Telugu Bytes: Recent Episodes
Kevvv
A podcast in Telugu about technology, programming, music, movies, life in the Bay Area and other stuff. Find us at telugubytes.com and twitter.com/telugubytes.
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Following our bold predictions about AI (https://telugubytes.com/087-tsunai-warning) and its impact on everything two weeks ago - Dhruv and Ravi couldn't contain their existential angst and decided to do a 20 min weekly recap with everything going on with AI in their day-to-day lives. plus a rotating crew of guests jumping in to share what's hitting different for them. This week we are joined by Sai N and Chandra Kuchi
Dhruv and Ravi are back to talk about the rise of agentic AI — their experience with Claude Code and Cursor, what agents actually are, and why they think a tsunami is coming for software engineers and knowledge workers.
- The Tsunami Warning
- The feeling since late 2025 — prapancham roju roju ki maripotundi
- The COVID masks analogy — we are those people now
- Why the folks back home aren't feeling it yet
- Timeline — How We Got Here
- GPT-2 (2020) → ChatGPT (2022) → Cursor (2023) → Claude Code & Opus 4.5 (2025)
- The Evolution of AI Coding
- Chat interface — copy-paste snippets from ChatGPT
- Assisted coding — Cursor tab-complete, you drive, model navigates
- Agentic coding — the agent drives, you're the passenger
- Cursor vs Claude Code — why Claude Code wins
- The Autopilot vs FSD analogy
- WTF is a Model?
- Giant N-dimensional matrices with weights
- Text in, everything out
- Bigger model, better responses
- WTF is an Agent?
- Model = brain, Agent = human
- Agent uses the model to operate tools — like a robot with a task
- Inference and Context Engineering
- Sessions, prompting, context windows
- SWE = Context Engineering + Verification Engineering
- Memory, Skills, and the Matrix Kung-Fu analogy
- Agent Harnesses
- Claude Code, Cursor, Agent SDKs
- Programming in English
- It's fun, addictive, and an art
- Communication skills over coding skills
- Good taste, strong architecture, trash your prior beliefs
- My Thesis — And How It Was Wrong
- Thought it'd hit "IT workers" first, not Big Tech
- But the tsunami hits the coast first — US and Big Tech have closed loops
- Tesla car Dharavi slums lo nadavadhu — we paved 6-lane roads for AI
- Knowledge Work, Manufacturing and Farming
- Any work where you can "close the loop" is at risk
- Manufacturing with QC — robots were always there, programming them was hard
- Farming — mostly done
- What is Still Scarce?
- Ideas, customer acquisition, creative content, land
- Creating software is no longer scarce
- Ippudu Em Cheyyamantaru Saar?
- We don't need SWEs, we need builders
- Product sense, distributed systems, build-sell-ship quickly
- The existential dread — we don't have 10 years, or 5, or even 2
- Collective mental health crisis and economic reshaping ahead
- The fire storm is coming
This episode was recorded in December 2023 but published in June 2025 (sorry, listeners!)
Dhruv and Ravi dive deep into Sandeep Reddy Vanga’s blockbuster Animal and what worked / didn’t work for them.
- Maharshi’s AI OS - a reality in 2023
- Editor’s note: This is even more impressive in late 2025 as we publish this
- Arjun Reddy - Revisited
- SRV’s obsessive defense of Arjun Reddy
- Animal - Expectations
- Deep Dive
- Animal Park
- Why was it such a blockbuster?
- Expectations on Game Changer
- The fall of Shankar
- The Shankar Formula
- GC - What went wrong
- Positives and Suggestions
- Other comments
- Closing thoughts
On the eve of India's opening match, Praveen, Aravind and Dhruv do a curtainraiser episode. We talk the tournament's timing, dew factor, thoughts on each squad, Team India team combinations and predictions. Enjoy!
- Lack of buzz - IPL and cricket overload?
- Organization of the tournament - BCCI & ICC
- Dew factor - playing in Oct/Nov in India
- Round robin format - pros and cons
- Squads - Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Netherlands, Sri Lanka
- South Africa at 6
- New Zealand at 5
- Pakistan at 4
- Australia at 3
- England at 2
- India at 1
- Team India combinations
- Our predictions
Dhruv and Ravi review the other films of 2022:
- Shyam Singha Roy
- Ante Sundaraniki
- Ori Devuda and Paagal
- Skylab
- F3
- Vikram
- Ponniyin Selvan I
- Sarkaru Vaari Paata
- DJ Tillu
- A star is born
- Favorite punchlines
Dhruv, Ravi and Aravind critique 2022 pan-Indian films starting with the name K - KGF Chapter 2, Kantara and Karthikeya 2
- KGF: Chapter 2
- Delivers on expectations?
- Drawbacks
- Kantara
- Why it became a blockbuster
- Drawbacks
- Karthikeya 2
- Hype
- Drawbacks
Dhruv and Ravi review two pan-indian period romantic films from 2022 - Radhye Shyam and Sita Ramam.
- Intro
- Radhye Shyam
- Buzz
- Story
- What went wrong?
- Sita Ramam
- What went right?
Dhruv, Ravi and Aravind review India’s biggest film of 2022 and Oscar contender - SS Rajamouli’s RRR starring NTR and Ram Charan.
- Intro
- Viewing Experience in India and US (and meeting SSR)
- First Half
- Our issues with the film
- “Gun Uncle” - the gun-thirsty villager in RRR
- Ajay Devgn Flashback
- Performances - NTR and RC
- Other thoughts
- Tiger memes
Continuing on our Movies of 2022 series, Aravind, Dhruv and Ravi go over Pushpa: The Rise - the Sukumar & Allu Arjun blockbuster.
In Part 1 of our “Movies of 2022” review series, Dhruv and Ravi review four big-star films of 2022.
- Akhanda - why it became a blockbuster
- Acharya - what went wrong
- Godfather - why we liked it
- Bheemla Nayak - why we didn’t like it
As fans of Puri, Dhruv and Ravi had their doubts when Liger was announced. Liger panned out exactly as they feared. Here's their take.
- Intro
- What went wrong
- What next for VD
- What next for Puri
- Reactions, memes and trolls
Praveen and Ravi do a quick roundup of the wild macro 2022 trends in markets, crypto, jobs and recollect their experiences from previous downturns.
The content provided in this podcast is for informational purposes only, you should not construe any such information or other material as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice. Please consult your financial advisor for any investment advice.
In a continuation from Episode 60, Dhruv interviews Chandra Kuchi again about his transition from engineer to manager, remote work, interviewing, hiring and other things.
- Working remotely
- Moving to a new job
- What to look for in a company + role
- Interviews and Negotiations
- Onboarding
- Transitioning from Engineer to Manager
- Role of an EM
- Miscallaneous Questions
Dhruv and Nayan get into what the Metaverse is, Facebook's motivations, VR, AR and what Apple can bring to the table.
- Intro
- The Metaverse
- Meta's Motivation
- State of social networks today
- Multiple Metaverses?
- State of VR
- VR vs AR
- Apple and VR - Wishcasting
- Apple and AR - Wishcasting
In the 3rd part of this series, Dhruv and Nayan discuss the “Power Star” phase of the 2010s in Pawan Kalyan’s career.
They talk about Panjaa, Gabbar Singh, Attarintiki Daaredi and, of course, Agnyaathavaasi.
After the highs from 1998-2001 came the lows of 2002-2011. Dhruv and Nayan dive in to the “dark decade” as Pawan Kalyan fans.
This is Part 2 of 3. They talk about Johnny, Gudumba Shankar, Balu, Bangaram, Annavaram, Jalsa, Puli and Teenmaar.
As Pawan Kalyan turns 50, Dhruv and Nayan reminisce about being his fans, taking a walk through the filmography of their favorite star.
This is a three-parter. In Part 1, they talk about PK’s golden era from 1998 to 2001 spanning Tholiprema, Thammudu, Badri and Kushi. They also try to answer the question - what made themturn into fans?
The content provided in this podcast is for informational purposes only, you should not construe any such information or other material as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice. Please consult your financial advisor for any investment advice.
Praveen and Ravi demystify the hype around Bitcoin.
- Origin of money
- Gold standard
- USD and Gold
- Digital money origin
- Properties of cryptocurrency
- Bitcoin, the hype and reality
- Store of value or Protocol?
Praveen and Dhruv get together to review India's iconic test series win in Australia in 2020/21.
-
Mood coming into the series
-
Putting things in perspective
-
Review of 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th Tests
-
Player performances
-
Is this India's greatest series win ever?
Dhruv and Ravi wrap the trilogy discussing the broader implications of COVID & OTT on movie industry.
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Dhruv and Ravi continue their conversation about home tech -- focused on entertainment, TV and Sound systems.
- Early experience with music and theater experience
- Undergrad and expanding of horizons
- 5.1 Sound system
- Dolby Atmos system
- OLED and TV Tech
If you have any feedback, please reach out to us on: Twitter - @telugubytes, Instagram - @telugubytes.fm, Facebook: /telugubytes
Dhruv and Ravi get together to do a quick round up on the state of affairs of Smart home technology
- Smart homes and voice assistants
- Thermostats
- Doorbells
- Smart locks
- Home Security Systems
- Solar Power
- Wifi & Mesh Routers
- Disadvantages of Smart homes
- Adoption and learning curve
Please rate and review us us on Apple Podcasts or Google Play Store. If you have any feedback, please reach out to us on: Twitter - @telugubytes, Instagram - @telugubytes.fm, Facebook: /telugubytes
Praveen and Ravi talk about the final week of Bigg Boss 4
- COVID and Bigg Boss 4
- Comparison with previous seasons
- Contestants: Sohel, Akhil, Monal, Abhijeet
- Hosting
Praveena Paruchuri, the award-winning producer of Care of Kancharapalem and UMUR, talks to us about her journey into film production, experiences of producing UMUR, COVID-19 and its effects on film production and distribution.
We talk about:
- Her journey from being a doctor in NYC to a Telugu film producer
- Her take on what the job of a producer is
- Challenges faced in film production
- Experiences with UMUR
- Releasing UMUR on Netflix
- COVID-19 and the shift to OTT platforms
This was a very entertaining and informative conversation. Hope you like it!
Maha, the director of Uma Maheswara Ugra Roopasya joins us (yes!) to do a deep-dive into the making of UMUR.
We talk about:
- The plot points that interested us
- Our questions about the film
- Working with the cast and technicians
- Sound Design and Mixing
- Theatrical experience vs. OTT
- Reviews, Criticism and Memes
- The Genesis of Care of Kancherapalem
- Films that we like
This was an absolutely delightful conversation. Hope you love it!
Dhruv and Aravind review Uma Maheswara Ugra Roopasya, Maha’s second film after the masterpiece Care of Kancherapalem.
- Story
- Changes from Original
- Screenplay and characters
- Performances
- Cinematography, Editing, Production Design
- Sound Design
- Production and Direction
Dhruv and Ravi get together and talk about:
- COVID-19, their initial thoughts
- Rise of cases
- Coming to terms with it
- Changes to lifestyle
- COVID and Telugu Film Industry
- COVID and software industry
- COVID and kids
Dhruv ponders what a “10x engineer” really means, and interviews Chandra Kuchi, a friend of the show and Dhruv’s ex-colleague about 10x engineering aka good software engineering.
They talk about motivation, communicating with the team and other teams, focus and dealing with interrupts, work ethic, communicating your efforts and much more.
You all will be as confused as we are at the end of this episode on what this is supposed to be. But we assure you that it is going to be fun.
Aravind & Ravi dissect Naveen Polishetty's powerhouse performance in his debut Telugu movie -"Agent Sai Srinivas Athreya"
- TED talk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1pkux2P7cnA
- Deleted scenes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=On6ZQhjAHmU
As Thanksgiving approaches, Ravi and Dhruv talk about the tech they are thankful for in..... 2018.
In typical Telugu Bytes fashion, we recorded this episode in 2018 but only managed to release it now.
However, we still think it holds up pretty well - we talk about phones, cameras, headphones and a lot more.
Happy Thanksgiving!
Praveen and Dhruv get together and talk about Indian Cricket in 2019 - test dominance, the bowling attack, WC 2019 and more.
- India tour of Australia and NZ
- WC 2019
- Ashes
- Indian Test Team
- Bowling attack
- Dhoni
- Shastri
- Ganguly
- Themes explored in the film
- Screenplay
- Ending
- Characters
- Music and Background Score
- Editing
- Production design
- Direction
- Looking forward
Dhruv and Ravi recap WWDC 2019 and their dashed hopes
- The new glorious monitor and the sticker shock
- Mac Pro - the machine we want, but not we need
- iOS - Dark mode, nuff said
- iPadOS - "Poorthiga macbook la maripoyina iPad ni choodu"
- SwiftUI and its implications on UI frameworks
[The podcast is full of spoilers, please avoid if you haven't watched the movie yet]
- Spidy and Ravi start with how they got introduced to KGF
- Spidy and Ravi discuss their top 4 scenes
- The first fight
- Rocky stopping the traffic to aid the poor mother
- Rocky's brand elevation at police station
- Rocky pulling the cart
- Dheera dheera breakout fight
- Climax
- Prashant Neels direction, script and other tidbits
- Dialogues and how they held their vitality across languages
- Yash - the coming of age of the next pan indian superstar?
- Downsides
- Predictions about Chapter 2
[Spoiler Alert: Please watch the movie before listening to the episode because we discuss the story and scenes in detail] Aravind & Ravi analyze Nani's latest blockbuster Jersey
- Our 50th episode! 🎉#TB50
- Ram Charan and NTR come together for #RRR with Rajamouli
- Ram Charan & Sukumar's Rangasthalam - our review
- Performances
- Suku'mark' scenes
- Other departments
- NTR & Trivikram's Aravinda Sametha - our review
- Performances
- Trivikram finally gets (almost) everything right
- Other departments
- Looking forward to #RRR and #TB100
Praveen and Dhruv get together to talk about the state of Indian cricket in 2018, review recent tours and player performances and look forward to World Cup 2019.
- Ongoing India-WI series
- End of the road for Vijay and Dhawan?
- The Karun Nair conundrum
- The golden age of Indian fast bowlers
- Why is Ravi Shastri still coach?
- Should Dhoni retire from limited overs?
- Should Rohit Sharma be ODI captain?
- The rise and rise of Virat Kohli
- Praveen's XI for World Cup 2019
- How are the other teams doing?
- Final thoughts
Aravind and Ravi couldn't wait to get their thoughts in about their latest favorite Telugu movie
Note:
- We think you will be able to enjoy this episode irrespective of if you watched the movie or not. But you still want to be make sure you have all the context, here is the amazon prime link.
- All the discussion & sarcasm in this episode is in a lighter vein to provide humor for our audience and not meant to undermine the talent of any technicians involved. Thank you!
Dhruv goes over everything that happened in the Apple world since he & Ravi got together in 2017.
- iOS 12
- WatchOS 5
- Mojave
- iPhone X/Xs/Xr
- HomePod
- New Macs
- Watch Series 4
It took another season of Bigg Boss for Praveen and Ravi to come back from hiding!
After almost an year since they did they a quick recap of Bigg Boss 1, Ravi and Praveen get together to discuss about Bigg Boss 2.
In this special episode, Dhruv interviews C R Hemanth, a popular Telugu film critic who probably needs no introduction to our listeners. We at Telugu Bytes have always followed and admired Hemanth's reviews and his take on all things filmy.
- Hemanth's days at BITS Pilani and introduction to film appreciation
- The trip that (sort of) changed his life
- Blogging about films
- How he got into mainstream film journalism and criticism
- Social media - pros and cons
- How he deals with trolls
- Films of 2018 - Rangasthalam, Awe, Sammohanam, Ee Nagaraniki Emaindi
- Flops of 2018 - How audience are rejecting the old order
- Reviews and their impact on films
- Relationship between filmmakers and critics
- How do we make film reviewing better
- Purpose of a film critic - Hemanth's POV
Notes:
- This interview is predominantly in English, kindly understand and excuse.
- We thought we were respectful, unbiased and objective in our opinions but in case we offended anyone, we deeply apologize.
- (Pardon the crutch words - Dhruv)
- Trailer impressions
- Vijay Deverakonda's performance
- Story
- Scene-by-scene review
- Rahul Ramakrishna's performance
- About the director Sandeep
- Negatives about the film
- Impact on society
- Pre-show movie chatter
- Spyder
- Arjun Reddy
- How we got our first jobs / internships
- First day at work
- First week at work
- Projects
- Managers
- Lessons learnt
- Women in tech
- State of consumer tech
- Is the mobile war over?
- State of VR
- State of AR
- What is Apple doing with AR?
- Tablets vs desktops
- WWDC and Apple's latest product announcements
- iPad Pro
- iMac Pro
- HomePod and AirPods
- The next iPhone - what's coming
Ravi and Sasi discuss their obsession about latest reality TV star and Tamil Nadu heartthrob - Oviya Helen. Please make sure you check the "Links" for references during the podcast.
- Introduction
- Interest in Bigboss tamil and when it started
- Oviya’s Intro from hosts
- Discussion about Oviya’s good and bad qualities
- A brief overview of other characters:
- Gayathri
- Sakthi
- Julie
- Snehan
- Arav
- Isolation of Oviya in the house
- Oviya and Arav’s love
- Snehan support for Oviya
- Oviya’s Exit and Kamal’s reaction
- Winner guesses
Links
- Oviya Helen - The Heartthrob: http://www.firstpost.com/entertainment/bigg-boss-tamil-how-oviya-helen-became-the-premiere-seasons-most-sensational-contestant-3884305.html/amp
- Oviya’s upcoming Telugu movie (Idi Naa Love Story): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MIJ10ZMWzKA
- Neenga Shutup Pannunga: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eGjtndc4Gfk
- Oviya Tribute Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mHbwM1TtX0E
- Shakti threatens to slap Oviya: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ddWQtic3t1I
- Snehan brings Kamal to tears: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iuFKLtYGLM8
- Oviya final interview with Kamal: https://youtu.be/MtbZWoAU8lI?t=5m10s
- Oviya Anthem for Oviya Army: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZRriRknyoM0
- Big Boss Tamil Memes
-
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DwtgbJPrg5s
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4P7LVH4TpWQ
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yKlJWZlsJfg
- https://www.instagram.com/p/BXbdJHAlGNL/
Aravind & Ravi reminisce about their tennis memories and wrap up with Wimbledon 2017 hot takes.
- Childhood memories about Tennis
- Ravi's Federer fanaticism
- Aravind's Nadal fandom
- Federer vs Nadal
- Nadal vs. Djokovic: Here We Are Again, My Friend
- The General Joy Of Roger Federer, Wimbledon Champion Once Again
- Roger Federer As Religious Experience
Still not done with Baahubali? Here's Part 2 of our mega-review where we talk about our issues with the film, some thought experiments, some trivia and end with collections and records.
- Rate Telugu Bytes on Apple (iTunes) Podcasts - link
- Issues with the film
- Plot contrivances and characters
- Pacing issues
- Bit songs
- VFX
- Interval card and ending
- Thought experiments
- What if it was just one big film?
- Director's cut
- Blu-Ray release
- Trivia
- Things we noticed
- Reviewing the Reviews
- Indian reviews
- International reviews
- Talk among family and friends
- Trade talk
- Collections
- Records
- Precedents
Can't get enough of Baahubali? Here's Part 1Â of our mega-review where we talk about our favorite moments, the plot, characters, performances and technical aspects of Baahubali 2 - the toast of India right now.
- Our rating
- Movie watching experience
- Favorite moments in the film
- Scene-by-scene commentary
- Characters of Baahubali 2
- Amarendra Baahubali
- Devasena
- Sivagami
- Bhalladeva
- Kattappa
- Performances
- Technical aspects
- Cinematography
- Music and Background Score
- VFX
- Production design
- Screenplay and Direction
Watch out for Part 2 where we talk about our issues with the film, what if Baahubali was a single film and of course, the trade talk - collections and records.
Praveen and Ravi talk about origins of AI, recent advancements in AI and its impact on society.
- Bill Nye Saves The World Episode 3 - Machines Take Over the World: https://www.netflix.com/title/80117748
- The Arrival of Artificial Intelligence: https://stratechery.com/2017/the-arrival-of-artificial-intelligence/
- How Aristotle Created the Computer: https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2017/03/aristotle-computer/518697/
- Subbarao Kambhampati - President of AAAI: http://rakaposhi.eas.asu.edu/
- Acclaim for Part 1
- Part 2 delay
- Trailer release
- Trailer reactions
- VFX
Glitches
- Story clues from the trailer
- WKKB?
- Is Sivagami involved?
- Why the Krishna lullaby?
- Who does Kattappa owe fealty to?
- (Learnt a new word - fealty, thanks to Spidy!)
- Book: The Rise of Sivagami
- Undue emphasis on WKKB by makers
- Songs
- Hamsa Nava
- Dandalayya
- More drama in Part 2?
- Trade Predictions
- Spidy: 1000cr
- Success in China
- Premiere show ticket pricing
- Marketing
- Audio release function
- Social media
- Memes
- Books and Comics
- Merchandise
- Facebook stickers
- Emojifi stickers
- Virtual Reality
- Sword of Baahubali
- AMD Partnership
- What is this episode about? Nothing
- Telugu Bytes Quarterly Report
- Website revamp
- Recent episodes
- Tharun Bhasker’s feedback
- Backstories
- Who are our audience? An analysis
- Logo Refresh
- History of our logo
- Saawan’s design
- Our take
- Recent movies
- PK’s movies and Katamarayudu
- Programming Interviews - Part 3?
- Dhruv’s recent job change
- Why?
- What he’ll be working on
- Interview Prep
- String questions
- Dynamic Programming
- Graphs
- System Design!
- LeetCode
- Communication Skills
- At workplace
- Brilliant jerks
- Coding vs. communication skills
- Immigration woes
- H1-B visa
- I-94 document
Ravi sits down with Tarun Cherukuri, his childhood friend and CEO of INDUS Action, for two part interview. In the second part, they talk about:
- Tarun's experience at his first job in Unilever
- Experiences which turned him to social service
- Life at Teach for India
- Experience at Harvard
- Starting and Leading IndusAction
If you haven't listened yet, please listen 032 - Interview with Tarun (Part 1)
Links
- INDUS Action: https://www.indusaction.org/project-team
- Tarun Cherukuri: https://in.linkedin.com/in/taruncherukuri
- Follow him on Twitter: https://twitter.com/tarunch
- Tarun goes to Harvard: http://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/Vijayawada/vijayawada-youth-bags-harvard-kennedy-schools-emerging-global-leader-award/article7187565.ece
Ravi sits down with Tarun Cherukuri, his childhood friend and CEO of INDUS Action, for two part interview.
- Their experiences at VPS, Vijayawada
- His passion for sports and Badminton
- His experiences at BITS Pilani
- Interviewing and landing a job
(Continued in Part 2)
Links
- INDUS Action: https://www.indusaction.org/project-team
- Tarun Cherukuri: https://in.linkedin.com/in/taruncherukuri
- Follow him on Twitter: https://twitter.com/tarunch
- Tarun goes to Harvard: http://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/Vijayawada/vijayawada-youth-bags-harvard-kennedy-schools-emerging-global-leader-award/article7187565.ece
After almost an year later, Aravind and Ravi get back to discuss one of their favorite topic - trips to India. They talk about Ravi's recent trip to India and his experiences.
- Follow up
- Air India (SFO to Delhi)
- Progress in Vijayawada
- Temples in Tirupati and Thanjavur
- Staying in Chennai
- Sankranthi Movies
- Next episode guest!
Dhruv and Aravind talk about the 2016 Telugu rom-com/coming-of-age film Pelli Choopulu.
- Our take on the film
- Dhruv
- Aravind
- Success of the film
- Budget
- Run in the USA
- Indie films and distribution models
- Thoughts on the film
- Story
- Screenplay
- Characterizations
- Treatment
- Dialogues
- The Telangana dialect
- Tharun Bhasker's idlebrain postmortem
-
Thoughts on acting
- Vijay Deverakonda
- Ritu Verma
- Priyadarshi
- Anish Kuruvilla
- Nandu
- Kedar Shankar
- The crew
- Cinematography (Nagesh Banell)
- Production design (Latha Naidu)
- Sound (Tapeloop)
- Music (Vivek Sagar)
- Director (Tharun Bhascker Dhaassyam)
- Other indie films
- Vasham, the first crowd-funded film in Telugu
- Info
- Trailer
We are aware that www.telugubytes.com is currently not working. Meanwhile, you can visit telugubytes.libsyn.com where you can access all the content. We are redesigning our theme and moving to a new provider in next few weeks. Thanks for reporting the issue and your patience.
Ravi & Aravind ponder over how software release process has evolved last decade
- Instagram Release Process
- Jenkins 2.0 Here
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this episode are ours and do not represent those of our employers.
On its tenth anniversary, Ravi, Aravind and Dhruv do a scene-by-scene review of the Puri-Mahesh blockbuster and even try to derive some life lessons from the film.
- Our quick take on the film
- Ravi
- Aravind
- Dhruv
- Flashback to 2006
-
- Trailer - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rdIwjSBIW4w
- Experience watching the film for the first time
- Subsequent viewings
- The pre-climax twist
- Google movie summary https://www.google.com/search?q=pokiri
- Fights in the film
- Shed fight
- MMTS fight
- One-liners of the film
- The character of Pandugadu - life lessons
- The character of Pasupathy
- Den scene
- Shootout scene
- Basketball court scene
- Pandu - Shruthi love thread
- Confrontation scenes between Pandu and Pasupathy
- Gang wars
- Management lessons from the henchman Guru
- Ali Bhai
- Pasha's satires on media
- Twist and the big reveal
- Climax
- Comedy scenes
In this episode, Dhruv, Praveen & Aravind get together & chat about their cricketing memories, favorite matches, upcoming T20 cricket world cup in India, current Indian team & their chances, and players around the world to watch out.
Links
- Playing Cricket and my Eternal Damnation by Dhruv
On our 25th episode, Ravi and Dhruv look back at what went well and what didn't.
- Flashback
- Looking back at the flashback
- Inception
- Our Frequency
- Inspirations and lessons learnt from them
- State of podcasting in India and future
- Our strengths
- Our new strategy
- Introducing our new hosts
- What didn't go well
- Q & A format
- Incoherence
- Lack of scripts and preparation
- What went well
- The name "Telugu Bytes"
- Rise in recording quality
- Expansion
- Favorite Episodes
- Ravi - Nannaku Prematho
- Dhruv - Programming Interviews
- What to look forward to
- 50 episodes by EOY
- Emphasis on quality
- Emphasis on consistency and regularity
Aravind is back from India after a long trip and shares his thoughts on the weather, philanthropy, education, IT and everything else happening in India.Â
- Teach for India
- Folllow Tarun Cherukuri on Facebook
- Hindu coverage of Tarun
Dhruv and Aravind try to follow follow follow follow Sukumar's latest thriller Nannaku Prematho. This episode is full of spoilers.
- Spoiler Alert
- Sukumar's 3Â Cs - Concept, Creativity and.. we'll talk about the third later.
- Dhruv's take
- AK's take
- 3 kinds of moviegoers and how Sukumar impresses them
- 3 lead roles and how they performed
- Supporting cast and crew
- 3 roles of Sukumar - story, screenplay and direction - how he did
- 3 favorite scenes in the film of ours
- The third C is ---------
- Complaints about the film
- Looking forward
Ravi laments about too many JavaScript frameworks, Praveen tries to make sense of all this and bring some sanity.
- History of Javascript
- HTML, CSS and Javascript - How all of them work together?
- Gmail history and pioneers of AJAX
- Advent of JQuery
- MVC pattern
- Different JavaScript MVC frameworks
- BackboneJS
- ReactJS
- AngularJS
- Facebook reverses MobileWeb approach
- Praveen concludes that lack of diversity in client side languages forced developers to bootstrap various Server side paradigms as JS frameworks
Dhruv Vemula and 'Spidy' Sri Atluru talk about the best Telugu and English films they've seen in 2015, and the worst ones..
- Telugu films including Baahubali, Srimanthudu, Bhale Bhale Magadivoy, Bruce Lee, Akhil etc.
- English films including Avengers: Age of Ultron, Jurassic World, Mad Max, Star Wars etc.
- Other good films we might have missed
We have a second guest after Spidy at Telugubytes. In this episode, Ravi talks to Praveen, longtime listener of Telugubytes, Software Engineer at Uber & Paypal about his career as Software Engineer and how he got started.
- Praveen and Ravi reminisce about their early days of grad school
- Praveen explains how he prepared and what it takes to succeed in interviews.
- Experience at Uber versus Paypal
- Ondemand economy and its implications on future
Follow us at Twitter for updates about the show - @telugubytes, You can also follow the hosts at: @gummadi, @praveengorthy, @dhruvtv
With iOS9, the discussion on web ads and ad-blockers has gone mainstream. In this episode, Dhruv and Ravi have a discussion on the topic.
- Origin of web ads
- Newspaper ads and TV ads
- Ad Networks
- Google and Facebook
- Ad-Blocking in Firefox and Chrome
- iOS 9 content blockers
- Native ads
- Facebook Instant Articles
- Google's Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP)
We discuss the success of Baahubali and discuss if it can change the way Telugu films are produced and marketed.
- Ticket prices and the "range" of Telugu films
- Baahubali's production and financing
- Remunerations of Telugu film stars
- Collections and fan wars
We chart the rise of SS Rajamouli over the years, from Shantinivasam to Baahubali.
- Shantinivasam
- Student No. 1 and the years of obscurity
- Simhadri
- Intensity
- Inspirations from Braveheart
- Dialogues and dramatization
- Sye
- The villain
- Chatrapathi
- Utilizing Prabhas
- The interval block
- Vikramarkudu
- Sleaze in the first half
- Titla
- The mass appeal
- Yamadonga
- The pre-interval scene
- NTR's transformation
- Magadheera
- His best story?
- Periods of sustained drama
- His influences, inspirations and claims of plagiarism
- Simhadri : Singamalai scene - Braveheart
- Sye : Coach pep talk - Any Given Sunday
- Chatrapathi
- Magadheera : Om Shanti Om?
- Magadheera's original story
- Maryadaramanna
- Purpose
- Eega
- Story and VFX
- Surprises
- Baahubali
- Culmination of his learnings
- Craft
- Rajamouli vs. Competition
- Top 5 directors in India
- What's next for Rajamouli?
- Meluha trilogy
- Mahabharatam
- What makes Rajamouli Rajamouli?
- Personality traits
- Forever the learner
- Lessons
- Conclusion
Dhruv and Spidy (Sri Atluru)  attempt a review of Baahubali.Â
- This episode is full of spoilers. Please watch the movie before you listen. Please!
- We sometimes slip into English during the conversation. It's not deliberate. Excuse us.
-
We sometimes refer to celebrities (cast and crew) in the singular (athadu, vaadu). This is purely because it's a casual conversation between friends. We mean no disrespect - we love and adore them!
-
How we liked the movie
- Talk from the audience
- Announcement, budget, marketing and expectations
- Spidy's favorite scenes from the film
- Dhruv's favorite scenes from the film
- Character introductions
- How songs fit into the film
- Post-interval block
- War scenes
- da Vinci's chariot design
- Prabhas and Rana as Baahubali and Bhallaladeva
- Anushka as Devasena
- Ramyakrishna and the character of Shivagami
- Senthil's cinematography
- VFX - The waterfall and the fort
- Keeravani's outstanding music and background score
- Tidbits and trivia
- Flaws
- Reviewing the reviews
- Looking forward to Part 2
- Dhruv and Ravi's take on trips and planning
- Dick Costolo is stepping down as CEO of Twitter
- An employee's farewell letter
- BBC's worst CEOs of 2014
- TWTR stock price in the last three months
- What is Twitter?
- Microblogging service or a social network
- Montly Active Users (MAU)
- Twitter vs. Facebook MAU
- Chris Sacca's open letter -Â What Twitter Can Be
- 1 billion people have tried Twitter, but most don't stick
- Is the onboarding process broken?
- Are they slow to execute?
- What can Twitter do?
- Become a protocol - or is it too late?
- Focus on 'Live'
- Mine tweets for deep insights
- Who should be the next CEO?
- Will Google buy Twitter?
- El Capitan, the name (hint: Yosemite's half-dome)
- OS X Wi-Fi performance
- Metal on OS X
- Possibilities on Apple TV
- iOS 9
- Search and deep linking to apps
- WebKit content blocker
- WKWebView
- watchOS 2
- Native apps
- Possibilities
- Apple Music and Apple News
- Sundar Pichai's shoutout to the TV show 'Silicon Valley'
- Hooli, the fictitious company in the show
- Android M
- Granular app permissions
- Web views can share cookies
- Google Now on Tap
- Josh Topolsky's article on Google Now on Tap.
- Google Photos
- Competition: Flickr, Amazon Photos, iCloud photo library, Dropbox
- Machine learning for photos
- Android Pay
- Google Cardboard (VR headset)
- Google : RGV :: Oculus : Rajamouli
- Dhruv's thoughts on his Apple Watch
- Pricing - is it really worth it?
- Fitness trackers: Apple Watch vs. Fitbit vs. others
- Other features
- Dhruv's India trip
- Situation in Telangana
- Situation in Andhra
- Weather
- Tech scene in Bangalore
- Indian tech salaries vs. US salaries
- Web apps vs. Mobile apps for Indian startups
- Thoughts on MacBook
- Pros and cons
- Looks
- Ports
- Who is it for?
- Competition: Dell XPS 13, Asus and Acer's ultrabooks
- Would you buy?
- Thoughts on Apple Watch
- Pricing
- Would you buy?
- Which one?
- Competition: Fitbit, Pebble
-
What's the best smartphone in the market?
-
Sorry for the background hiss, couldn't get rid of it completely.
What to prepare:
- Dhruv's take
- Ravi's take
Algorithms:
- Linked lists, stacks and queues, sorting, trees and search, hash tables, graphs, strings, dynamic programming
- Textbooks: CLRS, Algorithms by Sedgewick
- Sedgewick's Algorithms's courses on Coursera.
- Cracking the Coding Interview
- Programming Interviews Exposed
- LeetCode
When to prepare:
- Dhruv's take
- Ravi's take
How to prepare:
- Solving on whiteboards
- Attitude
- Resume and projects
This is Part 1 on our two-part podcast on Programming Interviews. This week, we talk about how we went from hating programming interviews to understanding and appreciating them, and doing well.Â
- Our first experience with programming interviews at BITS Pilani in 2005-06.
- How our friend Sankar Tanguturi mastered the art of interviews, and taught us how to do the same.
- Our initial hatred for interviews
- Why should I study algorithms etc. to interview for jobs where I'll be doing something completely different? Ravi answers some FAQs.
- How much does luck matter in interviews?
Hopefully, we've answered the "why" in this episode. In the next one, we talk about "how" to prepare for programming interviews.
- Pawan Kalyan on Twitter.
- Why do celebrities use Twitter? Why not Facebook?
- Reach of Facebook vs. Twitter in India
- Can we use Twitter analytics as a metric for success?
- 2014 in tech
- Things Dhruv is looking forward to in 2015
- Apple Watch
- Rise of Artificial Intelligence (AI)/Machine Learning
- Internet of Things (IoT)
- Virtual Reality (VR)
Chat about how and why Ravi built his new desktop, and memories of our first computers.
- Why did Ravi need a new computer?
- When did we buy our first computers?
- "Assembled" computers and pirated software
- Famous computers at BITS - Russell's media machine
- How to pick parts for a modern-day desktop
- CPU and motherboard
- RAM and SSD
- Monitors
- Economics of buying a branded computer vs. building it
- How long does it take to research and build one
- Breakdown of the cost
- Our current work and home setups
This week we have our first special guest, Sri Atluru (SPIDY), who joins us to discuss about the iPhone event, Apple Pay and where Apple is going in general. We end this episode with a 20 minute long Tollywood ramble about new and upcoming releases. (Disclaimer: All the comments in the end about actors/directors are made in a lighter vein, please don’t consider them as personal attacks on anyone.)
- Dhruv buys iPhone 6 and his initial views on the device
- Spidy follows up with his views on iPhone and Apple
- iPhone controversies post release
- iPhone 6+ Bendgate controversy
-
How Apple handled it versus Antenna gate and how it compared it with Jobs epic press conference after that?
-
iOS 8.0.1 botched release?
- A disgusting Businessweek article places a blame on a middle level QA manager.
-
Spidy and Gummadi debate on managerial styles of Jobs vs Cook.
-
Apple Pay
-
Spidy explains why he is longing for Apple Pay and how its going to fundamentally change the payment industry.
-
Tollywood
-
Spidy and Dhruv weigh on the latest Tollywood’s disaster Aagadu and Sreenu Vytla
- Expectations on next week’s release, Govindudu Andarivadele.
- Crucial film for Krishna Vamsi’s career
- Bandla Ganesh’s epic GAV audio release speech
Topics:
- iPhone 6 and iPhone 6+
- Would Steve Jobs allowed this mutiple screen sizes?
- Android Comparisons
- Galaxy Ad
-
Move from Apple to Android Guide
-
Apple Pay
- How is the authentication done?
- How much difference does it make?
- Does Paypal need to really fear this?
-
Paypal ad
-
Apple Watch
- Some thoughts on the spectacular intro video
-
Thoughts on this new category and Apple’s approach to it
-
Aagadu
-
Expectations and some lackluster music by Thaman (as usual)
-
Ai
- Some thoughts on Shankar’s next mega blockbuster
User feedback:
- Sound quality - We upgraded our equipment and made sure the sound is being picked up the correct microphones.
- AT2020+ (Ravi’s Microphone)
-
Blue Yeti (Dhruv’s Microphone)
-
Going to be more conscious about the cliches and stepping over each other. Also going to drift away more from the Q&A format and get into a more conversational style.
Links
- Apple Keynote
- Bendict Evans about iWatch
- A watch enthusiast’s review about iWatch
- iPhone 6 review by Walt Mossberg
In the fourth and the first episode since the beta launch, we thank the audience for their support and clarify couple of questions/concerns from the audience.
- iPhone 6 Release
- Coming Tuesday the rumour mill is ripe that Apple is going to release their next version of iPhone and iWatch
-
Dhruv discusses some of the features which Apple is rumored to release in this release.
-
iCloud Celebrity Photo Hack
- Last week, an infamous celebrity photo hack has been the point of discussion by both mainstream media and technology circles
- Ravi offers some insights into what multifactor authentication is and why that would have prevented this hack.
- Dhruv offers some other alternatives like 1Password which would eliminate the need of remembering the passwords.
- Dhruv goes over some basic precautions you can take to prevent this happening to you (in case you become famous ;-)
Links discussed in the show:
- Celebrity photo hack, an overview and how can you prevent them from happening to your photos: http://gigaom.com/2014/09/07/prevent-icloud-hack/
- Multi factor authentication Wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multi-factor_authentication
- The American Life podcast founder starts a new startup: Hear Startup http://hearstartup.com/https://twitter.com/podcaststartup
- Saavn, the Spotify for Indian music that Ravi has great things to say about.
-
Owning vs. Streaming music - What do we prefer? Where are we heading?
-
What is virtualization? How does this relate to cloud computing?
- What are the advantages and disadvantages of virtualization?
- A brief history of virtualization
- Major players in server virtualization - ESX, Hyper-V, RHEV and Xen
- An intro to storage virtualization and network virtualization
- Top three providers of IaaS, PaaS and SaaS
- Downsides of cloud
- Future of cloud
In this episode, Ravi and Dhruv discuss the buzzword-ridden and often confusing term 'Cloud Computing'.
- What is cloud? Why is everybody talking about it?
- Watch this guy explain "Cloud CDs" and what happens to them when it rains.
- Isn't my home computer good enough? How about a server? Why do I need cloud?
- Is the cloud model good or bad for small consumers?
- What is the difference between public cloud and private cloud?
- What is IaaS (infrastructure-as-a-service), PaaS (platform-aaS), SaaS (software)?
- Why did Everpix, running on AWS, go out of business?
Next week, we'll talk about virtualization, different cloud providers and the future.
Please send your comments to feedback -at- telugubytes -dot- com.
In the first episode, Dhruv and Ravi kick things off by introducing themselves and talk about podcasting - their favorite podcasts and why they started this one. The discussion turns to Kickstarter, LeBron's move to Cleveland and American sports in general.
Links from the podcast:
- Telugu Tharanga, a podcast we found.
- Kickstarter, a site that lets you raise money for your products
- Hanselminutes, a podcast that we love.
- LeBron's move to his old team, Cleveland Cavaliers.
You can find us on Twitter at @gummadi and @dhruvtv.
Q. What is the theme music that plays at the beginning and the end of the podcast?
A. It is Krish Ashok’s awesome Game of Thrones (Kuthu Remix), published under a Creative Commons license.