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

🎶 Intro to Computer Music: Chaos and Shift Registers in Max with Dr. Matt
2024-12-09 18:00 - 20:00 (America/New_York) | Iffy Books, 404 S. 20th St., Philadelphia, 19146, United States
The modeling of chaotic systems is one of the most exciting and fruitful areas within the discipline of generative music. In this workshop, participants will commune with the same alien logics found within mythical devices such as Buchla synthesizers and Robert Hordijk’s benjolin via the construction of a linear feedback shift register (LFSR). While often described as random number sequence generators, we will witness firsthand how the output of these chaotic systems can generate complex repeating rhythms and melodies from software-based synthesizers and MIDI-enabled hardware. To accomplish this task, we will be using the graphical programming platform Max [cycling74.com/downloads/]. No musical or computer programming experience is necessary, but participants are encouraged to download Max ahead of time and take a look. Please bring your own laptops, if possible. For questions, please contact instructor Matt O’Hare at me@mattohare.com or reach out on instagram at @waterworld_part2.
Register

✏️ The Writing Room
2024-12-10 17:00 - 19:30, 2024-12-17 17:00 - 19:30, 2025-01-07 17:00 - 19:30, 2025-01-14 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.

⚙️ Neo-Luddite Reading Group: 'The Age of Surveillance Capitalism' by Shoshana Zuboff
2024-12-11 18:30 - 20:30, 2025-01-08 18:30 - 20:30 | 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

🔍 How to Investigate Your Government: Researching Security Institutions & Their Contractors
2024-12-16 18:30 - 20:30 | Iffy Books, 404 S. 20th St., Philadelphia, 19146, United States
Interested in learning public records techniques for exposing the relationships between corporations and Western security agencies?
Investigative journalist Jack Poulson will provide an overview of U.S. federal procurement analysis methodology which led the Pentagon to confirm deleting $200 million in artificial intelligence-based surveillance contracts from public record. High-level overviews will also be provided for analyzing government contracts across the Five Eyes, EU, and Israel, and how to curate your own mirror to such records for possible integration with Form 990 tax filings, lobbying filings, campaign contributions, and open source research, as the author has done through techinquiry.org.
Bring a laptop if you have one!

🖇️ Volunteer Zine Folding Session
2024-12-18 14:00 - 16:00 | Iffy Books, 404 S. 20th St., Philadelphia, 19146, United States
We print a *lot* of zines at Iffy Books, which we distribute for free or by donation. That means we’re constantly folding and stapling, which takes patience. And we’re currently having a hard time keeping all 150+ titles in stock.

So we’re running a volunteer zine folding session every other Wednesday afternoon! If you’ve been looking for a way to get involved at the shop, here’s your chance. (We’re limiting the number of sign-ups because we only have three booklet staplers.)
Register:
coming soon!

If you register and you can’t make it, let us know at iffybooks@iffybooks.net. Thanks!

📚 Capital Reading Group
2024-12-19 19:00 - 21:00 | Iffy Books, 404 S. 20th St., Philadelphia, 19146, United States
Join us on the first and third Thursday of every month at 7 p.m. for a reading group on Capital by Karl Marx.
Here’s what we’re reading for December 19th:
• Chapter 1, Section 4
• Chapter 2
• Chapter 3, Section 1
We’re reading Paul Reitter’s recent translation (Princeton University Press, 2024).

🧷 Punk Rock Flea Market: Night Market on 12/20
2024-12-20 16:00 - 22:00 | 23rd St. Armory, 22 S. 23rd St., Philadelphia, PA, 19103, United States
On Friday, December 20th we’ll be at the Punk Rock Flea Market at the 23rd Street Armory (22 S. 23rd St.) from 4 to 10 p.m. See y’all there!

🔓 T̶O̶O̶O̶L̶ ̶L̶o̶c̶k̶ ̶P̶i̶c̶k̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶M̶e̶e̶t̶u̶p̶ (Join us next month!)
2024-12-20 18:00 - 20:00 | Iffy Books, 404 S. 20th St., Philadelphia, 19146, United States
This month’s lock picking meetup is canceled. Sorry about that! The next one is on January 17th.
Original description:
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.

📡 Meshtastic 101
2024-12-23 15:00 - 17:00 | Iffy Books, 404 S. 20th St., Philadelphia, 19146, United States
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:
Registration for this event is now closed. We'll offer it again soon!

❄️ Closed Dec 25!
2024-12-25 | Iffy Books, 404 S. 20th St., Philadelphia, 19146, United States
We’ll be closed all day on Wednesday, December 25th. Sorry for the inconvenience! We’ll be back on the 26th.
If you need a last-minute gift, we have online gift cards.
Photo source

⚡ Beginner Soldering: Make a DIY Guitar Cable
2024-12-30 11:00 - 12:00 | Iffy Books, 404 S. 20th St., Philadelphia, 19146, United States
On Monday, December 30th at 11 a.m. we’re running 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–$10 donation for the class, notaflof.
Register:
Registration for this event is now closed. We'll offer it again soon!

🎉 Closed Jan 1!
2025-01-01
We’ll be closed all day on Wednesday, January 1st, 2025. Sorry for the inconvenience! We’ll be back on the 2nd.
Image source

📚 Capital Reading Group
2025-01-02 19:00 - 21:00 | Iffy Books, 404 S. 20th St., Philadelphia, 19146, United States
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 ..

💻 Philly 2600 Meetup
2025-01-03 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.

⚡ ̶B̶e̶g̶i̶n̶n̶e̶r̶ ̶S̶o̶l̶d̶e̶r̶i̶n̶g̶:̶ ̶M̶a̶k̶e̶ ̶a̶ ̶D̶I̶Y̶ ̶G̶u̶i̶t̶a̶r̶ ̶C̶a̶b̶l̶e̶ (canceled due to weather!)
2025-01-06 12:00 - 13:00 | Iffy Books, 404 S. 20th St., Philadelphia, 19146, United States
On ̶M̶o̶n̶d̶a̶y̶,̶ ̶J̶a̶n̶u̶a̶r̶y̶ ̶6̶t̶h̶ ̶a̶t̶ ̶n̶o̶o̶n̶ we’re running 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–$10 donation for the class, notaflof.

⚡ Beginner Soldering: Make a DIY Guitar Cable
2025-01-08 13:00 - 14:00 | Iffy Books, 404 S. 20th St., Philadelphia, 19146, United States
On Wednesday, January 8th at 1:00 p.m. we’re running 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 also suggesting a $5–$10 donation for the class, notaflof.
Register:
Registration for this event is now closed. We'll offer it again soon!

⚡ Beginner Soldering: Make a DIY Guitar Cable
2025-01-09 12:00 - 13:00 | Iffy Books, 404 S. 20th St., Philadelphia, 19146, United States
On Thursday, January 9th at noon we’re running 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–$10 donation for the class, notaflof.
Register:
Registration for this event is now closed. We'll offer it again soon!

❄️ Winter QT Zine Jam!
2025-01-11 13:00 - 15:30 | Iffy Books, 404 S. 20th St., Philadelphia, 19146, United States
A Zine Jam for Queer and Trans identifying folx led by Pixel.
Not sure what zines are? Wishing to become a zinester?
You’ve come to the right place! This beginner-friendly zine jam will include a workshop component where we will peruse and learn about what zines are, how to make them, and how our QT identities play a part in that! Following, we’ll have an open zine making session.
For those who are more experienced, you’re welcome to also jump straight in with the supplies available on our zine cart too! Just want to hang out? We’ve got a huge collections of zines to browse from.
Masking requested. We’ll have masks to share.
Register:

🖇️ Volunteer Zine Folding Session
2025-01-15 12:00 - 14:00 | Iffy Books, 404 S. 20th St., Philadelphia, 19146, United States
We print a *lot* of zines at Iffy Books, which we distribute for free or by donation. That means we’re constantly folding and stapling, which takes patience. And we’re currently having a hard time keeping all 150+ titles in stock.

So we’re running a volunteer zine folding session every other Wednesday afternoon! If you’ve been looking for a way to get involved at the shop, here’s your chance. (We’re limiting the number of sign-ups because we only have three booklet staplers.)
Register for Jan 15:
Registration is now closed. We'll offer this event again soon!

If you register and you can’t make it, let us know at iffybooks@iffybooks.net. Thanks!

📚 Capital Reading Group
2025-01-16 19:00 - 21:00 | Iffy Books, 404 S. 20th St., Philadelphia, 19146, United States
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 post the sections we’re covering before each meeting.
We’ll be reading Paul Reitter’s recent translation (Princeton University Press, 2024).

💡 Solder & Code: Make a 3-Button Keyboard with a Pi Pico
2025-01-17 13:00 - 14:30 | Iffy Books, 404 S. 20th St., Philadelphia, 19146, United States
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 full. We’ll offer it again soon!

🔓 TOOOL Lock Picking Meetup
2025-01-17 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.

💡 Solder & Code: Make a 3-Button Keyboard with a Pi Pico
2025-01-18 11:00 - 12:30, 2025-01-20 14:00 - 15:30 | Iffy Books, 404 S. 20th St., Philadelphia, 19146, United States
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!

⚡ Beginner Soldering: Make a DIY Guitar Cable
2025-01-20 10:00 - 11:00, 2025-01-20 11:30 - 12:30 | Iffy Books, 404 S. 20th St., Philadelphia, 19146, United States
On Monday, January 20th at 10 a.m. & 11:30 a.m. we’re running 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 also suggesting a $5–$10 donation for the class, notaflof.
Register for 10 a.m.
Registration for this event is now closed. We'll offer it again soon!

Register for 11:30 a.m.
Registration for this event is now closed. We'll offer it again soon!
