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Michael Nagle
independent research, currently fascinated by image models
Michael Nagle is an independent researcher based in Berkeley, California, who recently took a sabbatical at the Recurse Center from September to December 2022. During this time, he focused on deepening his understanding of image models, guided primarily by the fast.ai course titled "Stable Diffusion from Scratch in Python." He also created a tarot deck using the Dreambooth algorithm that incorporates his likeness.1
Nagle has a diverse background in education and technology. He is the founder and director of two educational non-profits and has extensive experience in product research and development within software startups. His educational credentials include a Bachelor's degree in Mathematics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), where he studied theoretical math and computer science.12
In addition to his work at Recurse Center, Nagle has held various roles, including coaching executives in the benefit corporation and mental health sectors, and working as a product engineer at Lark Health. His career reflects a strong commitment to both technology and education, as well as a passion for personal development through his sabbatical experiences.1
Highlights
Hello all,
This is my public announcement that I have been diagnosed with metastatic colon cancer as of two months ago. It has been the shock of a lifetime.
Fundraiser: https://lnkd.in/gjT-n9bK
I really have never been in contact with my mortality until now. The best way I can describe it is breath taking, in all the literal and figurative senses of the phrase. Pause for wonder, physically arresting, gasping, striving, choking, suffocating, contracting, expanding.
It is surreal to be the "Me" in a GoFundMe. I am astonished by the words my hands type, the words my voice projects, all to say "I have fallen catastrophically ill and I need help with this." I have an identity as a strong, clever, capable, self-sufficient human being, and it is beyond humbling to be in such need of such consistent and tender support as I have been, undertaking chemotherapy these past two months.
The true gift of this time has been the support organism that has self assembled around me. Friends flying in from all over the states a week at a time to sit with me as I get hours and hours of cytotoxic chemicals injected straight into me. Friends to breathe alongside me as a I vomit for ten minutes straight. Friends to bring me surprise gifts and rosemary plants and watch The Murder at the End of the World with me.
There is so, so much I could say about this experience. And I hope to! I have discovered a very strong will to live. That I am not done yet. There is something my lifeforce yearns to complete before my passing. Some last piece of my always-heart's desire to undo the conditioning of individuals and systems, to bridge the gap between awakening and healing on one hand and the ordinary schools, hospitals, workplaces we live in on the other hand.
Will it come to pass? I don't know! The other side of this experience for me (which has more than two sides) has been letting go, letting go, letting go. Letting to go to a terrific, physical, somatic degree of any clenching, holding, hurt, resentment I can find in me. It is an unwinding well underway and still very much going. And in that unwinding is a surrender. Perhaps I have achieved all I have achieved in this life, and it's time to get a cat and seek maximum gentleness.
I don't really know. The great mystery has opened its great gaping maw to me and is staring me down, and I try to find buoyancy in that, somehow!
The blessed support organism that has created a fundraiser for me. Me! I am the Me in the GoFundMe. Stranger words have never come out of my hands. And yet.
If you are able to contribute, please do. If you are moved to share, please please do.
I hope to live out at least one more dream writ real into this world before things turn south - the community home for the sick and the well as described in the link - and also to try my damndest to find all the pathways of healing despite every dark prognosis about this disease.
Thank you. I love you. I need you.
