For 15 times as many donations as text based ads (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1912983) I think it's worth it.

+ 1

Even disabled the banner with 'Special:BannerController' in AdBlock.

Thought, I'd give again this year but after the banner didn't go away and the equally annoying pledge email they lost me (no donaion for this year).

Annoyed me, too. Feel free to discover the tiny 'x' in upper right corner. Closed once, Jimmy's pitch will stay away thanks to cookies.

I think it will automatically disappear once all of us would donate...

There's something about that picture that makes me really not want to donate. I understand it's working on others and its probably silly of me but something just puts me off.

I suspect that particular one has the highest "conversion" rate.