🌞📚 Big Summer Book Sale at Icebox Project Space
2025-07-27 11:00 - 17:00 (America/New_York) | Icebox Project Space at Crane Arts, 1400 N American St., Philadelphia, PA, 19122, United States
See y’all at Icebox Project Space (1400 N American St.) for the Big Summer Book Sale 2025! We’ll be there all day, from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Thanks to Ulises Books and FORTUNE for putting it all together!

✏️ The Writing Room
2025-07-29 17:00 - 19:30, 2025-08-05 17:00 - 19:30, 2025-08-12 17:00 - 19:30, 2025-08-19 17:00 - 19:30, 2025-08-26 17:00 - 19:30, 2025-09-02 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.

🪐 Speculative Futures Reading Group
2025-07-30 19:00 - 20:30 | Iffy Books, 404 S. 20th St., Philadelphia, 19146, United States
The Speculative Futures Reading Group meets on the last Wednesday of every month at 7 p.m.!

🛜 E̶S̶P̶3̶2̶ ̶C̶a̶p̶t̶i̶v̶e̶ ̶P̶o̶r̶t̶a̶l̶ ̶W̶o̶r̶k̶s̶h̶o̶p̶
2025-08-01 11:15 - 12:30 | Iffy Books, 404 S. 20th St., Philadelphia, 19146, United States
We’re back to the drawing board on this project. Sorry about that. We’ll run it again sometime soon!

💻 Philly 2600 Meetup
2025-08-01 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.

📡 Meshtastic 101
2025-08-02 10:30 - 12:00 | 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:
(coming soon!)

🏠 IndieWeb Homebrew Website Club
2025-08-03 18:00 - 20:00 | Iffy Books, 404 S. 20th St., Philadelphia, 19146, United States
Homebrew Website Club is a growing world-wide network of meetups for everyone who wants to take back their web experience from social media silos, and own their online identities & content, or just want support with blogging!

📚 Capital Reading Group
2025-08-07 19:00 - 21:00, 2025-09-04 19:00 - 21:00 | Iffy Books, 404 S. 20th St., Philadelphia, 19146, United States
Join us for a discussion on Marx’s Capital by. We’ll post the sections we’re covering before each meeting.
We’re reading Paul Reitter’s recent translation (Princeton University Press, 2024).

🚂 Model Internet Club
2025-08-09 10:30 - 12:30 | Iffy Books, 404 S. 20th St., Philadelphia, 19146, United States
The Model Internet Club is back! Join us every third Saturday from 10:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. for an informal meetup focused on building small-scale computer networks.
No registration needed for this event! If we run out of space we can expand into our back yard area.

⚙️ Neo-Luddite Reading Group: 'Empire of AI' by Karen Hao
2025-08-13 18:30 - 20:30 | Iffy Books, 404 S. 20th St., Philadelphia, 19146, United States
➡️ 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.

🎲 Pico Game Timer & Dice Workshop
2025-08-14 14:30 - 16:30 | Iffy Books, 404 S. 20th St., Philadelphia, 19146, United States
11Learn to make a programmable game timer and dice with a Pi Pico microcontroller! First you’ll solder six LEDs, two switches, and a vibration motor to the board’s GPIO pins. Then you’ll install and customize the CircuitPython code that makes it work. No experience needed!
You’ll need to buy a kit for $9 to complete this project. Here’s what’s included:
• RP2040/Pi Pico Board
• 6 LED lights
• vibration motor
• 2 push button switches
• 4 screws
• 4 spacers
• wood base
Register:
coming soon!

☀️ Solar Music Synth Workshop
2025-08-15 12:00 - 13:00 | Iffy Books, 404 S. 20th St., Philadelphia, 19146, United States
Join us and build a tiny solar-powered square wave generator on a breadboard. No soldering required! The workshop is free to attend, but you’ll need to purchase a kit for $12.50 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:
coming soon!

⚡️ Beginner Soldering: Flashing LED Circuit
2025-08-15 13:15 - 14:15, 2025-08-29 13:00 - 14:00 | Iffy Books, 404 S. 20th St., Philadelphia, 19146, United States
In this workshop you’ll learn the basics of soldering by building a tiny oscillator circuit with two transistors and two LED lights. No previous experience needed!
Register:
Registration for this event is now closed. Sorry.
Here's a link to future workshops in this series!

🪧 Yard Sale Day
2025-08-16 10:00 - 17:30 | Iffy Books, 404 S. 20th St., Philadelphia, 19146, United States
On Saturday, August 16th we’ll be selling some of the computers, network switches, cables, and random odds and ends that have accumulated in our basement. You may want to show up early!

👁️ Intelligence History Reading Group: 'The Mission: The CIA in the 21st Century' by Tim Weiner (1st half)
2025-08-20 19:00 - 20:30 | Iffy Books, 404 S. 20th St., Philadelphia, 19146, United States
Join us Wednesday, August 20th at 7 p.m. for a discussion on the first half of The Mission: The CIA in the 21st Century by Tim Weiner (2025).
At the turn of the century, the Central Intelligence Agency was in crisis. The end of the Cold War had robbed the agency of its mission. More than thirty overseas stations and bases had been shuttered, and scores that remained had been severely cut back. Many countries where surveillance was once deemed crucial went uncovered. Essential intelligence wasn’t being collected. At the dawn of the information age, the CIA’s officers and analysts worked with outmoded technology, struggling to distinguish the clear signals of significant facts from the cacophony of background noise.
Then came September 11th, 2001. After the attacks, the CIA transformed itself into a lethal paramilitary force, running secret prisons and brutal interrogations, mounting deadly drone attacks, and all but abandoning its core missions of espionage and counterespionage. The consequences were grave: the deaths of scores of its recruited foreign agents, the theft of its personnel files by Chinese spies, the penetration of its computer networks by Russian intelligence and American hackers, and the tragedies of Afghanistan and Iraq. A new generation of spies now must fight the hardest targets—Moscow, Beijing, Tehran—while confronting a president who has attacked the CIA as a subversive force.
From Pulitzer Prize winner Tim Weiner, The Mission tells the gripping, high-stakes story of the CIA through the first quarter of the twenty-first century, revealing how the agency fought to rebuild the espionage powers it lost during the war on terror—and finally succeeded in penetrating the Kremlin. The struggle has life-and-death consequences for America and its allies. The CIA must reclaim its original mission: know thy enemies. The fate of the free world hangs in the balance.
A masterpiece of reporting, The Mission includes exclusive on-the-record interviews with six former CIA directors, the top spymaster, thirteen station chiefs, and scores of top operations officers who served undercover for decades and have never spoken to a journalist before.

🖼️ B̶l̶o̶c̶k̶ ̶P̶r̶i̶n̶t̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶W̶o̶r̶k̶s̶h̶o̶p̶ (postponed)
2025-08-21 17:30 - 20:30 | Iffy Books, 404 S. 20th St., Philadelphia, 19146, United States
This workshop is postponed ’til September. Stay tuned for the new date! We apologize for the inconvenience.
̶J̶o̶i̶n̶ ̶u̶s̶ ̶o̶n̶ ̶T̶h̶u̶r̶s̶d̶a̶y̶,̶ ̶A̶u̶g̶u̶s̶t̶ ̶2̶1̶s̶t̶ ̶a̶n̶d̶ ̶l̶e̶a̶r̶n̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶b̶a̶s̶i̶c̶s̶ ̶o̶f̶ ̶b̶l̶o̶c̶k̶ ̶p̶r̶i̶n̶t̶i̶n̶g̶!̶ ̶W̶e̶’̶l̶l̶ ̶u̶s̶e̶ ̶S̶p̶e̶e̶d̶y̶-̶C̶a̶r̶v̶e̶ ̶b̶l̶o̶c̶k̶s̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶c̶r̶e̶a̶t̶e̶ ̶d̶e̶s̶i̶g̶n̶s̶,̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶n̶ ̶w̶e̶’̶l̶l̶ ̶m̶a̶k̶e̶ ̶p̶r̶i̶n̶t̶s̶ ̶u̶s̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶a̶ ̶m̶a̶n̶u̶a̶l̶ ̶p̶r̶e̶s̶s̶.̶ ̶F̶u̶n̶!̶

Photo CC-BY mosmanlibrary

⚡️ Beginner Soldering: Flashing LED Circuit
2025-08-22 13:00 - 14:00 | Iffy Books, 404 S. 20th St., Philadelphia, 19146, United States
In this workshop you’ll learn the basics of soldering by building a tiny oscillator circuit with two transistors and two LED lights. No previous experience needed!
Register:
coming soon!

🐌 Philly Bookstore Crawl
2025-08-23 10:00 - 18:00 | Iffy Books, 404 S. 20th St., Philadelphia, 19146, United States
The third annual Philly Bookstore Crawl is on Saturday, August 23rd. Can’t wait to see y’all!

🪐 Speculative Futures Reading Group: 'A Canticle for Leibowitz' by Walter M. Miller Jr.
2025-08-27 19:00 - 20:30 | Iffy Books, 404 S. 20th St., Philadelphia, 19146, United States

⚙️ DIY Macro Keyboard Workshop
2025-08-28 14:30 - 16:30 | Iffy Books, 404 S. 20th St., Philadelphia, 19146, United States
For this workshop you’ll use a Pi Pico board and CircuitPython to create a programmable mechanical keyboard with two keys. No soldering experience necessary!
To complete this project you’ll need to buy a kit for $14. Here’s what’s included:
• RP2040/Pi Pico board
• 2 mechanical keyboard switches
• 2 key caps
• oak base with pilot holes
• 4 stripped wires (2″)
• 1 mm heat shrink tubing (3″)
• 4 M2 screws
• 4 M2 spacer rings
• sandpaper square
➡️ Instructions & links
Register
Registration for this event is now closed. We'll offer it again soon!

☀️ Solar Music Synth Workshop
2025-08-29 12:00 - 13:00 | Iffy Books, 404 S. 20th St., Philadelphia, 19146, United States
Join us and build a tiny solar-powered square wave generator on a breadboard. No soldering required! The workshop is free to attend, but you’ll need to purchase a kit for $12.50 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:
Registration for this event is now closed. We'll offer it again soon!

📡 Meshtastic 101
2025-08-30 10:30 - 12:00 | 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!

⚡️ Beginner Soldering: Flashing LED Circuit
2025-09-05 17:30 - 18:30 | Iffy Books, 404 S. 20th St., Philadelphia, 19146, United States
In this workshop you’ll learn the basics of soldering by building a tiny oscillator circuit with two transistors and two LED lights. No previous experience needed!
Register:
Registration for this event is now closed. Sorry.
Here's a link to future workshops in this series!
This workshop is now full. We'll offer it again soon!
