Mill Kitchen Bin is a new way to do your composting

Your garbage isn’t chicken feed. But it could be. All it takes is the right composter.

The Mill Kitchen Bin converts discarded scraps and leftovers into food for chickens. When the bin is full, the user empties it into a prepaid shipping box and sends it back to the company. Unlike typical composting, the bin can handle any food, including dairy, meat, grains — even Twinkies. It de-stinks as it turns into soil-ish.

Food waste makes up 24% of the stuff in landfills, according to the Environmental Protection Agency, and its production wastes water, land, fertilizer and energy. Even worse, it makes methane gas. So instead of throwing out your food, why not mail it in?

Here’s the catch: Though the Mill Kitchen Bin is free, you pay $ 396 annually for the mail-in supplies and prepaid postage. That works out to $33 a month. Alternatively, you could pay $75 for the bin and $45 a month for the service. My hat is off to anyone who tries it. I’d consider it myself, but there’s a compost bucket for fruit and veggie scraps on every floor of my condo building and I don’t have any meat, dairy or grain waste. Who could throw out a Twinkie?

CHECKING GAME INSTRUCTIONS ONLINE

Over the holidays, I gave my brother-in-law the Pirates edition of the popular game Catan. But if I’d read the instructions online first, I might have decided it was too complicated. I’ve since become a connoisseur of online manuals.

For example, by looking at user guides recently, I discovered that the more expensive speed versions of Monopoly, which come with a special red “speed die,” are just like the $15 version without the

die but cost up to $25 more. A friend saved money by making his own with a permanent marker, drawing a “B” for “Bus” on the face of the number 4 die and an “M” for Monopoly on the 5 and 6. The Monopoly die can advance you to a property owned by another player or give you an opportunity to buy something no one owns. The Bus die gives you more options. We had a blast playing it.

LABELING GMAIL

When I’m working on my computer, I use labels, equivalent to folders, for everything in Gmail. That way, I can narrow down a search. It makes everything easy to find, no matter how old.

To label an email, click the “move to” icon above your email list. It looks like a little folder with an arrow in it. Choose an existing category or create a new one. When you want to narrow a search to everything containing that label, click Gmail’s advanced search option, which looks like a stack of three segmented lines, to the right of the Gmail search bar. When the search dialogue box opens up, change “All Mail” to a narrower category. I often search in the “Trash” bucket, because I tend to trash things prematurely. But the label I use most often is “very special reader mail.” You readers give me great feedback. Thanks!

ROBOT NEWS

SoFi is a robot fish that swims over coral reefs to collect crucial data about sea creatures and their habitats. The tail makes it swim by pumping the seawater in and out of one side, then in and out the other. See it in action by searching “Meet SoFi, MIT’s soft robotic fish.”

A GRIP FOR YOUR PHONE

I’d never heard of “smartphone pinkie” or index-finger soreness until Handl sent me info about their Elastic Phone Grip & Stand. Apparently, these problems result from holding your phone too long.

The company sent me two versions of the Handl to try out. One sticks to the back of a phone with adhesive, the other uses a magnet. I prefer the adhesive kind. When I tried the magnetic version, it kept popping off. They range in price from $10 to $70 at HandlNewYork.com.

Of the dozens of designs offered, including one with “The Girl with a Pearl Earring” painting, the company sent me one with sparkly glitz and one with alligator skin. (Poor beast, I hope he was dead already.) Each is about the size of two stacked silver dollars. When I slide my finger in between the two discs — as if my finger were the middle of an alligator sandwich — the elastic band stretches a bit, but still feels tight. The key is not pushing your finger in too far.

A better choice might be the Moft Cell Phone Stand, $ 20 on Amazon, which earned CNET’s nod for “best adhesive phone grip.” It holds up to three credit cards, folds into a kickstand and lets you hold a phone without grasping it. But I love the look of the Handl.

WARNING

Be careful when you search for a software download on Google. Recently, some common search terms like “Adobe Reader” turned up malware on the first hit, according to PC World, though Google quickly fixed the problem. Avoid links with ads when you’re looking for downloads. Go directly to the maker’s site.

INTERNUTS

■ “Archive.org, the Calculator Drawer.” Search that phrase to find old-timey calculators to play with online.

■ “Quick scientific facts that will blow your mind.” Search that for amazing stats. For example, the human brain can store as much information as the entire internet, and the average person walks the equivalent of five times around the world during their lifetime.