $5.50. We’re suggesting a $5–$20 donation for the class, no one turned away for lack of funds.
Register:
Registration for this event is now closed. We'll offer it again soon!

📡 Meshtastic Mods: Batteries & Canned Messages
2025-02-07 12:00 - 13:30
If you’re already using Meshtastic and you’re curious about adding hardware to your LoRa radio, this workshop is for you! We’ll show you how to attach a lithium-ion battery and/or the hardware you’ll need to used the “canned messages” feature. There will be soldering. Stay tuned for details & registration!

📚 Capital Reading Group
2025-02-06 19:00 - 21:00
Join us on the first and third Thursday of every month at 7 p.m. for a reading group on Capital by Karl Marx.
We’ll be reading Paul Reitter’s recent translation (Princeton University Press, 2024).

October 17:
• The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, Chapters 1–5
• Principles of Political Economy by John Stuart Mill, Chapter 1
November 7: Chapter 1, section 1
November 21: Chapter 1, section 2
December 5: 4. Chapter 1, section 3
December 19: Chapter 1, section 4
January 2: Recap and discussion
January 16: Chapter 2
February 6: Chapter 3, section 1
February 20: Chapter 3, section 2
March 6: Chapter 3, section 3
March 20: Chapter 4 ..

🔊 Beginner Soldering: DIY Audio Meter
2025-02-06 12:00 - 13:30
Join us for another beginner-friendly soldering project at Iffy Books! You’ll assemble a DIY audio meter kit, which you can use to visualize an audio signal’s amplitude.
To complete this project you’ll need to buy a kit for $7.95. We’re suggesting a $5–$20 donation for the class, no one turned away for lack of funds. We’ll provide soldering irons and solder.
Register:
coming soon!

💻 DC215: Hands Off – Make the Machines Do It!
2025-02-05 18:00 - 20:00
Welcome to the DC215 Meetup! Join us for an exciting gathering of tech enthusiasts, hackers, and cybersecurity professionals at Iffy Books. This in-person event is the perfect opportunity to network, share knowledge, and engage with like-minded individuals in the industry. Whether you’re a seasoned pro or just starting out, everyone is welcome to come together for a night of learning and fun. Don’t miss out on this chance to connect with the vibrant tech community of Philly.
Agenda
6 PM – 6:45 PM: Socialize
6:45 PM – 7 PM: Updates & Announcements
7 PM – 7:30 PM: Presentation
7:30 – 8 PM: Wind Down
Hands Off – Make the Machines Do It!
Manual processes in security operations are no longer sufficient to keep pace with emerging threats and increasing workloads. This talk explores the journey of fostering a culture of automation within a security operations team to enhance efficiency, accuracy, and improve analyst job satisfaction. Attendees will learn practical strategies to identify high-impact automation opportunities, overcome resistance to change, and empower team members with the tools and skills to adopt an automation-first mindset. By integrating automation into the fabric of daily workflows, teams can not only improve operational performance but also focus on more strategic, value-driven security initiatives. Whether you’re starting your automation journey or looking to scale existing efforts, this session will provide actionable insights to build a resilient, adaptive, and forward-looking security operations culture.
RSVP on Meetup (optional)

🔊 Beginner Soldering: DIY Audio Meter
2025-02-04 12:00 - 13:30, 2025-02-03 12:00 - 13:30
Join us for another beginner-friendly soldering project at Iffy Books! You’ll assemble a DIY audio meter kit, which you can use to visualize an audio signal’s amplitude.
To complete this project you’ll need to buy a kit for $7.95. We’re suggesting a $5–$20 donation for the class, no one turned away for lack of funds. We’ll provide soldering irons and solder.
Register:
Registration for this event is now closed. We'll offer it again soon!

⚡ Beginner Soldering: Make a DIY Guitar Cable
2025-02-04 10:30 - 11:30, 2025-02-03 10:30 - 11:30
Join us for a relatively quick and easy soldering workshop, suitable for total beginners! You’ll strip some wires and solder 1/4-inch plugs to the ends, creating your own guitar cable.
You can get a kit with 6 inches of cable for $4.25, or 4 feet for $13.50. We’re suggesting a $5–$15 donation for the class, notaflof.
Register:
Registration for this event is now closed. We'll offer it again soon!

🔊 Beginner Soldering: DIY Audio Meter | Sunday, February 2nd, 10:30 a.m. – 12:00 p.m.
2025-02-02 10:30 - 12:00

✨ NFC Sculpture Workshop
2025-02-01 11:00 - 13:00
In this workshop we’ll make little clay sculptures with NFC tags embedded inside, which you can use to trigger shortcuts on your phone. Fun!
Here’s a link to a blog post about this project.
Register:
Registration for this event is now closed. Sorry about that!
This workshop is now full. We'll offer it again soon!

📡 Meshtastic 101
2025-01-31 15:00 - 17:00
Join us for an introduction to Meshtastic, an application that lets you send private text messages over the air using pocket-sized LoRa radio transceivers. We’ll show you how to flash the latest Meshtastic firmware to the device, customize the settings, and start chatting with your friends.
Here’s a link to our zine on LoRa + Meshtastic.
Register for Jan 31st:
(coming soon!)

🎵 Cassette Mixtape Session
2025-01-31 12:00 - 13:30
Bring a playlist on your phone/computer and we’ll help you record it to an audio cassette tape. We have plenty of tapes to share!
Register for January 31st:
Registration for this event is now closed. We'll offer it again soon!
This workshop is now full. We'll offer it again soon!

💡 Solder & Code: Make a 3-Button Keyboard with a Pi Pico
2025-01-31 10:00 - 11:30, 2025-01-30 10:00 - 11:30
In this workshop you’ll build and program a customizable 3-button USB keyboard using a Pi Pico microcontroller. You can program each button to type a chunk of text (e.g., your email signature), enter a keyboard shortcut, or launch an application. It’s easier than it sounds!
Here’s what we’ll do:
• Solder three push button switches onto your Pi Pico
• Install CircuitPython firmware
• Install Adafruit HID libraries
• Copy example code to your Pi Pico
• Adjust the example code to make your own custom keyboard
We’ll have a limited number of computers to share, so bring a laptop (Windows/macOS/Linux) if you can.
You’ll need to buy a Pi Pico Push Button Interface Kit for $9.75 to complete this project. We’re recommending a $5–$20 donation for the class (notaflof).

Register:
Registration for this event is now closed. We'll offer it again soon!
This workshop is now full. We'll offer it again soon!

🐢 Draw with code! An intro to turtle graphics using Python
2025-01-30 12:00 - 13:30
Stay tuned for details & registration!
☀️ Draw with code! An intro to turtle graphics using Python
☀️ Screen reading PDF
☀️ Print-imposed PDF
▶️ Project files on GitHub
Register for Jan 27th:
Registration for this event is now closed. We'll offer it again soon!
This workshop is now full. We'll offer it again soon!

Register for Jan 30th:
Registration for this event is now closed. We'll offer it again soon!
This workshop is now full. We'll offer it again soon!

🪐 Speculative Futures Reading Group: 'The Stone Sky' by N. K. Jemisin
2025-01-29 19:00 - 20:30
Join us Wednesday, January 29th at 7 p.m. to discuss The Stone Sky by N. K. Jemisin, book three in the Broken Earth trilogy.
The Moon will soon return. Whether this heralds the destruction of humankind or something worse will depend on two women.
Essun has inherited the power of Alabaster Tenring. With it, she hopes to find her daughter Nassun and forge a world in which every orogene child can grow up safe.
For Nassun, her mother’s mastery of the Obelisk Gate comes too late. She has seen the evil of the world, and accepted what her mother will not admit: that sometimes what is corrupt cannot be cleansed, only destroyed.

❤️ Soldering Practice: LED Heart Board
2025-01-29 14:00 - 15:30
Come out and get some soldering practice! This time we’re making a heart-shaped board with 22 LEDs, using an oscillator circuit to dim and brighten them at the speed you choose.
This project is ideal for folks who have soldered at least once before. Beginners are welcome to join us, but it may take you more than one session to finish. Working with a friend is encouraged!
The kit you’ll need to complete this project costs $5.50. We’re suggesting a $5–$20 donation for the class, no one turned away for lack of funds.
Register:
Registration for this event is now closed. We'll offer it again soon!
This workshop is now full. We'll offer it again soon!
