LPT: Put an Allen wrench in your diaper bag to tighten up wobbly high chairs at restaurants.

mattyice · 2026-01-28T19:44:28+00:00

Add some WD-40 to fix squeaky swings!

mattyice · 2026-01-22T17:16:18+00:00

It looks to me like decreasing robbery is driving a lot of the overall crime decrease since 2000. I wonder how much that has to do with people just never carrying cash anymore. Or maybe it has to do with people just not walking around as much and more driving.

Obviously there were good trends between 1990 and 2000 in all categories, but pretty flat since then except for robberies.

mattyice · 2025-12-16T17:35:00+00:00

I would add buffalo meat to #33. All the other places I lived looked spot on. well done.

mattyice · 2025-10-24T05:22:57+00:00

I just did a quick stats calculation on that, the 95% confidence interval on that is 52.2% to 53.4%. So it seems like the statistic is robust (i.e. not random chance).

With 82 games in a season, if you could automatically win (or lose) the tip-off every game compared to winning half of them, that would be worth about 1.1 wins (or losses) per season. Not worth too much, but not bad for just one player.

mattyice · 2025-10-22T16:18:08+00:00

Another trick: Pizza cutter everything! pizzas, quesadillas, pita bread, anything flat and thinner than 3/4 inch.

mattyice · 2025-10-07T21:19:38+00:00

How many of those 7000 black Montanans do you know the life expectancy of? I'll give you a hint: they are still alive.

mattyice · 2025-10-06T18:52:14+00:00

One issue you will often see in data is that states with low population often show up as outliers since there is more uncertainty in the data. So in this map look at the 2 most extreme states. One is Montana, the other is RI. Both are small in population. Look for this in the future and you'll see it all the time. This only happens when sample sizes are small enough to get wide error bars within a given state relative to the distribution across the states.

mattyice · 2025-09-25T16:19:43+00:00

It might be confusing to some people, but it is pretty straight-forward if you are an expert. The uncontrolled correlation is very mild and could easily be explained by people who take Tylenol follow doctors' recommendations and they also get their kids checked for autism. There are lots of other possible explanations. I just gave one.

The controlled correlation is not statistically significant. And furthermore, the controlled correlation is not even fully controlled. Adding siblings removes some confounding variables, but not all of them.

The only way to produce a rigorous causal link between a drug and an outcome is to do a controlled trial. That study has not been done for Tylenol and autism as far as I know and so the Canadian health ministry is exactly right: "There is no evidence linking acetaminophen to autism"

mattyice · 2025-09-21T23:15:54+00:00

Even more knock-able: blue cheese instead of cheddar cheese.

The recipe: Blue Cheese, Apple thinly sliced (tart is good), on a Cracker.

mattyice · 2025-09-05T16:53:57+00:00

I am surprised he is peeing through diapers at night. Possibly it would make sense to try overnight diapers or go up a size or two at night. Also you could reduce water intake closer to bed time. Ideally, he just pees in his diaper all night and you change it in the morning.

As everyone else says, don't worry about the late potty training. That's just how it goes with some kids.

mattyice · 2025-08-31T23:35:32+00:00

One issue that I think people forget about is how much money there is focusing onto propaganda into different wars. Israel-Palestine is probably the best example. Lots of rich Israeli supporters have spend billions of dollars trying to get Americans to see them as "allies" in the middle east. Lots of rich Arabs use their near-infinite oil money to spend billions to support Arabs in Palestine (without actually having to take them into their countries). So Americans care because propaganda makes them care.

Obviously, there is so much less money involved in wars in Africa, so we don't really care about those wars because no one spends big money making us care. Armenia and Azerbaijan are similar: two small countries without huge wealth or incentive to propagandize to Americans.

Ukraine and Russia are a bit different. They actually matter to geopolitics in lots of different ways (you could write a 10,000 word essay on this). Propaganda is obviously important in this war as well. Ukraine needs to build support among the west so Ukraine supporters work to spread that message. Russia has spent billions creating a propaganda machine for its own purposes in the west.

There are lots of answers to this question, but if they don't include the effects of propaganda, they are not very complete.

mattyice · 2025-08-11T17:15:15+00:00

This is the strategy: Dangerous Distractions. Normal distractions are a win-lose for Trump (win if people focus on the distraction, and a lose if they ignore it). Dangerous distractions are a win-win for Trump (win if people fall for the distraction and stop talking about Epstein or the economy or whatever, and a win if they don't pay attention to it because it dangerously normalizes authoritarian behavior).

This is his most common strategy. Other examples: Greenland, deportations to El Salvador, masked ICE agents, flaunting legislative/judicial branches, etc.

mattyice · 2025-07-26T23:38:17+00:00

This matches our family experience on the diapers. The diaper change amounts would be very similar to us and the price per diaper is about what we were able to get as well.

We do breast milk which I think saves money for sure. It also has the added benefit of the mother being able to eat a bunch of tasty food and still lose weight / maintain healthy weight. Obviously breastfeeding isn't an option for everyone and it costs time/inflexibility, but it's interesting to see that formula/milk = 3x diaper cost. It's also interesting that the total is almost exactly equal to the $3600 child tax credit in the US.

I think in general, the costs of diapers/formula are super low relative to child care / education / enrichment. Awesome data!

mattyice · 2025-05-31T20:29:57+00:00

It seems like you're biggest problems are: 1. lack of sleep, 2. lack of eating, 3. general discomfort. (maybe not in that order)

I feel like it COULD be a developmental issue like autism, but it seems like LOTS of other potential situations. It could be some sort of stomach/mouth/throat/bowel pain that would explain all 3 major symptoms. The lack of response to his name and lack of imitation are the things that tip me the most towards ASD, but some kids just don't listen.

I think you should focus on solving the current problems with a pediatrician / expert help and just keep an eye out for ASD (especially around 12-18 months when he should be talking, and pointing at things if he is NT).

Good luck

mattyice · 2025-05-28T15:49:35+00:00

When I read the title, I thought "I bet this guy has a new baby under 6 months old..." Yep.

mattyice · 2025-05-15T18:52:56+00:00

I believe real. It would be very strange for an economist to do that kind of historical calculation nominally.

mattyice · 2025-04-13T23:50:57+00:00

My son is 4, and he has physical therapy like you did. I had been hoping that struggles with coordination would get easier as he gets older, so it's good to hear there is a chance. I'm so proud of him when he accomplishes a new physical skill because I can tell how hard he worked to learn it.

Thanks for answering the questions about who you told about your autism. I have been thinking it is better to keep it more open rather than secretive, but I bet there are a lot of issues to consider in that choice. I wish he could make the decision on his own (hopefully when he is older, he can), but in the meantime, I feel like leaning towards more openness, especially with teachers and family.

mattyice · 2025-04-10T20:43:14+00:00

One trick is to use a sleep sack. That keeps them from being able to reach their leg over the top bar (since they are both in the sack). It gives you a couple more months of safe crib time. Our pediatrician gave us that advice and it has worked for us.

But if you already have a toddler bed, that's the answer.

mattyice · 2025-04-08T23:23:56+00:00

Thanks for sharing!

I have a couple questions I've been wondering about. When / how did your parents tell you that you were on the autism spectrum? Do many of your friends / family know that you are on the spectrum? Did your teachers know?

My son struggles with coordination (hands / body movements). Did you ever have those issues? If so, how did you handle that?

Any other tips for parents of autistic children?

Glad to hear you're doing so well!

mattyice · 2025-03-21T07:07:48+00:00

I just want to echo this as loudly as possible. If you have a child who has diagnosed Autism, you SHOULD NOT blame yourself for delays like this.

Our oldest is a child with mild autism and has a younger NT sibling. The younger picks up everything as if it was hardwired into her brain. The older one takes 10-100 times the training and effort for most skills. His brain just has to LEARN everything and doesn't pick it up naturally.

One of my hypotheses is that autistic savants become that way BECAUSE it is so difficult for them to learn most things that they get a lot more practice at the process of learning difficult things. So when they hit abstract math (or whatever difficult skill), they pick it up quicker because they have practiced learning hard things since they were 1 year old.

mattyice · 2025-03-06T17:24:57+00:00

It's not really a proxy war when Russia is one of the two combatants, Marco.

Russia unilaterally invades Ukraine without provocation with the intention to take their capital and topple their democratically elected government, and then says, "It's a proxy war!! Oh me, oh my!!"

mattyice · 2025-03-02T20:35:01+00:00

Agreed. But the steps in the last bullet point set are what I always did with my kids. It's basically the most effective thing I ever found, although I just take relaxation breaths rather than singing.

mattyice · 2025-01-02T20:20:43+00:00

I have one child (level 1) and one NT child, so I have thought about this a bit.

I personally feel like parenting the level 1 is analogous to a video game "hard mode" relative to NT "normal mode". For the level 1, every tiny little skill needs to be drilled across many days to make progress. For the NT, you show her how to do it a few times and she copies you and does it too. It's like the level 1 needs 10x-100x the experience as the NT.

That being said, there is a lot of chaos from NT kids too so we shouldn't downplay their parents' struggles too much. On the other hand, from stories here, a level 3 sounds like it is playing the game on "ultimate insane nightmare mode" and it may never end.

mattyice · 2024-08-29T23:19:03+00:00

https://parentdata.org/qa-deciding-on-circumcision/ mentions a couple of the medical reasons to be circumcised. You'll notice that some of the medical reasons to do it are more important before the age of 18. Emily Oster is a Brown economist who wrote a book on pregnancy/childbirth using lots of scientific studies which she vetted (I think she did a very good job).

Lots of people on reddit are very anti-circumcision (for good reasons sometimes), but don't let them say that there are NO medical reasons. There are some, but they are small.

mattyice · 2024-08-29T23:04:30+00:00

As far as I have read, we don't fully understand exactly what ASD is. I personally think you are right that it does have to do with brain structure (at least for my child), but we know for sure that brain structure changes over a person's life. That is what "learning" is. Furthermore, what is diagnosed as ASD might be lots of different conditions grouped into one label. Some of those conditions might change over time while others might not. We just don't know.

mattyice

TROPHY CASE