Loren King

@lorenking

"Ain't all buttons and charts, little albatross" Dad, professor, marathon swimmer. Not nearly as smart as @kimdej.bsky.social @lorenking@mstdn.ca @lorenking.gander.social www.lorenking.org www.greatlakestrust.org

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Loren King@lorenking· 21h

These bangers hit different now, knowing that Natalie Harp is feverishly whispering them into the mad king's ear.

Natalie Harp and the mad king, looking at something, perhaps the nuclear codes? who can say?

Loren King@lorenking· 1d

I've said it before, I'll say it again: I do these crazy swims to avoid work emails. I've tried everything else. Those annoying 'away from my email' auto-notifications. Just turning my damn laptop off. Deliberately bricking my phone. Nothing. else. works.

Loren King@lorenking· 14d

BUT WE HAVE A MOUNTAIN!!!!!

Hamilton Mountain riding on Wikipedia ... not a real mountain, but a real electoral district ... maybe.

Loren King@lorenking· 24d

Ten years ago, I set off on my first marathon swim: the traditional Marilyn Bell route across Lake Ontario, from Niagara-on-the-Lake to Toronto. The core lesson of that first swim is the same lesson of every swim I've done since: these crossings never happen without an extraordinary team. 🙏🤙

Swimmer looking out across sunset on Lake Ontario from Niagara on the Lake.

swimmer and boat escort approaching the Toronto shore of Lake Ontario

Loren King and Madhu Nagaraja after a successful swim crossing of Lake Ontario in August 2016.

Team photo of the on-water and shore crew for Loren King's August 2016 Lake Ontario marathon swim.

Loren King@lorenking· Jul 11

... because GWR cancelled three of my trains?

Loren King@lorenking· Jun 20

Years ago I backed off Snake Dike. Not on the long runouts, but early, on the step-out before the first crux (such as it is). It haunts me still. We were tired, had way too much gear, and I just wasn't ready for the exposure. But I'd never want it made easier. www.climbing.com/community/jo...

Loren King@lorenking· May 28

We swim in it all the time 🤷

Loren King@lorenking· May 27

Hey #HamOnt folks on #OurGreatLakes, this is serious: say no to selling out our harbourfront for the latest tulip mania driven by American techbros. #SwimmableCities #SwimDrinkFish @greatlakestrust.org ontariodatacentres.ca/post.html?id... www.wheresyoured.at/ais-economic...

Ontario Data Centre Tracker
TRANSPARENCY AROUND ONTARIO DATA CENTRE DEVELOPMENT

PLANNING & DEVELOPMENT - MAY 2026

The Steelport Data Centre — Why Hamilton Needs to Speak Up Now

Slate Asset Management has acquired the 800-acre former Stelco lands on Hamilton's waterfront to create Steelport. Their public pitch sounds significant: a $3.8 billion economic injection, 23,000 jobs, and the opening of the waterfront to the public for the first time in a century. But the first concrete step of that vision— a hyperscale and enterprise data centre campus — requires urgent public attention before a critical planning deadline passes.

Why the June 4 Hearing Is a Critical Opportunity

You might be wondering: why hasn't City Council voted on this? Due to a significant planning loophole, they are not required to. The Steelport property is zoned General Industrial (M5), which permits "Computer, Electronic and Data Processing Establishments” — a definition written in 2010, long before gigawatt-scale Al data centres existed. Because the proposed use technically fits the outdated zoning, Slate does not need City Council to approve a rezoning application. Instead, the decision on the 188-acre land severance rests entirely with the Committee of Adjustment, which will review the application at a public hearing on June 4, 2026.

Your Right to Appeal Is on the Line

Because this does not go to City Council, the Committee of Adjustment hearing is the community's primary public platform. If the Committee approves the severance, the only avenue to challenge it is an appeal to the Ontario Land Tribunal (OLT). Critically, the OLT can dismiss your appeal if you did not make a written or oral submission to the Committee before their decision is made. Missing the June 4 hearing means losing the right to appeal at the OLT. The submission deadlines are tight.

How to Take Action

The community must act quickly to get on the public record. Submissions can demand that the Committee refuse the severance due to the inappropriate scale of the proposed facility, or require strict environmental conditions on water and power usage.

SUBMIT WRITTEN COMMENTS
Written submissions must be emailed to cofa@hamilton.ca no later than noon on June 2, 2026.

SPEAK AT THE HEARING
Register to participate virtually or by phone. Registration must be completed by noon on June 3, 2026.

Loren King@lorenking· May 27

This conversation seems to be about #MarathonSwimming, but it's really about life: "I used to be very driven by results, coming from that competitive pool swimming background where it's very much compare and compete versus celebrate and collaborate ..." 🏊‍♂️✊🤙 youtu.be/3GaOYgwP9xI?...

Loren King@lorenking· May 21

Indeed, this. #SwimDrinkFish #OurGreatLakes @greatlakestrust.org

Loren King@lorenking· May 18

Sailing with @kimdej on Hamilton Harbour, #LakeOntario #OurGreatLakes #Northern25 #ThisOldBoat

TallShip Playfair sailing in Hamilton Harbour, Lake Ontario

Looking in the cabin of a Northern 25 under sail.

Loren King@lorenking· May 9

I'd forgotten about this short piece in @thespec1846.bsky.social from last year, on why universities, as deeply (and authentically) conservative institutions, need more public funding, not less. ... www.thespec.com/gift-redeem?...

The Hamilton Spectator

Opinion | Why universities need more public funding, not less

Name a technology vital to our lives. Chances are exceedingly high it originated in pure research conducted at a university.

Updated Jan. 25, 2025 at 6:02 a.m.

The Fraser Institute’s Matthew Lau has recently opined in these pages that universities may not in fact provide broader public benefits.

Indeed, Lau suggests ominously that they may instead generate “negative externalities.”

The idea of an externality is drawn from economics. Negative externalities are familiar from recent debates over fossil fuels and climate change — the growth of wealthy industrialized economies has resulted in climate costs largely borne by poorer countries, who didn’t cause the problem.

Lau wonders if universities might have comparable negative consequences for society.

The evidence: a “search of news reports on York University in the past year, in addition to many stories on its faculty strikes,” which, he hints ominously, suggest that “universities today might well do more public harm than public good.”

Hardly the stuff of serious academic research in economics.

Still, Lau does us a service by inviting reflection on what universities are good for, and why they’re worth keeping around as distinctly public institutions. Universities anchor communities and generate innovation. It has always been thus.

Name a technology vital to our lives. Chances are exceedingly high that it originated in pure research conducted at a university. Name a cultural trend, a great film or an enduring work of literature. Again, often that work will have emerged out of the intellectual ferment and cultural dynamism of the communities that grow up around universities.

Critics will concede all of this: despite their protests, almost all of them (including Lau) are products of a university education. They will insist, however, that the “goods” of the university — science and engineering faculties, usually — need to be disentangled from all the woke nonsense generated by the humanities and social studies.

This too is hardly a novel complaint, although the vocabulary changes from generation to generation. Complaining about cloistered, out-of-touch tenured radicals is as old as the modern university, and accusing teachers of dangerous ideas is much older still.

The difficulty for critics has always been that the university hangs together as a gloriously messy whole, and to date every effort to separate what they like (“innovation!” “rigorous thinking!” “marketable skills!”) from what they don’t (“woke nonsense!” “divisive ideas!” “useless majors!”) ends up losing what is truly distinctive about the university.

Many of these critics today posture as either hard-nosed libertarians (“let the market decide!”) or as populist conservatives (“let ordinary people decide!”). Given this, it is perhaps worth reflecting on the wisdom of earlier generations of Canadian conservatives, who recognized what even the most radical faculty leftist would concede: universities are deeply conservative institutions. ...

Loren King@lorenking· May 9

Back home, #HamOnt coverage of our encounter with a silky shark 🦈 while I swam across the channel of bones! Thanks Scott Radley and the @thespec1846.bsky.social for sharing our story! #KaiwiChannelSwim #MolokaiChannel #MarathonSwimming @lynnsakuradr.bsky.social www.thespec.com/gift-redeem?...

Garmin GPS boat track of Loren King's recent Ka'iwi Channel swim between Oahu and Molokai. 47.2km covered in 13 hours 18 minutes and 55 seconds.

Maui Nui Swim cap with Effortless Swimming goggles

Garmin inreach sat track of boat escort for Loren King's Oahu to Molokai swim crossing, 21 April 2026.

A swimmer in the early morning Pacific between Oahu and Molokai, April 21st, 2026.

Loren King@lorenking· Apr 23

So this happened. #KaiwiChannel #MarathonSwimming #MauiNuiSwim #HawaiianChannelSwimmingAssociation

Loren King@lorenking· Mar 31

A friend sent me this. The comments are killing me! youtu.be/0Ssi-9wS1so?...

A selection of comments on a YouTube post of Angine de Poitrine performing live at ESMA in Rennes, France, during Trans Musicales 2025 ...

"I can't even remember what type of music I was into before. Now it's just this."

"This is how John and Yoko thought they sounded."

"AI: Humans are done with music
Angine de Poitrine: Hold my triangular Martian beer"

"30 seconds in:
"this is fucking stupid"
18 minutes in:
"this is the greatest musical performance of the century" ..."

"This is what happens when you divide by zero."

Loren King@lorenking· Mar 30

Some of my urban politics students are presenting today on urban climate futures and the Toronto green roof bylaw that the Ford government recently axed. How can Doug and his merry band of amateurs be so consistently incompetent? From back in November 2025 ... www.thestar.com/gift-redeem?...

Loren King@lorenking· Mar 26

Involving community partners in research isn't just a good thing for the communities our universities serve. It fosters better research and makes us all better teachers and scholars. #McMasterUniversity #CommunityEngagement @kimdej.bsky.social

Loren King@lorenking· Mar 17

Back before the idiot warmongers ...

BASIC INCOME STUDIES

An International Journal of Basic Income Research

Vol. 6, Issue 1

RESEARCH ARTICLE

June 2011

Winner of the 2010 BIS Essay Prize

The Basic Income Road to Reforming Iran’s
Price Subsidies*

Hamid Tabatabai
Independent Researcher

Abstract – Iran has become the first country in the world to provide a de facto basic income to all its citizens. This article reviews the development of the main component of Iran’s economic reform plan – the replacement of fuel and food subsidies with direct cash transfers to the population – and shows how a system of universal, regular and unconditional cash transfers emerged almost by default as a by-product of an attempt to transform an inefficient and unfair system of price subsidies. The main features of the cash subsidy system are compared with those of a
basic income; then some lessons from this experience are drawn that may enhance the prospects of basic income as a realistic proposition.

Keywords – basic income, Iran, price subsidies, reform

In 2011, in response to heavy cuts to oil and bread subsidies, Iran implemented a program that guaranteed citizens cash payments of 29 percent of the nation's median income. Now, six years later, the results of that measure were released in a report by economists Djavad Salehi-Isfahani and Mohammad H. Mostafavi-Dehzooeifrom for the Economic Research Forum.

The report found no evidence for the idea that people will work less under a universal income, and found that in some cases, like in the service industry, people worked more, expanding their businesses or pursuing more satisfying lines of work.

Loren King@lorenking· Mar 8

Well that's a ... curious contrast. One of these authors is a brilliant and compassionate thinker and one of the great scholars of our age. And one of the others would readily acknowledge that, I suspect.

Loren King@lorenking· Mar 7

Dunno, I thought this was cool.

Loren King@lorenking· Mar 2

Inspiring young leaders for change at @wilfridlaurieruni.bsky.social with @cathmckenna.bsky.social ✊ #GlobalClimateFutures #RunLikeAGirl

Loren King@lorenking· Feb 28

Yes!! And yet another opportunity to stump for Proust and the Squid! Critical but hopetul. www.maryannewolf.com/proust-and-t...

Loren King@lorenking· Feb 6

don't forget some of his finest work ... "how do I act so well?"

Loren King@lorenking· Feb 1

Morbid curiosity drove me to read a bunch of these. I freely admit my scepticism of Attia among the wellness/longevity grifter-bros was attenuated by the fact that he was, briefly, one of us (he had two solid Catalina swims, in 2005 and 2009). Now? This Attia note to Epstein is creepily prescient.

16 July 2017 email from Peter Attia to Jeffrey Epstein, stating "Would love you to meet Sabatini", Subject line being "Talk at MIT is Aug 2. Hope you can make it!"

Science news piece from 6 November 2025, reading in part: "Prominent biologist David Sabatini, whose career imploded in 2021 following allegations of sexual misconduct, suffered another major legal setback this week when a Massachusetts superior court judge threw out his claim of gender discrimination against the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research and its president and Director Ruth Lehmann. A different judge had already dismissed Sabatini’s defamation claims against his former employer, and the new ruling also sharply curtailed his lawsuit against ... the biologist who originally leveled harassment accusations at him."

November 2025 news article from Science continues, in part: "Sabatini rose to prominence with his research into a key molecular signaling pathway, which regulates cell growth and metabolism and malfunctions in diseases like cancer. That work won him a prestigious Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) investigator position to continue studies at the Whitehead Institute. In 2021, an investigation conducted by an outside law firm found that Sabatini breached the institute’s consensual sexual relationships policy by engaging in a sexual relationship with ... a junior scientist launching her own lab there. It also concluded that Sabatini tried to influence the probe, misleading investigators and attempting to shape interviewees’ testimony."

November 2025 Science news update continues, in part reading: "The long shadow of the sexual harassment case has followed Sabatini since his departure from the Whitehead Institute, HHMI, and MIT. In 2022, following student and faculty protests, he withdrew from consideration for a position at New York University’s Grossman School of Medicine.

But the biologist appears to be making a comeback. Billionaire Bill Ackman and another, anonymous financial backer have pledged to give Sabatini millions of dollars to relaunch his research in a new lab. And in 2023, Sabatini began a new job as a senior scientist at the Institute of Organic Chemistry and Biochemistry Prague, a powerful arm of the Czech Academy of Sciences."

Loren King@lorenking· Jan 29

The whole thread is important, but this, uggh.

Loren King@lorenking· Jan 6

Just a few short, erratic stumbles (while Stephen Miller rants furiously and JD Vance nods along obsequiously) from the Monroe Doctrine to the Melian Doctrine ... hoping Jim Keeley revisits these prescient thoughts from last spring. jmss.org/article/view...