As a customer for 5+ years, I can log into the website and change it without talking to anyone. I won't, because my plan is $35/mo cheaper, and I only used $20 in total overages last year. I could though, as that is how I got on my current plan, which I changed 3 months ago, without talking to anyone. Maybe try the site and see if it works for you?

I am on the same plan but I only ever get 2,000 down and 42 up lol. Its fine, I don't need more up, but I would have liked to hit 100+, just in case.

It seems more like a cash grab to me. I got excited at the headline until I looked at the new plans and they are +$35/mo from my current plan. I currently am at 2,100Mbps down with a cap and swapping to the uncapped 2,000Mbps down increases my bill by $35/month (after factoring in a -$10/mo for paperless billing which I already use). The site would have let me add unlimited data to my plan for $30/mo but I though in the past it was $10/mo and so this looks more like a way to increase monthly income from plans by a significant percentage and less like a company competing for customers. I only paid the overage fee last year once, at $20 for 100GB, when I was setting up new computers for Christmas, so not worth paying more to me at this time.

How often? Every bank website log in form I've ever used has a "Forgot Password" option which typically will reset it through the associated email address. Some go the next step of some sort of MFA (SMS, or through an app) to validate identity. I've never had to talk to someone. Admittedly I don't forget my passwords often as I use a password vault so maybe there is a threshold of issue frequency which necessitates a more rigorous authentication.

I certainly expect an AI could be as efficient and successful as a human to get data to authenticate identity, but neither seem necessary given the only way either are going to accomplish the task is to match previously authenticated and validated data points (card number, email address, mailing address, maybe [but hopefully not] social security number). A web form does this much quicker, and at far less expense than either a person or an AI system.

A quick Google search without much backup research shows lawns in California use ~5% of state water usage and Almond crops use ~14.5%-16.5%, so about a third give or take?

I guess it depends on the school, mine followed an Abet accredited program, which at times felt dated. The professors often spoke of the differences between CS and programming, not in a way that came across to me as hinting that one was better than the other. I certainly think my school could have focused more on SWE, but then again I loved the broad exposure we got to many CS areas. You had your basic Algorithm, C, C++, Systems Programming in Unix, etc. There were a lot of non programming classes though, they had some coding but not much, like networking class had some coding for sockets. I had to go to the Physics department to get any Python exposure, through a separate certificate program.

I think that was what the poster you are replying to was trying to get at. Computer Science isn't SWE. SWE is a subset of CS. However, as you said, those graduates did try and get SWE jobs with their CS degrees.

At my state college of no notable repute (class of 23), all CS majors took a pretty broad set of courses in upper division that were intros to areas of computer science. I am listing them below for context, but also because it was fun to reminisce. Titles are there, and brief descriptions, don't feel like you have to read them all to understand my perspective about breadth vs SWE focus. It was mostly just fun to remember what seems like an eternity ago.... been a busy couple years lol.

Upper Division courses:

Data Structures and Algorithm Analysis:
Specification, implementation, and manipulation of abstract data types and their structures: balanced trees, priority queues, sets, hash tables, and graphs; recursion; searching and sorting algorithms; asymptotic analysis; NP completeness; fundamental graph algorithms

Computer Software Engineering:
Single client for whole class, broken into groups to make competing projects - almost all ended up as web pages which we took 0 web dev classes

Networking: Network Architecture:
ISO/OSI reference model, TCP/IP protocol stack, layering. Protocol, encapsulation, socket. HTTP, FTP, SMTP, DNS, P2P, TCP, UDP

Databases:
Entity-Relationship (ER) model; relational model; relational database design by ER-to-relational mapping; design of applications using database technology; SQL

Computer Organization:
Simple logic gates through mux and basic cpu design, Harvard vs von Nuewmann architectures, combinational devices, sequential and synchronized circuits, memory organization, CPU architecture and organization, bus structures, input/output, interrupts, DMA, memory hierarchy

Object Oriented Computer Graphics Programming:
Mobile application development; implementation of event-driven systems; advanced object-oriented concepts such as inheritance and polymorphism; implementation of software design patterns; graphical user interface development; fundamentals of 2D graphics systems. We made a 2D game in Java using CodeNameOne. This was pretty fun and the most intense programming class

Computability and Formal Languages:
Automata and formal languages; regular expressions; pumping lemma; language recognition; parsing techniques including recursive-descent; Turing machines; computable and non-computable functions - this was THE fail out class where the prof bragged about how many students failed and how almost no one got an A and a few Bs per semester

Operating Systems:
  Processes, threads, concurrency, parallelism on multi-processor and multi-core systems, CPU scheduling, inter- process communication and synchronization, deadlocks

Senior Project :
2 semesters with the same group and a client. Gather requirements, run Agile sprints and must deliver at least Minimum Viable Project with documentation and get client acceptance sign off, or you can't graduate. Mostly web apps, I don't think any of my cohort did a C/C++ or Java project. They usually had some full stack elements. Ours had a web front end, used AWS and MongoDB and the client's own API for gathering data from sensors.

Choose 3 electives, you could go more SWE here with advanced versions of other classes such as Advanced Algorithms, Intelligent Systems, Compiler Construction etc. I went cybersecurity with Encryption, Computer Forensics, and Computer Attacks and Countermeasures.

You are spot on about parents. Parental involvement would be a huge boon. My wife was a teacher until last year, and so many issues really boiled down to a root cause of a lack of parental involvement. The root cause of that issue was different but the thing most families had in common was socioeconomic status, it is not a school of wealthy families. Unfortunately, reality for most parents is a struggle and they don't devote enough time to their kids. Student behavior has certainly suffered, I know too many teachers who are leaving due to student behavior issues. A coworker's sister is a teacher and has been assaulted twice by the same student. Student behavior and parental involvement is a huge issue.

However, to your other point about budgets, I think there is a serious disconnect between increasing funding and paying teachers more. You noticed it, and commented on it. Why does it happen? I don't know. I believe when most people say "schools need more funding" they mean higher salaries for teachers (retaining current and attracting new), and money to hire more teachers to shrink classroom sizes so teachers can spend more time with fewer students. Where most of that $465,000 you quoted per classroom goes now, I certainly couldn't say. All too often we bought school supplies, and toiletries, for her classroom. What I do know is in a district that pays generally more than most in our area, my wife's school had 1-3 long term subs for the math department each year for 3 years. They couldn't find math teachers, which sure seems like a teacher pay issue to me. Those students had a year long substitute, or a non math credentialed teacher. When those students moved up into her class, they didn't learn key skills and were behind. That seems crazy to me, and is a failure of admin.

Another issue was administration. Admin changed and the new guy came in and wanted to change things. He wanted to eliminate calculus, and pass those kids on to the local community college. (It is a good CC, I got my A.A. degrees there.) Mostly though, he made teachers want to leave, and they did. After this year only 1 of the 7 math teachers will remain from when he came on 3 years ago. I don't understand how anyone can be a high school principle when their math department is missing teachers for a whole year, much less multiple teachers over multiple years.

Sounds like a rant that a CompSci professor at CSU- Sacramento gives every semester. He always warns that he only sees 2-3 B's and maybe an A, per class per semester. He includes the "official definition of a B is 'superior', but if 80% of students get an A or B then superior to what?". His classes are hard (Computation Theory, which led to the compilers course, and Operating Systems Programming. Those are what I took from him). I think he lectures well, but man he goes hard on exams, about half the class passed the midterm (50% for a C-) and he warned everyone that if you actually did the homework, watched his lectures, and attended class but didn't pass "CS Major is not for you". I learned a lot,in those classes, including that I did not want to get into Operating Systems development, or Compiler development. The stress levels were super high, but he knew his stuff very well. Definitely hurt that GPA those B's I got lol.

I was shocked to see my local Best Buy had GPUs in stock. 4070 SUPER, on the shelf. Locked behind glass of course, but there for me to see. I was looking for a new gaming PC, their selection was unsurprisingly bad. My local store is a half sized location, in my extended neighborhood. Not like the big box versions at the malls. They didn't even have a PC with a 4070 in it, much less a new version.

My wife and two kids didn't get it. I did get it once, but I was in college at the time (Fall 2020-May 2023) and had in person classes for every semester, so I had a LOT more exposure than they did.