RADAR Love Special: Valentines Edition

#INTRO

This edition is the epitome of love, the means by which we can all see the softness within our hearts because even the darkest of hearts have some love in them. Ask Neku if you're doubting this in any way. But really, come on this journey with us and see the most diverse expressions of affection, loads of which you probably didn't think existed in this space

#Love and Development

- Andrea

I think I love that love is diverse.

I say this because how can something that gives you strength also make you weak in the same breath? And how does something so fair manage to be unfair at the same time?

It brings you peace and could also have you shaken all in the same.

That is what love is and that is why you should cherish it.

In this season, you are put on an inexplicable high; heart burning with excitement over what gift you’ll receive from your loved ones, slightly anxious about what you’ll give, yet somehow, you’re complete once again because you get to not just say I love you. You get to show it.

And to be clear,

You do not need to wait a day every year to show love because you should prove it every day.

Valentine’s Day isn’t just for your lover.

It is for everyone who means something to you.

Everyone who has sacrificed for you — the ones who have made you crack a smile or the ones who make your heart full.

Think about bugs, confusions, and moments when everything crashes unexpectedly.

But instead of quitting, you debug with patience and communicate clearly.

Just like clean code, love requires consistency, structure, and thoughtful design.

You refactor when something isn’t working, you test your assumptions, and you commit to improving the system over time.

In both love and development, the magic isn’t in perfection — it’s in the willingness to keep building.

This corner of this paper is from me to you because it’s how I say I love you and I see you.

It is how I say I love the smile on your face and the glint in your eyes when you clicked on the link in excitement to read this edition.

And even though Valentine’s Day has passed, I hope you had an amazing one bursting with love and gave it back generously to everyone who came your way.

In the spirit of love and all things equal and unequal…

Till we meet again.

#Ship, Don’t Simp.

- Temi

It wasn’t so long we were all setting up New Year resolutions and shouting,

“New year, new me”

And hey, no judgement here. I did the same too.

So far so good I can say I’ve kept 70% of them, unlike last year where my resolutions came in the middle of the year.

January has gone.

And now, it’s Valentine’s season.

The timeline is loud.

Soft launches. Hard launches. Rocket launches. Public service announcements.

At this point, we can’t even keep up.

Meanwhile, somewhere in between the roses (real and plastic) and relationship updates…

your abandoned goals are staring at you.

So, instead of saying “Aww” and “God when”, why don’t you get your creative rhythm back on track.

While the world is celebrating love stories,

some of us are quietly building one — with our craft.

That January vision slowly turning into something real?

That’s chemistry too.

So, if this Valentine’s season feels dramatic, don’t panic.

Open your laptop.

Fix one component.

Refactor one idea.

Ship something small.

Romance is nice.

But progress?

Progress is attractive.

And you’ll find that nothing beats the quiet, reliable love between you and a workflow that actually stays in sync.

Because sometimes, the best love story is the one where the vision you had in January actually aligns perfectly with the pixels on the screen in February.

PS: If you feel oppressed during this period…. try to sleep. It’s not that deep.

#Operation: Find Love Before Q4

- Tejiri

Another Year of Choosing Yourself? A Simple Guide to Finally Finding Love (That Isn't Your Friends or Your Mirror)

Another year of "choosing yourself" abi? Or another Galentine's with the same girls you've been choosing yourself with since 100 level?

You do know you're not going to marry those your friends. Or yourself. So welcome to Tejiri's completely unsolicited, highly effective, seven-step plan to finally finding love.

Hi, I'm Tejiri. Self-proclaimed relationship expert. No, I have never had a boyfriend. Yes, I have survived 20+ failed talking stages. At this point, that counts as field research.

And before you judge me, more than half of those ended amicably. If you count us mutually blocking each other as conflict resolution. Which I do.

Aren't you tired of being the main character in your own love story but never actually getting a love interest?

Aren’t tired of romantic drought but still claiming you’re “just focusing on yourself”?
Or that you’re single “by choice”? I know your type. And I'm here to help.

Here are 7 ways to actually end up with a partner before the end of this year:

1. Go outside. Touch grass. Please.

You cannot watch K-dramas from 6am to 3am, screenshot soft launch captions, and then wonder why no one has found you yet. He is not going to appear in your hostel room. Go outside and interact with real, physical, breathing humans.

2. Actually talk to people when you get there.

You read point one and immediately thought "this cannot be me; I go to class. I go to caf. I go to church." Yes. And you also probably haven't waited for "the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ" before you're already at the car park, speed-walking back to your hostel like you actually have something to do.

You are present in body. You are absent in every other way. Say hello to someone. It won't kill you.

3. You are looking in the wrong places.

Oh? So, you thought you'd find the love of your life on Snapchat? Girl be for real. The boy who only replies at 1am with “sup” because he says he’s a “night owl. ”Darling. He did not stay up for you. He woke up to use the bathroom and half-swiped your message by accident.

Leave Snapchat. Instead of waiting for “wyd,” maybe try quality spaces where people actually share interests. Like the GDG monthly meetup this Sunday.

Smart people. Shared interests. And rumor has it, several of them are single. We're basically doing the work for you at this point.

4. Stop being afraid of human beings.

Every time someone tries to approach you, you're suddenly crossing to the other side of the road. Or all of a sudden, your friend needs you to do something for her. Or you give him a wrong number and then laugh about it with your friends.

Meanwhile, God is up there watching you dodge every blessing He sends and shaking His head slowly.

How many loves of your life have you already missed? We will never know. Because you gave them the wrong contact.

5. Put down that situationship and step away slowly.

You've been "talking" for eight months. There is no label. There is no plan.

“But he has potential.”

Potential to do what? Stress you?

There is no future being discussed.

No “where is this going?”

Just vibes. And not even premium vibes. Free trial vibes.

But you're still there because "it's complicated." It is not complicated. They just don't want to commit and you've decided that's fine. It is not fine.

You are not a placeholder.

You are not a “let’s see.”

You are a full release version.

And full releases don't wait in someone's drafts folder.

Close the tab.

You're not Yakubu. Stop managing.

Make room for someone who actually knows what they want.

6. Actually be someone someone wants to date.

This one is for the people who say "I don't know why I'm still single" while also being completely unavailable, emotionally and physically.

Your phone is always on DND. A two-minute conversation takes a week to finish with you because you leave people on delivered for 3 days as a “power move”.

Who exactly are you waiting for? A mind reader?

Be approachable. Smile occasionally. Reply within the same century.

You cannot be a closed door and then wonder why nobody's knocking.

7. Show up to things. Like, literally just show up.

Build something. Join something. Learn something.

What do you actually do besides scroll and repost relationship quotes?

Community events. Hangouts. The GDG meetup we already mentioned twice because we really need you to come.

Love is not going to knock on your hostel room door. But it might be standing next to you on Sunday, wearing a hoodie, asking if you know anything about React.

And that might be your person. Or not. But who knows?

If love doesn’t find you?
At least opportunity will.

And opportunity rarely leaves you on read.

Final notes:

Tejiri is a self-proclaimed relationship expert with zero relationships and extensive talking stage experience.

This is not professional advice.

But if by (or before) December ends you’re soft-launching someone’s wrist with “Raindance” playing in the background. You’re welcome.

She wishes you love and the emotional maturity to actually leave your room.

#Data & AI Track Lead Caught With 3 Students At Once

-Neku

It started like every other school gist starts. One person saw something. Another person added seasoning. By the time it reached the group chat, it was already: “Have you heard? The Data & AI Track Lead is in a relationship… with THREE students.” Three. At once.

Naturally, the timeline did what timelines do: shock, analysis, hot takes, “I always knew it,” and one person threatening to “drop receipts.”

So we investigated. Not with FBI energy. With common sense. What actually happened Here’s the full “scandal”:

A student sent a message: “Please, I want to enter AI. Where do I start?”

He replied: “Sure. What do you know already?”

Next thing: voice note. Then a short call. Then a quick roadmap. Then a GitHub link. Then “send your CV.” Then “why is your dataset like this.” Then “you don’t need 12 courses, you need one project.” Then a second student showed up. Same story. Then a third.

Now picture this from the outside: one Track Lead, three students, consistent check-ins, shared resources, and suspicious improvement. That’s how the rumor was born. Because yes , he was “caught in a relationship.” A mentorship relationship. The kind that will stress you a bit, but in a good way.

The funniest part At some point, one of them apparently said something like: “So mentorship is not just motivation… I actually have to do work?” And he said (as every real mentor says, politely): “Yes.”

Another one expected “AI secrets” and got: “Explain your model in plain English.” And that was the day they learned: the real cheat code is not vibes. It’s fundamentals.

Why this story matters???

Because this is the culture we want: People asking questions early, getting guidance, and growing fast without forming a silent struggle club. So if you’ve been waiting until you “feel ready,” just know: most people don't join ready. They join curious, confused, and tired — and they still grow.

Ready to start your own mentorship journey? Pick one path and commit: Foundations

* Python basics + practice (focus on data structures, functions, and debugging) * Math basics for ML (linear algebra intuition, probability, statistics) Data

* Data cleaning + analysis with pandas

* Visualization (matplotlib / seaborn)

* Simple projects: cleaning messy datasets, building dashboards, writing insights Machine Learning

* Supervised learning basics (regression, classification)

* Model evaluation (train/test split, cross-validation, metrics)

* Projects: predicting outcomes, churn, credit risk (with clean storytelling) AI / NLP

* Text classification, embeddings, transformers basics

* Prompting + tool use (practical, not mystical)

* Projects: chatbot FAQ, sentiment analysis, document summarizer > Tip: Don’t collect resources like Pokémon. Choose one track, build one small project, and share progress. How to join the Data & AI Track? Go to gdgbabcock.com, Fill the Data & AI Track form, Check your email for the next steps and onboarding details. Once you're in, drop an intro in the group chat answering: Your current level (beginner / intermediate), What you want to learn (data / ML / AI), How many hours you can commit weekly, BOOM that’s it. And no, nobody is dating anybody.

Only bad code is being corrected.

#The Ramblings of a (Technically) Single Boy.

- Ayo

Hey there developer.

It’s me again. Although now that I really think about it, you literally have no idea who I am…don’t worry, I’m not crazy.

It’s just valentine season.

The love in the air does that to you.

It’s a few days after the natural disaster that I have come to know as ‘Valentine’s Day’, or rather what the people of this age have made of it. The original plan was to write on the history of valentine - cause you know, we actually care about past events and the chronological statuses that border the day in itself.

Oh, we don’t?

I would have thought for sure that the history of valentine would interest you. Yunno - Saint Valentine, marrying soldiers in secret in a bid against conscription (although none of this is canonical), or the other story of a letter being written to Julia, the daughter of his jailer before his execution, Lupercalia - the festival valentine is said to draw its roots from (even if it is said to have been a bloody, violent and sexually charged celebration), the role of the Roman Empire, its ties to religion, and allat.

That hurt me.

I thought we were all nerds?

Know who you call your homies.

Although calling y’all my homies just because you’ve read my ramblings twice is quite a reach.

I was today years old when I learnt that it isn’t just Feb 14, valentine’s day. It’s Feb 7 - Feb 14.

I know.

I was shocked too.

It apparently goes like this:

7th - Rose Day

8th - Propose Day

9th - Chocolate Day

10th - Teddy Day

11th - Promise Day

12th - Hug Day

13th - Kiss Day

14th- THE DAY ITSELF

I’m more disgusted than you are.

All these for what?

Situationships and shaky relationships that won’t last another year?

You guys are just adding random things to it at this point.

I hope EFCC detained you for a few hours when you were jumping around with that money bouquet - quite impractical thing if you ask me.

But these are the statements you would utter:

“Don’t listen to him, he cannot understand”

“I don’t blame you, you’re just bitter because you’re technically single.”

And I wholeheartedly agree.

I will not be caught in the web of false perspectives and illusions you call your ‘relationship’.

Okay, that sounded much more polite in my head.

I’ll go now before I offend someone and get sued by the editor.

With ironic love,

A technically single boy.

#OUTRO

Well I guess this is it guys, at least for February. If you love yourself you’d take Tejiri and her advice as seriously as possible but if you do not, you can hate on everybody like Ayo. Pick your poison.

But as for me and my household, we would be happy, relationship or not. I know what real love feels like and it feels like YOU.

Thank you for reading, for engaging, for laughing, for arguing, for staying. You make this space what it is.
See you next time.
And oh — one more thing.
Watch out for ORBIT.

If you’ve been paying attention, you already know something is coming.
If you haven’t? Don’t worry. You’ll feel it soon.
Stay close. 🚀

With love,

Commit & Push,

The GDG Creative Writing Team. ❤