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PODCAST

Tales under the cat tree

Duleepa Wijayawardhana

In this podcast we"ll explore the wonderful worlds created by words: from technology and the future to fiction and other realms. Come join me and my friends for a weekly exploration of our present, future, and humanity through storytelling. tales.dups.ca

technology

All Episodes

26:22

Ep. 26: Sigiriya (5th Century AD)

Tales under the cat tree ·

2025/10/27

Sigiriya is a UNESCO World Heritage site from the 5th Century. Find out about King Kasyapa and this magnificent palace on top of a rock.Thanks to the following:* My colleague Viktor Djupsjöbacka* My brother Harsha Wijayawardhana* ElevenLabs for creating a voice clone of my fatherOther links:* About Sigiriya on Wikipedia* About the Mahavamsa from which I quote* And finally, enjoy some music! This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus

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16:23

Ep. 25: Fighting the realities we create

Tales under the cat tree ·

2025/10/20

Today’s episode is all about empathy and the realities we create and then live in. Listen to a voice-acted story that I wrote called “Watching the wheels” and come with me on questioning how we perceive ourselves so that we can better understand how others perceive us. Maybe we can live a less conflict driven and unhappy life along the way!Thanks in this episode to:* The Chapter Chasers writing group who gave me lots of feedback* Dr. Erwin Warkentin for his constructive criticism* The wonderful

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33:46

Ep. 24: The Bride Price and criticism

Tales under the cat tree ·

2025/10/13

In Episode 24, we wander around Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea in the early 1980s and drop into an unusual wedding in the highlands where modernity meets tradition.I invite Dr. Erwin Warkentin, retired professor and (not-retired) literary critic onto the show to both read my autobiographic story and discuss.The above picture is a pictograph from Papua New Guinea that hangs on my my brother’s wall in Colombo, Sri Lanka. Another memory from that time period.You can listen to more conversations with

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22:23

Ep. 23: Role-playing games will change your life!

Tales under the cat tree ·

2025/10/06

This is a two-part episode about roleplaying games and Dungeons and Dragons. This episode is a backgrounder on roleplaying games and how they could possibly change your life. And certainly, how they have changed mine.Today’s episode features my friends Andres, Nik, Olli, Niall and Liisa. Over six years we have adventured through many worlds and told many stories. This episode is as much about them as it is about role-playing in general. Thank you!A future episode will feature more of the stories,

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23:08

Ep. 22: (Update) The Shortcut and Enlightened Migration

Tales under the cat tree ·

2025/09/29

An updated version of Episode 6 included an interview with Riikka Loisamo, CEO of The Shortcut.The interview is followed by my own immigrant story and some singing!Links:* Visit The Shortcut in Finland for more about their programs and how to get involved.* Learn more about the attitude change campaign run by The Shortcut and their partners. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit tales.dups.ca

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13:16

Ep. 21: The "Cheater" Episode

Tales under the cat tree ·

2025/09/22

When I was growing up in the 1980s in Hong Kong, we only had four television channels. Of these, two were in English—ATV and TVB. My father refused to buy a VHS player, his reasoning being that I would spend too much time watching TV. To this day, I think it was because he was burned by VHS beating Betamax. As with every kid in my generation, I was glued to the TV at certain times of the day. There were Saturday morning cartoons, Sesame Street every weekday afternoon, and the famous syndicated

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12:59

Ep. 20: Flash!

Tales under the cat tree ·

2025/09/15

Today’s episode also features the flash fiction story “Sullivan’s Choice”My name is not DaveDave was born bawling. He didn't really like what he saw when he popped out into the light. "Rather depressing," he drawled. But there was nothing to do about it, so he sighed, shut up and set up shop in my head.To date, that is the shortest “flash fiction” story I’ve ever written at exactly 42 words, not including the title.Flash fiction is a sub-genre of the short story that can range from a few hundred or

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23:21

Ep. 19: Remembering Moishe

Tales under the cat tree ·

2025/09/08

If you are looking for links to various sources, materials and sites cited in the show, please scroll to the end. The article that inspired this episode is Yair Rosenberg’s The Atlantic piece: The MAGA Influencers Rehabilitating Hitler.I only met Moishe Kantorowitz once in my entire life, some 30 years ago. I have remembered his name ever since. This is not something I can say about most people that I have spent a couple of hours with.Moishe—I hope I can get away with referring to him by his first

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23:26

Ep. 18: My Parent Cafe / Pondering hyper-personalized...

Tales under the cat tree ·

2025/09/01

One of my hopes for the rise of Generative AI is its ability to bring highly technical skills to a wider audience. I hope that it means the rise of applications, systems and networks that change the lives of people in a more meaningful, personalized way.But is my hope too overblown and the hype too overwhelming? Will this new world of personalized applications even arrive? And if it does, what does it mean for software as a business?First though, I have my friend and former colleague Derek

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21:25

Ep. 17: Project Frederika and the Finnish Archipelago

Tales under the cat tree ·

2025/08/25

Listen to Part 1 of this interview.Welcome to Part 2 of my wide-ranging conversation with my dear friend Kaj Arnö in Nagu, Finland, in the Finnish Archipelago. For those who don't know Kaj, Kaj was one of the Finnish contingent of leaders at MySQL AB that shepherded the open source database to becoming the world's most popular before being sold to Sun Microsystems in 2008. He is one of the founders of MariaDB, former CEO, and now executive chairman of the MariaDB Foundation. To know more about all

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22:48

Ep. 16: MySQL, MariaDB, and AI – A conversation with...

Tales under the cat tree ·

2025/08/19

In 2007, I joined an open-source database company called MySQL AB. While I was at BioWare, I was part of the team that built the BioWare Community, which launched with the game Neverwinter Nights in July 2002. In a future episode or two, my friend and I will be delving into the nerdiest of stories around those times that even the most dedicated BioWare fans have likely not heard. But back to the story... During the process of building the community, we had to do many things that were new to the

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23:56

Ep. 15: From Russia without love

Tales under the cat tree ·

2025/08/10

No Trial for PapaPlease read the original short story by Erwin J. Warkentin featured and discussed on this podcastInterview with Dr. Erwin J. WarkentinDups: You just heard me read out a story called “No Trial for Papa” by Dr. Erwin J. Warkentin, who is here with me today. And welcome back to Tales Under the Cat Tree.Erwin: Well, you know that I always enjoy talking to you. This is just a little bit of a different forum.Dups: It’s the second show, so part number two of Erwin and Dups Do a Podcast

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14:55

Ep. 14: Puff vs the purple dune buggy

Tales under the cat tree ·

2025/08/03

This episode also features an original poem “When hurricanes come to die”"You bought what?!" I spluttered into my beer, a little bit louder than the ambience of the pub. A couple of regulars glanced my way."A purple dune buggy—for two dollars," Aaron said, nonplussed."So what are you going to do with it?" That was Mike, wondering where this was actually going.Mike's a lot more practical than the rest of us.It was a late 1990s Friday night in St. John's, Newfoundland on the very eastern edge of

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18:48

Ep. 13: Stories of Sri Lankan serendipity

Tales under the cat tree ·

2025/07/28

Please read Saving Mr. Mendis, an original short story set in colonial Sri Lanka. While I never really grew up in Sri Lanka, my late father was a born storyteller. There were few occasions when he would not hold forth with some story or other. This was especially the case when he had been drinking or if we were in the back of the 1950s Wolseley on our way somewhere during one of our many holidays in Sri Lanka.Saving Mr. Mendis is a short story inspired by many of his tales and written in the style

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13:51

Ep. 12: The Case of the Disappearing Internet

Tales under the cat tree ·

2025/07/21

Please read the short story that accompanies this piece: The Chain LetterWhen I was a teen on a trip to Sri Lanka, we went to visit some of the ancient cities whose ruins you find peppered throughout that island. Some of these ruins are over 2,000 years old. Walking through them with my father, I asked him the same question I have since repeated to myself in France, Spain, England, and countless other places: Where are the ruins of the ordinary people? Who tells their stories?Unfortunately, the

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27:02

Ep. 11: On the emotions of autobiography

Tales under the cat tree ·

2025/07/14

Writing about experiences centered around specific pivotal moments in my life is not easy for me. I easily get wrapped up in my own emotions. I find that autobiography does not come naturally to me. I think some of the closest autobiographical-style writing I have done was included in Episode 6 when I talked about my own immigrant story.I would like to explore this idea of autobiography with some help from my former professor, Dr. Erwin Warkentin. Erwin, as I call him these days, has been one of my

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16:00

Ep. 10: Are you a manager or a leader? / To the lands...

Tales under the cat tree ·

2025/07/07

Have you noticed that the market for self-help and how to succeed at business is so incredibly massive? According to a piece in the Washington Post from January 2025, I kid you not, 15000 self-help books are published each year. Some thousands likely have the terms “manager” or “leader” in the title. I'm only talking about the English language. Maybe even just North America.Why so many?Well, fundamentally, management and leadership do not come naturally to most of us. But if you get a bunch of

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25:40

Ep. 9: Happy Canada Day / To James Bay and the Arctic...

Tales under the cat tree ·

2025/06/30

Welcome to episode 9 for the week of June 29th, or better known as the week of Canada Day.This is my 24th Canada Day as a Canadian citizen, 33rd since I came to the rocky shores of Newfoundland, and the 8th since I moved to Finland for work.People often ask me where "home" is. As I have expressed elsewhere, I tend to respond that home and I have a complicated relationship. But in truth, where home is can be explained simply if I look at it purely from a country and geography perspective. If places

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21:19

Ep. 8: Entrepreneurial advice or lack thereof

Tales under the cat tree ·

2025/06/23

So far on Tales Under the Cat Tree, we've explored quite a number of diverse topics. In episodes two and three, we looked at the impact of AI in software development. In episode four, we took you driving through hazards in Chile and Sri Lanka. In episode five, we looked at the impact of AI in fiction, which I revisited with actual fiction in last week's episode on a very Finnish Midsummer. In episode six, we took a look at entrepreneurship and my migrant story.This week, I'd like to come back to

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20:37

Ep. 7: Very Finnish midsummer tales

Tales under the cat tree ·

2025/06/16

There are many things that were alien to me when I moved to Finland. One of those was the concept of Flag Days. For those in Finland who take these for granted, in much of the world that I have lived in, there are no specific rules around when the national flag is flown. Yes, many rules about how and where, but not often "when." In Finland, specific days are designated Flag Days, and only on those days, the Finnish blue cross on a white field goes up across the country's many flagpoles, which are

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26 results

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