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T A B L E _ T A L K Will Microsoft Word's grammar checker become the standard for American English? Discuss Bill Gates as grammar policeman in the Digital Culture area of Table Talk R E C E N T L Y Is it sex, or is it art? By Janelle Brown In Austria, right-wingers take aim at a Net arts group for peddling porn (08/06/98) Will the Asian crisis end Silicon Valley's boom? By Andrew Leonard When the chips are down in Asia, the U.S. economy has a hard time escaping the pain (08/05/98) The future is now -- and then By Etelka Lehoczky Professional "futurists" see a golden tomorrow -- but they don't love computers (08/04/98) Let's Get This Straight By Scott Rosenberg Which should we be more worried about -- malicious hackers or careless software developers? (08/03/98) The paperless book By Tamsin Todd Leaving hardcovers and paperbacks behind, an Internet publisher experiments with downloadable literature (07/31/98) - - - - - - - - - - BROWSE THE 21ST CHALLENGE ARCHIVES - - - - - - - - - - _______

BY CHARLIE VARON AND JIM ROSENAU Millions of computer users have accepted the received wisdom that the initials "http://www" stand for "hyper text transfer protocol://world wide web." We invite readers to crack the code and tell us what those initials really stand for! - - - - - - - - - - - - E X A M P L E Help! Trapped! This planet without wisdom! Waiting ... - - - - - - - - - - - - R U L E S Send your submissions via e-mail only to salon21st@salonmagazine.com. Please include your full name and an accurate e-mail address so we can contact you if you're a winner. By submitting your entry you give Salon permission to publish it. Deadline for entries is Aug. 17, 1998. The winning response this round will receive a copy of Ellen Ullman's book, "Close to the Machine," winner of a Salon Book Award for 1997. In two weeks we'll publish a winner and some selected entries -- then start over a couple weeks after that with a whole new challenge. SALON | Aug. 7, 1998 Charlie Varon is a humorist and playwright. His works include "Ralph Nader Is Missing" and "Rush Limbaugh in Night School." Jim Rosenau is a writer, editor and software designer in Berkeley, Calif. Jim and Charlie are also co-founders of the citizen group Californians for Earthquake Prevention and partners in Mockingbird Productions, which offers a full line of comic services.