Iffy Books | 404 S. 20th St., PHL
hacking, free culture, gardening, zines
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.
On Friday, September 8th at 6 p.m. we’re hosting 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 […]
Stop by Iffy Books any time from 4 to 6 p.m. on Saturday, September 9th and make a DIY Faraday shield for your phone! It's a quick project using aluminum foil and construction paper. When your phone is inside, you can be fairly sure it's isolated from radio communication via wi-fi, Bluetooth, and the cell […]
On Saturday, September 9th at 7 p.m. we're hosting a reading and Q&A with E.G. Condé, author of the novel Sordidez. Hope to see you there! E.G. Condé is an anthropologist of technology and an emerging speculative fiction writer of the Puerto Rican diaspora. His short fiction appears in If There’s Anyone Left, Reckoning, EASST […]
On Sunday, September 10th 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. Here’s a link to our updated zine on LoRa + Meshtastic. If you have a LoRa radio (or reserve one below), we’ll show you how to flash the latest Meshtastic firmware […]
Our next permacomputing meetup is on Sunday, September 10th 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 […]
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.
On Thursday, September 14th 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 […]
We’re hosting a virtual meetup on Thursday, September 14th at 7 p.m. to help Meshtastic users get connected. Our goal is to make a wireless chat network across the PHL area using low-power LoRa radios. To join the network, you’ll need a LoRa radio such as a Heltec LoRa32, LILYGO LoRa32, or LILYGO T-Beam. Here’s a full list of compatible devices. ➡️ Meetup link Here’s a link […]
The Model Internet Club meets again on Sunday, September 17th, 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 […]
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.
On Sunday, September 24th at 1:00 p.m. we’re hosting a workshop on creating charts and graphs with the Python programming language. We’ll use the modules matplotlib to create a range of common plots: histogram, pie chart, bar graph, line graph, and scatter plot. We’ll use Jupyter Notebook to keep our code organized. This workshop is designed with beginners in […]
On Sunday, September 24th at 6 p.m. we're hosting a free training session from Unity Recovery on when and how to administer naloxone (a.k.a. Narcan) to reverse the effects of an opioid overdose. They'll also demonstrate how to use Fentanyl test strips. Unity Recovery is a recovery community organization (RCO) serving the Philadelphia (PA), Pittsburgh […]
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.
On September 27th at 7:00 p.m. we'll meet to discuss the novel A Half-Built Garden by Ruthanna Emrys. Hope to see you there! Get the audiobook on Libro.fm.
On Sunday, October 1st at 3:30 p.m. we’re hosting a darning workshop and mending session. Total beginners welcome! Register:
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.
The Philly 2600 meetup will be at Iffy Books on Friday, October 6th, starting at 6:00 p.m. See you there! > The Philly 2600 meeting is a monthly gathering of local hackers, phreaks, nerds, geeks, activists, tinkerers, developers, infosec professionals, and other interesting people. We’re also hosting a meetup for the Philadelphia Chapter of the Open Organization of Lockpickers: > […]
The Model Internet Club meets again on Saturday, October 7th, 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 […]
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.
On Thursday, October 12th 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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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.
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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.
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:
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 […]
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.
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 […]
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 […]