Unfortunately, BP has been using dispersants on the failed well to prevent the oil from slicking on the surface. Because there is so much oil, the slicks on the surface are still happening, but this isn't all of the oil. I don't know of any defensible estimates for the % of oil that is getting to the surface versus hanging out in "clouds of oil". However, it seems that most people, even BP, will acknowledge that this is a nontrivial amount of oil. Though it would be nice to do something more about the oil. Perhaps it could even dissuade them from using the dispersants... (Haha, I kid. They wouldn't backpedal on the effectiveness of dispersants now.)

You don't need to have thousands of different glyphs available so that people can communicate. "Coffee at 4?" works fine for my uses (well, in a theoretical world where I drink coffee).

I was considering it...except my data is in there too. If I were to somehow remove it from the database, though...