Quackometer Upgrade

Some of the quackometer functionality has not been working too well over the past few months. The Am I a Quack or Not? function was very poorly and only working for a few searches per day. The reason being that the operation depended on some very old and unsupported Google technology that was about to be unplugged. So, I have now done the work to convert over to Yahoo search.

For the interested, I am now using Yahoo Pipes where I do about five simultaneous different Yahoo searches, based on the name entered, for different aspects of quackery and then merge, sort and filter the results to produce three pages that may be utter quackery. I then run each page through the Quackometer engine to see if the pages really are quackery or not. The resulting average of the quack scores gives a score for the name you entered. You can then check out the pages yourself to see if the Quackometer got it right.

So, it is working again (I hope). Other fun things to do are to install the Quackometer Toolbar Button. This allows you to highlight a name in a web page, click the button and find out if someone might be a quack. You can also use it to test the current page you are on for quackery, or search for information on a subject from reliable sources. What fun.

5 comments

SVETLANA PERTSOVICH 12th April, 2009 9:37 am

Andy, one remark! 🙂
And why does your quackometric equipment (Am I a Quack or Not?) work only in positive scale? Are you going to adjust it for negative scale? 😉

IWT 15th April, 2009 8:59 pm

Sorry if this is completely off topic, but have you seen these confused, paranoid muppets?

http://elephantsandmice.wordpress.com/2009/02/10/why-does-mr-andy-lewis-know-so-much-about-soviet-union-medicine/

“tigerbalm said
February 10, 2009 @ 6:35 pm

You may be interested to know that the Journal of the Internationalist Workers’ Tendency is written by “Le Petit Canard Noir”

http://www.marxist.org.uk/

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elephantsandmice said
February 10, 2009 @ 6:55 pm

Thank you- that explains a lot. My hunch was correct. No wonder he is so stuck and nasty against anything to do with spirituality or anything that lacks a material perspective.

Communism, particularly the old-style Marxist communists are into government control and telling the people what is good for them, not the other way around. Andy Lewis is trying to impose a monolithic system of medicine that was used in the Soviet Union- it didn’t work Mr. Lewis!

The gulag-type censorship and dictatorship which he promotes in order to stop the freedom to access homeopathy and alternative health modalities is just such a terrible suppression of freedom. The failed system of communism doesn’t die-hard does it and they have found a group they can feel they can control and bully.

Mice unite!”

Good work with the quackometer btw, although as the Elephants and Mice site scores only one canard out of ten, you might need to work on the calibration.

Le Canard Noir 15th April, 2009 9:17 pm

Yes. Confused and easy to dupe.

IWT 16th April, 2009 7:50 am

Might have to publish something about quackery at our site just to compound their delusion.

Warhelmet 16th April, 2009 8:36 pm

Well, Mr Mouse has had a go at me as well, but apparently has been put off by the responses he got and removed the post. Fortunately, I’ve nabbed a copy of the post.

Good job he didn’t discover that I am a member of the Star Fraction.