How to return and exchange your unwanted gifts or purchases

PLUS: How to Prepare for Power Outages, and more

View this email in your browser  |  Manage newsletter subscriptions 12.26.21   ZAP | 7-MINUTE READ How to Prepare for Power Outages BY TUSHAR NENE Whether there's a flood or a fallen tree, your power will go out eventually. Here's how to prepare for an outage that lasts minutes, hours, or days.   HOW TO | 8-MINUTE READ 19 Surprising Things Your Nintendo Switch Can Do BY JEFFREY VAN CAMP AND ERIC RAVENSCRAFT Did you just get one of Nintendo's three Switch consoles? Here are some of their best (and most secret) abilities!   YEAR IN REVIEW | 5-MINUTE READ A Move for 'Algorithmic Reparation' Calls for Racial Justice in AI BY KHARI JOHNSON Researchers are encouraging those who work in AI to explicitly consider racism, gender, and other structural inequalities.   STUFF | 7-MINUTE READ How to Return and Exchange Your Unwanted Gifts or Purchases BY GEAR TEAM You can't always get what you want. But there are smarter, more sustainable ways to get cash (or store credit) instead. GET WIRED HOLIDAY SALE! Get WIRED for just $10 $5. Get the print edition and exclusive subscriber-only stories. Give yourself the gift of information. Subscribe now.   BEST OF 2021 BACKCHANNEL | 28-MINUTE READ He Thought He Could Outfox the Gig Economy. He Was Wrong BY LAUREN SMILEY Jeffrey Fang was a ride-hailing legend, a top earner with relentless hustle. Then his minivan was carjacked—with his kids in the back seat.   STARTUPS | 8-MINUTE READ How Y Combinator Changed the World BY STEVEN LEVY As if launching Airbnb, Stripe and Dropbox wasn't enough, the famous accelerator has had an outsized—and mixed—impact on all of us.   IDEAS | 5-MINUTE READ Big Data May Not Know Your Name. But It Knows Everything Else BY JUSTIN SHERMAN Data brokers claim that deidentified data on millions of Americans is risk-free. Lawmakers need to know that "anonymity" is an abstraction.   SCIENCE | 6-MINUTE READ Are Christmas Lights in Series or Parallel? BY RHETT ALLAIN Are the standard strand of Christmas lights connected in series or parallel? What's the difference between series and parallel anyway?     Have questions or comments? Reply to this email.   This e-mail was sent to you by WIRED. To ensure delivery to your inbox (not bulk or junk folders), please add our e-mail address, wired@newsletters.wired.com, to your address book.   View our Privacy Policy Unsubscribe or Manage your newsletter subscriptions   Copyright © Condé Nast 2021. One World Trade Center, New York, NY 10007. All rights reserved.