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Khan Academy requests for donations as their servers are at 250% normal load

khanacademy.org

121–130 of 232 posts

Re: Khan Academy requests for donations as their servers are at 250% normal load

#121
post #2

Would moving to torrents reduce the load? Kiwix seems to able to distribute offline wikipedia stackoverflow etc that way - https://wiki.kiwix.org/wiki/Content_in_all_languages

They can also move from Python.

Here is the article explaining their plans to move to Go.

https://engineering.khanacademy.org/posts/goliath.htm

Re: Khan Academy requests for donations as their servers are at 250% normal load

#122
post #63

Khan Academy don't care about users feedback for years, so, no donations from me. https://khanacademy.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/community/posts/115...

Their answer seemed legit. The purpose of a test is to improve. How else do you baseline? You actually need a score that represents a snapshot of your performance at a specific moment in time. Otherwise if you're constantly editing there's no snapshot - just a blur.

In gaming we call this "git gud". You obviously need more practice because you haven't moved on from a specific failure. Learn from it then beat it next time. Owning failure is part of how you accelerate learning.

This is an odd reason to not donate. Not that I'm donating either... but I've already donated to plenty other organisations this year.

Re: Khan Academy requests for donations as their servers are at 250% normal load

#124
post #51
post #27

(Replying to a trollish comment, but don't want to push it to the top). There was a comment about the salary that CEO Sal Khan takes, with is over $800,0000 per year. I think Khan Academy is fantastic, and was going to donate until I saw this figure (verified). I think that it's entirely inappropriate to extract that much from the donations.

The year is 2050, Khan Academy has raised 2 billion in funding, restructured as a for-profit corporation, and has vendor lock-in with nearly every school and child in the world. Khan academy charges a minimum of $800/yr/student. The CEO takes home $56 million a year. Which do you prefer, 800k, or 50 mil? Do we really want to a world where a brilliant mind, Sal Khan, is not rewarded at all for leaving his hedge fund c…

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Re: Khan Academy requests for donations as their servers are at 250% normal load

#125
post #115
post #43

Ahh.. Khan Academy.. the usefulness this site provided throughout my middle and high school education. Quite frankly, it literally saved my ass. I've gone ahead and donated $1K.

You just gave Salman Khan gas money for the next few months.

Just so you know, I donated some money because they did it fist. Humans work like that, it’s how we think. So now they are responsible for $1000 plus a bit more of server time.

Re: Khan Academy requests for donations as their servers are at 250% normal load

#126
post #51
post #27

(Replying to a trollish comment, but don't want to push it to the top). There was a comment about the salary that CEO Sal Khan takes, with is over $800,0000 per year. I think Khan Academy is fantastic, and was going to donate until I saw this figure (verified). I think that it's entirely inappropriate to extract that much from the donations.

The year is 2050, Khan Academy has raised 2 billion in funding, restructured as a for-profit corporation, and has vendor lock-in with nearly every school and child in the world. Khan academy charges a minimum of $800/yr/student. The CEO takes home $56 million a year. Which do you prefer, 800k, or 50 mil? Do we really want to a world where a brilliant mind, Sal Khan, is not rewarded at all for leaving his hedge fund c…

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Re: Khan Academy requests for donations as their servers are at 250% normal load

#127
post #27

(Replying to a trollish comment, but don't want to push it to the top). There was a comment about the salary that CEO Sal Khan takes, with is over $800,0000 per year. I think Khan Academy is fantastic, and was going to donate until I saw this figure (verified). I think that it's entirely inappropriate to extract that much from the donations.

Yeah, it may seem high, but at the same time a lot of the content is still content he created. In that context, I think the number is reasonable. We use it as a huge part of the our home schooling at the house.

Re: Khan Academy requests for donations as their servers are at 250% normal load

#128
post #27

(Replying to a trollish comment, but don't want to push it to the top). There was a comment about the salary that CEO Sal Khan takes, with is over $800,0000 per year. I think Khan Academy is fantastic, and was going to donate until I saw this figure (verified). I think that it's entirely inappropriate to extract that much from the donations.

Khan Academy's budget is the same as a large high school but has the impact at least 500x. Him making 4x a principal's salary I have absolutely no problem with.

His opportunity cost is also very high. Salman Khan could get a job tomorrow making millions in annual comp.

Re: Khan Academy requests for donations as their servers are at 250% normal load

#129
post #27

(Replying to a trollish comment, but don't want to push it to the top). There was a comment about the salary that CEO Sal Khan takes, with is over $800,0000 per year. I think Khan Academy is fantastic, and was going to donate until I saw this figure (verified). I think that it's entirely inappropriate to extract that much from the donations.

Adding my 2c: his salary has nothing to do with "fairness" or an arbitrary upper limit on non-profit compensation, but a negotiation based on supply and demand.

For the sake, of argument, let's take it as a given that 1) he could easily earn the same amount or more somewhere else, and 2) if offered $1 less than $800k, he would walk. The question then becomes whether the organization could replace his value for the same or less money. i.e. could they hire someone else for $800k, much less a more "appropriate" salary, who would run things as effectively?

Maybe; I don't know enough to say. I might consider doing some research and putting more thought into the question before donating, but it doesn't seem out of the question for me that keeping on both the founder and someone with his level of experience would be worth that much or more.

Re: Khan Academy requests for donations as their servers are at 250% normal load

#130
post #13

If anyone from Khan Academy is reading this: I tried to donate and my transaction was flagged as "suspicious", now my card is blocked. Probably because their PSP doesn't seem to implement 3DSecure. What's grating is that after I tried to donate I had to solve a bunch of reCaptchas before it showed me the failure status.

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