I spent the week in beautiful and (in spite of forecasts) mostly sunny Dubrovnik attending the AstroInformatics 2015 conference and the BigSkyEarth collaboration meeting catching up on the latest applications of Computer Science to Astronomy, Earth Observations as well as other disciplines. While everyone is seemingly into Big Data these days, a lot of the techniques & tools have long been available and (some) astronomers are only slowly catching up, but thanks to well-established Open Standards and the largely Open Data Policy within the astronomical community, however, progress looks more rapid than in most other disciplines. Which is very good news considering that today’s ‘big’ astronomical datasets will soon be dramatically superseded by eminently data-intensive projects such as LSST and SKA. A number of conference attendees will be visiting Cape Town next year for an IVOA Interoperability Meeting, which will hopefully allow the South African community to establish or strengthen collaborations in this fledgling field.

PS : while it appears that signature scenes from a TV series which I’m told is VERY popular in some circles have long been shot in Dubrovnik and more than a few pointers were available to remind the casual visitor about it, to my fellow astronomers’ defence (for a change) I’m glad to say that conversations were remarkably free of any related nonsense!;-)