Woot! It’s a DEMO SWAP!!”WTF is that?” you ask. OK, we’ll let you in on the secret–it’s a hyped-up networking event, except there’s booze, producers, label owners, audio engineers, and supremely excellent music on board from local sensations Protman and Bounte. Also there is booze–as much booze as you deem necessary to aid in proper social navigation and which your wallet can support and aid in a cab ride back home. Here’s an even better sound-bite: “An industry night that doubles as a balls-out fun party.” We’ve even pushed it back a week from normal Ramp nights (Tuesday, July 17th) so that you have more time to tell your friends and drag them along.

We’ll let you in for a reduced cover ($2 instead of $5) if you’re a musician / producer / 2d-designer / visualist who brings a stack of demos / web-folios / 3d-excursions / DVDs / etc, who gives them away through the night. We hope you’ll walk out with an equally large stack of CDRs, DVDs and biz cards, but that last bit of initiative is up to you. We’ve assembled the right people and slapped name tags on (many of) them, so now you get to go chat with them, have fun, and hopefully advance your career (and hey, there’s booze, remember? That makes it easier to approach strangers).

But it’s not nearly as socially awkward and lame as all those “networking” events you get evites to at your day-job email address. We’ve got an excellent soundtrack provided by Protman, a local electronic magician who’s most recently been throwing down low-fi samples with the computer band K-Rad, and a live set by Bounte, another Chicago native who’s been busy blurring the lines between intelligent dance music, hip-hop, rock, jazz, and classical, but with a credible feel.

And, as always with the Ramp Chicago nights, you’ll have the comfort of knowing that Emulsion will be at your side with his ambient, IDM and electro to fill in the gaps, and that Liz Revision will be on hand to fulfill your need for quirky, glitched-out melodic electronics and weird techno.

• Tuesday, July 17th at Sonotheque
• 1444 W. Chicago Ave.
• $5
• 21+
• 9pm to 2am

Trade your musical & audio demos or just biz cards at this not-lame networking part featuring video-game electronic magician Protman and electro (tr)hip – hop producer Bounte. Ramp Chicago residents Emulsion and Liz Revision fill in with ambient, IDM, electro and quirky, glitchy techno.

Here’s a list I’ve compiled of the best websites, blogs, and forums:

Best geek, gadget, and gaming blogs & websites (click!)

he page will be updated constantly. If I’ve missed something worthwhile, drop me a note and let me know: Contact.

Team Boom Tape is a team that not only makes things out of duct tape in competitions, they’ve created a server with a duct tape case!

They’ve even lit it from the inside, creating windows courtesy of the translucency that 3M clear duct tape provides.

[The] Duct Tape Server was build entirely from four rolls of gray Nashua duct tape, a quarter roll of translucent 3M duct tape, and these computer components:

• Pentium P4 2.4 GHz
• Intel SFF Motherboard
• 1GB twinned DDR RAM
• 80GB SATA HDD
• 350W PSU
• CDROM
• 2 80mm LED fans

However, you’d think with the heat generated that the case might have some structural issues, since duct tape is not meant to withstand high temperatures. Here’s a report on why duct tape is actually not recommended for long-term use.

Check out the duct tape server video:
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How do musicians support themselves in the age of digital distribution, file sharing and whatnot? Here’s one musician / label owner’s take on the biz, complete with pie charts*.

“Many of us artists have people who enjoy buying and listening to our music. It’s time to starve out the portion of the music industry that has treated us so poorly, which is nothing short of ironic, because they need us a lot more than we need them.”

More a rant than an actual scientific study, the essay does raise notable questions about the future of how musicians are financially supported by their music.

*UPDATE: No source is given for the pie chart statistics so take the numbers with a grain of salt.

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So Daft Punk have a new movie set to make its American premiere in July: Electroma. However, don’t expect to hear a Daft Punk soundtrack or even appearances from the camera-shy boys themselves, as they’re on the other side of the camera directing (the protagonists are played by actors). The soundtrack also features the odd choices of Brian Eno, Todd Rundgren, Sébastien Tellier and Curtis Mayfield.

This apparently very “arty” movie follows two robots on their quest to become human, featuring long tracking shots and a “focus on imagery” opposed to plot and character development (one would assume). So far it’s gotten mixed reviews, with its initially brief run extended in Paris, but with a crowd at Cannes walking out on it.

It’s a somewhat odd turn for the duo who also produced the satisfying Daft Punk anime mega-music-video / movie, Interstella 5555, but hey, who doesn’t love robots?

Watch the trailer:

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Gnerdy Jewelry (pronouced “nerdy jewelry”) brings us a line of earrings made from technological fetishes including obsolete computer media and mobile electronics. Take, for instance, floppy disks. While wearing actual floppy disks as earrings would be neat in concept, it’s actually really tacky in execution (see photo at left), especially hanging from the ears say, of anyone over the age of five.

Fear not, there is a more tasteful way to wear those floppies and not get a citation from the Fashion Police: cast-in-sterling Floppy Disk earrings ($40) from Fractalspin. Not only do they get a stylish upgrade by being cast in a precious metal and scaled significantly smaller, they come with the thoughtful addition of clear stoppers to prevent them from accidentally slipping out of your ear (and how many of us haven’t been crushed to discover only a single earring remaining at the end of a night on the town?).

Another made-obsolete-by-technological-progress icon that gets the jewelry treatment is calculators, in the form of Silver Calculator Earrings ($30). Kraftwerk expressed their love for the mathematical gadget that replaced the slide rule in “Pocket Calculator”, and now you can express your admiration in the same way but through your adornments. In an especially math-club touch, the display of each of the calculators shows the first few digits of pi (3.14159).

And the device that’s responsible for the downfall of the pocket calculator is likely the modern cell phone. Since most phones these days incorporate a calculator application, there’s no need to stash a mini calculator in your purse or bag for those restaurant-check-division emergencies. Celebrate the advancement of communication technology by wearing these super-miniature Cell Phone Earrings ($45). While these are far smaller than the tiniest cellphones on the mass market, and quite close to your eardrums, the only thing they share with their functioning cousins is that they open and close like a real flip phone. And they’ll even stay in whatever position you set them in so you can wear them both open, closed, or in totally different positions, and they’ll set you back far less than buying two iPhones.

While the cell phone earrings are quite tiny, they’re still visible to the naked eye, unlike many of the micro-elements studied in the sciences, like examining the solder joints on a circuit board, studying the functions of neurons, and watching the cell-replication of aquatic specimens. And if your daily grind involves happily doing any of those things, you might as well express your ingrained love of science with Microscope Earrings ($22).

Tesla coils are totally nerdy along with being impressively frightening at the same time. Its original inventor, Nicola Tesla displayed it at the World’s Fail in 1893, but he surely had no idea that his invention would eventually be used as as a kickass rave toy, let alone play the theme to one of the most popular 16-bit video games of the 1980s and best-selling title ever. Apparently an endeavoring soul has figured out a way to modulate the resonant frequency of the coil to create the tones you hear. Fantastic. [via] [via]

Watch the video clip:
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Ties and Father’s Day seem to be intrinsically connected, but why settle for getting dad a fugly one that matches all the other fugly ones he owns? Help his style quotient increase and get him one of these super trendy designer ties from Cyberoptix, a Detroit-based design studio who makes some really wicked ties. These over here are based on the Synth-E, one of the very first portable synthesizers that fit in a suitcase and was battery powered, forging the way for the modern laptop musicians of today. It’d be a perfect gift for an electronic musician, or a retro-synth enthusiast. They come in a staggering array of color combinations, and you can choose from either a synthetic microfiber or silk. And, if you’ll notice, the favicon for the Cyberoptix is a red Speak-N-Spell with horns, which makes them even more cooler in my book.