![](https://beehaw.org/pictrs/image/9b4888c8-8348-4614-a7c2-2cf4b6c3b851.png)
![](https://programming.dev/pictrs/image/8140dda6-9512-4297-ac17-d303638c90a6.png)
Programming languages are build around the standard keyboard. Keyboards had most of the symbols you’re thinking of from their typewriter days. You can see most of the special characters in these small typewriters from the mid 1900s.
https://dealdashreviewed.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/typerwriter.jpg
With things like electric Wheel Writer typewriters, adding extra keys and symbols were less of a complexity issue and you started to see a few more extra symbols.
https://www.imagine41.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/ibm_wheelwriter_2500_002_1.jpg
Recognize that there never has been a hard standard for layouts and symbols, just the industry copying and converging on systems that became popular.
Without knowing the numbers, it’s impossible for me to make a judgment call on the release, but it’s important to remember that literally everything around you is radioactive. Just because the water has measurable amounts of radioactive material in it does not mean it’s unsafe. Ocean water is 3 parts per billion uranium, and yet people happily eat ocean fish.
Again, without knowing the numbers I can’t say for sure, but depending on what’s in the water (and how much there is) it very well could be entirely fine to dump it.
In any case, yeah I totally agree. It’s a publicity stunt.