title: Can't replicate R tidysynth results
body: <p>This is an odd sort of question, but I'm using the <em>exact</em> data and code from this github here: <a href="https://github.com/edunford/tidysynth" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://github.com/edunford/tidysynth</a></p>
  <p>However, when I get to the code plotting trends, it turns out I'm plotting the trends for a synthetic vs. real Alabama, rather than the synthetic vs. real California, which is what it supposed to be happening -- and what the hithub results show!!</p>
  <p>I am running this code in Rstudio on a laptop. How can the results be different? Why would it be showing a synthetic AL rather than synthetic CA?</p>
  <p>All my code is below. Can somebody sanity-check me here -- do you get a trend for CA or for AL? I feel like I'm going crazy.</p>
  <pre><code>#install.packages(&quot;devtools&quot;)
  #devtools::install_github(&quot;edunford/tidysynth&quot;)
  require(tidysynth)
  library(dplyr)
  
  data(&quot;smoking&quot;)
  smoking %&gt;% dplyr::glimpse()
  unique(smoking$state)
  
  smoking_out &lt;-
    
    smoking %&gt;%
    
    synthetic_control(outcome = cigsale, 
                      unit = state, 
                      time = year, 
                      i_unit = &quot;California&quot;, 
                      i_time = 1988, 
                      generate_placebos=TRUE 
    ) %&gt;%
    
    generate_predictor(time_window = 1980:1988,
                     ln_income = mean(lnincome, na.rm = T),
                     ret_price = mean(retprice, na.rm = T),
                     youth = mean(age15to24, na.rm = T)) %&gt;%
    
    generate_predictor(time_window = 1984:1988,
                       beer_sales = mean(beer, na.rm = T)) %&gt;%
    
    generate_predictor(time_window = 1975,
                       cigsale_1975 = cigsale) %&gt;%
    generate_predictor(time_window = 1980,
                       cigsale_1980 = cigsale) %&gt;%
    generate_predictor(time_window = 1988,
                       cigsale_1988 = cigsale) %&gt;%
    
    generate_weights(optimization_window = 1970:1988, 
                     margin_ipop = .02,sigf_ipop = 7,bound_ipop = 6 
    ) %&gt;%
    
    generate_control()
  
  smoking_out %&gt;% plot_trends()
  
  ## This is the plot that is CLEARLY labeled as &quot;Difference in synthetic control and observed Alabama&quot;
  smoking_out %&gt;% plot_differences()
  </code></pre>
  <p>Oh -- And also, if I change generate_placebos=TRUE to FALSE in the synthetic_control() specifications, it doesn't run. (I was checking to see if it was stalling on another state via the placebo runs.)</p>