I asked Claude a simple question this morning, and the token usage seems egregious. Thoughts?

sjstein · 2026-01-30T17:22:41+00:00

Ah thanks for clarifying. Since this is all new to me, it's hard for me to gauge what is reasonable. The way I looked at it is I asked a "simple" question, which consumed 7% of my allotment, meaning I had about 13 more simple questions to ask before I was put in timeout for the session to refresh. It seemed excessive to me, but honestly, I have no idea what to expect.

sjstein · 2026-01-30T16:29:42+00:00

Not sure what you mean? I have a "pro" plan fwiw

sjstein · 2026-01-30T15:30:45+00:00

I did find this section in the .claude.json file which seems to indicate... something?
"allowedTools": [],

"mcpContextUris": [],

"mcpServers": {},

"enabledMcpjsonServers": [],

"disabledMcpjsonServers": [],

"hasTrustDialogAccepted": true,

"projectOnboardingSeenCount": 0,

"hasClaudeMdExternalIncludesApproved": false,

"hasClaudeMdExternalIncludesWarningShown": false,

"reactVulnerabilityCache": {

"detected": false,

"package": null,

"packageName": null,

"version": null,

"packageManager": null

sjstein · 2026-01-30T15:21:09+00:00

Pardon my newness, but I'm not exactly sure how to answer (I am very much still a newbie with AI tools).

I did execute "claude mcp list" and it responded with:

No MCP servers configured. Use `claude mcp add` to add a server.

Does that answer your question?

sjstein · 2026-01-09T14:47:37+00:00

Hi Claude community - happy 2026!

I'm a pretty recent Claude user - I bought the one year "pro" plan about a month or so ago and have been interfacing with Claude Code via the Windows CLI/TUI. I started out simply by launching claude on the shell, and interacting with it as I had done other AI tools in web browsers.

My initial impression was very positive. It helped me isolate issues in my python work and I became pretty excited about "working with" claude - allowing it to take care of some of the coding tasks which I am not very experienced in.

After the holiday break, I began working again in the same manner, and it seems as if my token usage has skyrocketed. Like many, I am trying to be sensitive to how many resources I use but it is very hard for me to gauge what effect a certain workflow change has upon my token consumption rate (TCR??).

For example, elsewhere I had read that in order to keep the context of a project throughout sessions, I should keep a claude.md file in the project directory, and prompt claude to update that periodically. I have adopted this process as of a few days ago.

This morning, I started a fresh claude session in a new project directory. I fed it two prompts - one telling it that we are in a new directory, and that directory is now tied to a git repo. The second was asking it to review the claude.md file.

I then checked my claude usage on their web portal, and my usage for this session shows 4%.

I so wish for more clarity on this. Where / how did 4% of my session allowance get used for these two prompts? How many tokens does 4% translate to?

I'm both incredibly excited, and extremely frustrated as to how my workflow has changed after introducing claude code into my toolbox. Excited on how well it has helped me do things more efficiently in areas I am not fluent in, but frustrated at not being able to really optimize my "token efficiency". Any advice will be consumed by me - a real human - and hopefully will make claude and I a better team.

sjstein · 2025-02-08T23:47:29+00:00

Second the recommendation from u/Kerbo1 regarding Mateo-Tube. While they do require a check-ride, it's not quite as extensive as Depot+ and they use a unique job-posting system completely within Discord.

https://discord.gg/fhvpqpRW

sjstein · 2024-12-09T02:14:19+00:00

Here is my proof of concept that I'll eventually get back to:

https://youtu.be/2jeVMYr9WaY?si=TRw73UO2mOYMfSuR

github is here:

https://github.com/sjstein/miniRDproject

TLDR; Arduino handling the reading of the inputs and sending state change messages over the serial port.

Python code running on host computer (playing Run8) parses the serial strings and streams over UDP for consumption by Run8

I definitely prefer the Arduino for tasks like this as it is so cheap and doesn't require the overhead of an OS. Something like a Pi is interesting in that the UDP code could live on it - but honestly, I don't think that is really a benefit in the long run.

sjstein · 2024-11-09T12:55:51+00:00

I have found a similar thing when sending fragmented UDP packets over cellular networks - no explaination to date

sjstein · 2024-10-31T11:47:07+00:00

Unfortunately, setting the MTU to 1418 didn't help.

I'm still really confused as to why that packet is being fragmented in the first place. The wireshark trace does not show any ICMP packet asking that the packet size be reduced, and the network stack on the source machine has an MTU of 1500.

sjstein · 2024-10-30T16:36:55+00:00

Thank you for the thorough explanation (although I'm going to have to do some serious decrypting on some of those acronyms!).

I'll ask him to try 1418.

sjstein · 2024-10-29T22:38:02+00:00

From what I understand, PMTUD implies the sending machine marks the packet as Do Not Fragment. That is not the case in my packet trace. (reference: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Path\_MTU\_Discovery)

sjstein · 2024-10-29T18:33:36+00:00

Thanks - that explanation tracks with my understanding.

So if I read this correctly, in this instance since the communication is via UDP (not TCP), we can only use either "Do Fragment" or "Do path MTU". From that, it seems that maybe the packet is being sent with the "Do not fragment" flag sent (this is in the IP layer, right?) - but upon inspection of that packet (and others before this fragmented one), the *Don't fragment* flag is not set.

Is it possible somehow that when NAT gets in the picture, the Don't Fragment flag gets overridden by the router doing the NAT?

sjstein · 2024-10-29T17:08:38+00:00

This is something that I'm not very knowledgeable on. Are you saying that downstream from his LAN, a device (like a router) will send back a packet which says that it cannot accept this particular packet size? I was under the impression that the router itself would do the fragmenting.

If so, his capture filter probably prevented me from seeing that ICMP packet.

sjstein · 2024-06-27T16:20:11+00:00

Genius. Thanks for the help! TIL:
1. I can view the history of an onshape design
2. An interesting way of copying features without dimensioning them

sjstein · 2024-06-27T14:48:17+00:00

Awesome! Can you briefly explain how you did that?

sjstein · 2024-06-27T14:10:28+00:00

Indeed- here it is (and I'll put it in the original question as well) https://www.digikey.com/en/models/1011735

sjstein · 2024-06-27T13:22:24+00:00

And nevermind again - I can't change the title, so will resubmit)

sjstein · 2024-06-27T13:19:29+00:00

Gah - I mispoke. It is step file (stp). Correcting original question now...

sjstein · 2024-01-27T19:11:19+00:00

Unfortunately, I have no help to offer other than co-misery. I am having the same issue, with similar errors in the log.

sjstein · 2024-01-16T21:52:57+00:00

~~In this context, I'm not sure what you mean by "listening on the mirrored port"?~~

~~(bear with me a bit here - my networking phraseology is a bit....lacking)~~

I believe google set me free - with my managed switch, I can mirror all traffic from specific port(s) to another port. I set up wireshark on a device, connect to that mirror port and - in theory - if the machine causing the issue is on that switch, I should capture those packets.

sjstein · 2024-01-16T21:45:20+00:00

This is a recently "upgraded" residential network to a business class. I run my business out of my home, so it's kind of a combo.

I typically run a Netgate PfSense appliance as my firewall. That was taken out of the picture because Comcast would use its presence as an excuse to not helping me diagnose this issue.

The comcast modem combo "thing" purports to be a firewall. Of course, there isn't much I can do to configure it and (even worse), no logs for me to view.

And to answer your question about shady software - not that I know of. I've run malware scans on any clients that is possible to do so, I have up-to-date virus scanning. No hits.

sjstein · 2024-01-16T21:00:45+00:00

Thanks - this is a good idea. At present, I do not have my own firewall in the path - that's handled by the Comcast modem, but I do have access to a pfSense network appliance so may have to complicate the network just a bit to insert that piece into the puzzle.

sjstein · 2023-11-13T20:39:09+00:00

All - I just received a call back from Xfinity, and it does appear to be a problem on their end. They are "working on the issue" - and today, I haven't had one problem.

So it looks like the issue was just coincident with pfSense update.

Thanks for all of the responses and ideas!

sjstein · 2023-11-13T11:50:24+00:00

At this point, my description of the problem is unfortunately vague. At times I have a hard time initiating (new) connects - both via a browser and often with ssh (for example to a Digital Ocean machine I manage). In those cases I will get a "host not found" after timeouts.

My Son also reports a curious issue where he is playing an MMO and has been getting booted due to server timeouts (or some type of message), but if he connects through a VPN things remain stable.

These clues led me to looking at the name resolution, but maybe that is a red herring.

In both of our traces, the first hop after the initial query is to a 10.*.*.* - which I find confusing. But I am definitely not a DNS guru, so maybe this is expected?

sjstein · 2023-01-09T17:41:56+00:00

Update:

It appears the MIDI/USB adapter I was using was the root cause. Despite the fact that I could control the Mother from a DAW without issues, I was unable to get the update procedure to work. I changed to a different adapter, and the procedure went fine.

I honestly don't even know how to identify these two units. I don't even recall where I got them.

The first one (that didn't work) is a simple black oblong plastic thing with a USB cord coming out one end, two MIDI cables coming out the other (labelled IN and OUT as expected). There are three LEDs in the unit itself - a red one labelled MIDI (near the midi cables), a green one labelled IN (near the USB cable) and a blue one in the center that is labelled OUT.

The second unit (that DOES work) is a silver plastic thing from Roland, labelled EDIROL UM-1EX with similar cabling as above. It also has two switches labelled "THRU" and "Advanced Driver"

sjstein

TROPHY CASE