Shipping and Shopping

Shipping and Shopping

Hey, how's that holiday shopping coming along? It's still a little early to start panicking in earnest, but right now is the best time to start buying stuff if you want it to arrive in time for the holidays. You might have noticed how you'll go to order something online, but it's either completely unavailable or it won’t ship for weeks or months. That's because the global supply chain has been a little screwy lately, set off kilter by a combination of logistical problems, resource shortages, and manufacturing woes. It's a weird time for buying things, and even weirder time for shipping them.

This week on Gadget Lab, WIRED senior reviews editor Adrienne So joins us to talk about supply chain woes and why now is the time to start your holiday shopping.

Show Notes:

Read Adreinne’s story about timing your holiday shopping properly. Read Amanda Mull’s story in The Atlantic about the nasty logistics of returning all that stuff you buy. Here’s Lauren’s Verge story about how everything is connected and there’s no going back.

Recommendations:

Adrienne recommends the books in the Wheel of Time series, which comes to Amazon Prime Video as a streaming TV program later this month. Lauren recommends the six-part CNN documentary, Lincoln: Divided We Stand. Mike recommends watching Re:Wired, our annual big ideas conference, which streams for free November 9 and 10.

Adrienne So can be found on Twitter @adriennemso. Lauren Goode is @LaurenGoode. Michael Calore is @snackfight. Bling the main hotline at @GadgetLab. The show is produced by Boone Ashworth (@booneashworth). Our theme music is by Solar Keys.

If you have feedback about the show, or just want to enter to win a $50 gift card, take our brief listener survey here.

Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Jaksot(428)

How to Get Your Climate Tax Credits

How to Get Your Climate Tax Credits

The United States government just passed the Inflation Reduction Act, a sweeping piece of legislation that allocates nearly $400 billion dollars to fund clean energy and climate efforts. A big chunk o...

25 Elo 202234min

Tractor Hacks

Tractor Hacks

Farming has gotten quite tech-savvy. These days, there are all sorts of Wi-Fi-enabled, app-controlled, and autonomously piloted machines out there doing the tilling and harvesting. The biggest player ...

18 Elo 202229min

The Weird Phone Future

The Weird Phone Future

Samsung's mobile phone design philosophy could best be described as "if it ain't broke, bend it." The company—one of the top smartphone manufacturers in the world—announced some new foldable devices t...

11 Elo 202236min

NFT Frames

NFT Frames

Maybe you’re intrigued by NFTs. (They can often be pretty fun.) Maybe you’ve even felt the urge to buy a piece of digital art, only to give up once all the talk of wallets, blockchain transactions, ga...

4 Elo 202233min

Reel Talk About Instagram

Reel Talk About Instagram

If you've opened Instagram recently, you've certainly seen Reels. The photo-sharing app has started aggressively pushing the TikTok-like video feeds onto its users, a move that has sparked a heated re...

28 Heinä 202230min

Zucka Kappa Meta

Zucka Kappa Meta

Facebook has nearly three billion users, which means that when it makes a change to its business, it affects nearly half the planet. Facebook's ambitions have often manifested in chaotic, unpredictabl...

21 Heinä 202233min

Too Cool for Juul

Too Cool for Juul

Do you even vape, bro? Well if the United States Food and Drug Administration has its way, that answer might soon be a hard "no." Last month, the FDA went after Juul, the reigning champ of the e-cigar...

14 Heinä 202226min

Seriously, What Is the Metaverse?

Seriously, What Is the Metaverse?

Technologists have been crowing about “the metaverse” for a long time now, and here at WIRED we’ve written about it quite a bit, too. But sometimes we’re still unsure exactly how to define this next g...

30 Kesä 202236min