that's excluding people based on their religious beliefs (or lack thereof).
Sorry, was using the definition that Aethiesm wasn't a religion. But since you say it is, maybe we should start applying seperation of church and state to it as well?
As for that link, well lets see. Money for chartering/rechartering is provided from dues the scouts pay and fundraising conducted throughout the year. If any of those places that chartered them are giving money, I'd be very surprised. Lets see them actually give more details and then I'll be interested. I have never run into a troop that wasn't chartered through a religious group.
As for using a cafeteria or fire hall? Any group can use them. They just need to sign up, and the scouts usually pay for them too.
Well, that appears to be the UK version, no for the US version.
On my honor, I will do me best, To do my duty to God and my country, and to obey the Scout Law, to help other people at all times, to keep my self physically strong, mentally awake, and morally straight.
A scout is trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, curtious, kind, obeidient, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean and reverent.
The BSA does not get any money from the gov for doing nothing. They may get it for grants for things they do, such as cleaning up an area, but anyone can get those. As for using the public buildings, there are no requirements on who can and can not request to use a building. And generally, you PAY for it.
The BSA is at least partially supported by government money - mines and yours. They should have to live up standards that don't exclude for reasons like race, religion, and sexual preference.
Er.. Actually, it isn't. The BSA does not get one red cent of funding from the federal government. Maybe in grants to do something, but not as general funding. The troops are entirely self financed.
As for excluding people based on race and religion? They do not exclude based on race, and the only troops that are allowed to deny based on religion are the mormon troops. But that is because the churches have all their boys join the troop. They're large enough as is.
That leaves sexual preference. The only way that the troops do exclude. That comes down to the scouts being a religious organization (of many relgions, not just one). With most of the religions believing that being gay is a sin. Nothing you can do about that.
But, back to the money, none of yours is paying for the troops to operate. As for mine, well, I'm a scoutmaster. So some of mine is. Don't want to support the scouts? Don't buy anything from their fundraisers and don't donate any money. But the scouts don't get any money from the governments unless it's for a job they do.
Ya know, legally you are supposed to pay the California Use Tax for items you have shipped to you from out of state, that you didn't pay a sales tax on. Here is an excerpt from Virginia:
What is consumer's use tax?
Consumer's use tax is the "other half" of the Virginia retail sales and use tax requirements. Typically, you incur the consumer's use tax if you made more than $100 in purchases during the year for which you did not pay sales tax. Common instances of these types of transactions are purchases from the Internet, mail-order catalogues and cable television shopping channels. The tax also applies to tax-free purchases you make outside of Virginia, such as buying furniture at an outlet in another state and having it shipped to Virginia. The tax is 4.5% (5% as of 9/1/04) of the cost of regular non-food purchases and 4% on purchases of food for home consumption. Report the tax by filing Form CU-7 by May 1 each year, or by reporting it on Schedule ADJ, line 23
The Use tax is not exempt under congressional law. You might want to check out Californias specific one as well. Don't want to go to jail for not paying your taxes, right?
For me, the time it takes depends on the item and how well I know the seller/store. For some products (such as DVDs) I routinely order from this one place. I generally plan out ahead of time what I am going to order depending on what is on sale that month (as in by the production house, not the specific movie). However, I will browse the other items they have and toss some of that in as well.
If I get a good recomendation for a site, and it is items that are generally hard to find, I will decide to buy from that site fairly quickly. Actually ordering can take a bit longer.
The most interesting comes when I order computer equipment. I go to a variety of sites that I trust (I rarely buy from a Yahoo store for instance [I just have a problem with some of those stores, nothing against Yahoo]), and see who has the best deals for the specific parts (by specific manufacturers) I want. Will wait up to a week just to make sure I have covered everyone, then site down and order the parts.
Seems, thought, that what this guy is taking about primarily is impulse buying. Most brick and mortar stores depend on this. You go into a store, see something you hadn't planned on buying and pick it up. While that may work with something online, it doesn't work as well. With a physical store, the customer has made an effort to go to your business, and unless they get fed up (which is bad for business) they will leave and go to another. At which point they might not come back. However, as long as they keep coming back you can place items in their path to try to get them to buy things, such as the top 10 best sellers/new books at the fron of a Borders/Barnes and Noble. A slight problem when compared to online, since a customer generally doesn't go to a website to see what they have today. Usually they know what they are looking for and goto a site to buy that (and that only)
This doesn't work with websties because all they are doing is clicking. To much diving into the site, and they will leave for another site (which requires minimal effort). The realtors need to start thinking of the websites (and design) like a mail order catalog, not a brick and mortar store. Ease of use, and quick finding of items is more important to a customer than seeing what the latest sale is. The latest sale is only important for those that sign up for your weekly e-mail mass mailing.
Either that or we should start installing nuclear reactors in computers!:-D
I remember hearing a few years ago that we will soon get to the point where the cores of the CPUs would be hotter than the interior of a nuclear reactor. So, that may just be a serious solution after all!
In some European countries, one may receive cheap services and products from the municipality if it proves the income is lower then a certain limit.
Why not apply the same for internet access? These days, having access to global knowledge is as much as important as food and shelter.
Tell me the last time someone died from lack of internet access. Tell me how someone who can not afford internet access even over a phone line can afford a computer. Tell me how that money couldn't be better spent on the schools or other programs, rather than on a luxury, which is what the internet really is.
To me, it sounds like the private companies want to repeat the cable scenario. Namely, they want to be granted an effective monopoly in a municipality to avoid any competition whatsoever
Cable companies provide Internet, TV and are looking at phone. Telcos provide Phone, some Internet (and are trying to expand that) and are looking at TV once the internet is upgraded to fibre from copper. Those two are already competing in areas with DSL, and as the fibre rolls out, they will be competing in even more. Kind of kills the monopoly theory.
You seem to think it is possible to lay several million miles of fibre in one year. Maybe if you have an infinite budget you could, but the telcos don't. It takes time to dig out the old copper and lay in the new fibre, along with all the rest of the infrastructure, and do it properly.
The ILECs themselves generally ban the running of servers on their own services, and cable operators are just as draconian, often more so.
I don't know who you've been listening to but... My computer is sitting at home on a cable connection running a web server and VNC and I can access it from outside the cable network. I'm using Cox Cable, one of the big guys. I had to change hte port for the webserver, but that is it. I'm looking at adding an FTP server too, just need to figure out what port to put it on. So, Cable is offering that to me. As for static IPs? My IP hasn't changed in months. And when it does, well, I have a no-ip.com account and a nifty program running that will auto update the IP. So quit saying you can't run a server.
As for municipalities running a network? I highly doubt they would allow any ports to be open outside of those they specifically allow. They will probably only allow incoming HTTP/FTP/E-Mail traffic and will probably block AIM at some point too.
Can anyone explain how in the hell the Baby Bells etc. are actually managing to push bills preserving their effective monopolies through state governments?
The Bells having monopolies? Anywhere the Bells are able to provide DSL, Cable Networks are already there. And the cable networks are already providing broadband. Kind of blows away your Bell internet monopoly theory.
The problem with the laws regarding these scum, is that once they're out, you're not told about them, in the UK at least. This means they're free to go about abusing children and no-one around them knows they're a paedophile. I think they have a law in the US regarding that sort of thing, but I personally propose chopping their balls off, or just never releasing them.
Convicted Sex Offenders (of any sort) must register with their local police department under a specific section of law (I don't remember the sepcific one). Their registrations are kept on hand at the stations and anyone can go in and look up the sex offenders in their area. There are also websites specifically for this where you can do the same.
First Discalimer: I'm only 23
Second, I have talked to A Whole Lot of people on this that have been alive much longer than me.
The reason why it seams that we are hearing a lot about it now adays is that, for starters, it just wasn't talked about 30/50/80 years ago. It happened, but you never mentioned it or it was hushed up by the family or something. Most sex offenders victims think they are someone special to the molester, and they molesters integrate themselves into the social structure so much that the parents of the kids won't believe the kids or even the police when they come to arrest the molester.
As for rapes? More or less the same thing, a lot women still don't report them and it is more reported today than it used to be.
But part of it is also the news. Not sure how much, though. Think about the last time you heard of anything good being reported on the news. You probably said it was a slow newsday or something. Today, only bad news that is meant to scare people (in my opinion, and others) seems to get reported. Not much else it seems like.
Short of it is, it's not anything new, it's just society is starting to hear about it through a combination of factors for the first time.
A peadophile is defined as someone who is attracted to pre-pubescent children. This means children who have not gone through puberty yet, much more specific than anyone under 18. As it would be too hard to write the law to demand a medical examination of the children to decide this, they are going with an age at which most children have not yet started puberty.
This law is not targeted at sex offenders in general, only those who are peadophiles. There is a difference.
I've always wondered one thing when people start this. Which Christians? Moromons, Protestants, Catholics, Jehovas Witnesses, Gideons, Eastern Orthodox or any of the others? It really annoys me when all get lumped together this way.
this is not an issue. Evolution is a thoery that seems close enough to fact. Creationists will argue against the merits of Darwinian evolution all day, and will be right. The working theory of evolution is based on Darwinian thinking, but it didn't just stop there. It is highly refined, and able to empiraclly observed.
Even Pope John Paul II said that Evolution was not incompatible with the Roman Catholic teaching.
However, the real issue is, what do we teach? You teach the fact, with respect for dissenting viewpoints, just like any other topic. If you are discussing the birth place of a famous person, and there exists some doubt about the location, most decent textbooks discuss the question. Evolution and counter-evolutionists should work the same way. There are holes in the most complete theory of evolution. They should be addressed. You can point out it is a theory that is not able to entirely proven, like a mathematical equation might be.
Unfortunately, whenever something relating to religion comes up, it seems that the seperation of church and state is interpreted to mean that any recognized organized religious viewpoint can not be spoken of, and only one that scours any mention of religions viewpoint from its text can be talked about. This goes for many things, not just evolution.
Thanks for a decent, reasonable explanation. I rarely get to read these on slashdot.
It doesn't say anywhere what the bitrates of the originating SD streams were. That is a biggie in terms of processing power. MPEG2 can run from 1.5Mbps (crap) to 50 Mbps (I Frame only, dam good) and higher. Give me more info and I might be impressed.
720p operates at 60 frames (60 full frames) per second. 1080i operates at 60 fields (30 full frames) per second.
If they convert each individual 1080i frame (1920x540) to 720p (1280x720) then they are not tossing any fields (which seems to be the problem). So, if they are converting 1080i@60 fields to 720p@60 frames, then there is no problem here. If, however, they are converting to 720p@30 frames, then they are tossing half the fields from 1080i and we have a problem. All depends on how the conversion is done.
Re:Well, a little worse, actually...
on
When is 720p Not 720p?
·
· Score: 3, Informative
Current camera technology can't provide full detail at 1920 pixels yet
High, I just got back from NAB show in Las Vegas last week. The vendors were had HD Cams that would film and record 1920x1080i. That somepoint is today.
I read a story about {insert random southern US town}
Man, you must either be from outside the US or you really need to study your geography more. Pennsylvania is a NORTHERN State, voted for Kerry. They are NORTH of the Mason Dixon line, fought for the NORTH in the civil war and are in no way a Southern or Red state. They are Blue Democrats.
So where did all the people come from? The Bible does not mention any other people, and the Bible is always right correct? So just where did all the people come from? Maybe we all are not really here...
Genesis 4.16-17: 16 And Cain went out from the presence of the Lord, and dwelt in the land of Nod, on the east of Eden.
17 And Cain knew his wife; and she conceived, and bare Enoch: [7] and he builded a city, and called the name of the city, after the name of his son, Enoch.
Doesn't say where they came from. (as in created and what not) Does say that she existed and where she lived.
The Guy I was replying to was talking about TV Towers. Now, if you want to know where 2,000 foot TV towers are, there are the flat midwestern states, South Carolina and many others I know of.
Surely just painting them light blue or white to suit the sky would make them half dissapear. Cheap and easy solution for a non problem.
Tell that to the first guy to fly into the tower because he COULDN"T SEE THE TOWER. There is a reason the toweres I see are neon orange with red blinking lights. Make them hard to see and you are asking for a helicopter/plain pilot to fly into one. Although, I wonder how you can camoflage a 2,000 foot tower. Making it look like a tree is a joke. Making it dark makes it harder to see, and a danger to pilots.
As for you TV reception, try tuning to that channel. It could be the multipath interference, or maybe you just aren't tuning to that channel.
Slashdot Mirror
that's excluding people based on their religious beliefs (or lack thereof).
Sorry, was using the definition that Aethiesm wasn't a religion. But since you say it is, maybe we should start applying seperation of church and state to it as well?
As for that link, well lets see. Money for chartering/rechartering is provided from dues the scouts pay and fundraising conducted throughout the year. If any of those places that chartered them are giving money, I'd be very surprised. Lets see them actually give more details and then I'll be interested. I have never run into a troop that wasn't chartered through a religious group.
As for using a cafeteria or fire hall? Any group can use them. They just need to sign up, and the scouts usually pay for them too.
Well, that appears to be the UK version, no for the US version.
On my honor, I will do me best, To do my duty to God and my country, and to obey the Scout Law, to help other people at all times, to keep my self physically strong, mentally awake, and morally straight.
A scout is trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, curtious, kind, obeidient, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean and reverent.
Scout Modo: Do a good turn daily.
The BSA does not get any money from the gov for doing nothing. They may get it for grants for things they do, such as cleaning up an area, but anyone can get those. As for using the public buildings, there are no requirements on who can and can not request to use a building. And generally, you PAY for it.
The BSA is at least partially supported by government money - mines and yours. They should have to live up standards that don't exclude for reasons like race, religion, and sexual preference.
Er.. Actually, it isn't. The BSA does not get one red cent of funding from the federal government. Maybe in grants to do something, but not as general funding. The troops are entirely self financed.
As for excluding people based on race and religion? They do not exclude based on race, and the only troops that are allowed to deny based on religion are the mormon troops. But that is because the churches have all their boys join the troop. They're large enough as is.
That leaves sexual preference. The only way that the troops do exclude. That comes down to the scouts being a religious organization (of many relgions, not just one). With most of the religions believing that being gay is a sin. Nothing you can do about that.
But, back to the money, none of yours is paying for the troops to operate. As for mine, well, I'm a scoutmaster. So some of mine is. Don't want to support the scouts? Don't buy anything from their fundraisers and don't donate any money. But the scouts don't get any money from the governments unless it's for a job they do.
Ya know, legally you are supposed to pay the California Use Tax for items you have shipped to you from out of state, that you didn't pay a sales tax on. Here is an excerpt from Virginia:
What is consumer's use tax?
Consumer's use tax is the "other half" of the Virginia retail sales and use tax requirements. Typically, you incur the consumer's use tax if you made more than $100 in purchases during the year for which you did not pay sales tax. Common instances of these types of transactions are purchases from the Internet , mail-order catalogues and cable television shopping channels. The tax also applies to tax-free purchases you make outside of Virginia, such as buying furniture at an outlet in another state and having it shipped to Virginia. The tax is 4.5% (5% as of 9/1/04) of the cost of regular non-food purchases and 4% on purchases of food for home consumption. Report the tax by filing Form CU-7 by May 1 each year, or by reporting it on Schedule ADJ, line 23
The Use tax is not exempt under congressional law. You might want to check out Californias specific one as well. Don't want to go to jail for not paying your taxes, right?
For me, the time it takes depends on the item and how well I know the seller/store. For some products (such as DVDs) I routinely order from this one place. I generally plan out ahead of time what I am going to order depending on what is on sale that month (as in by the production house, not the specific movie). However, I will browse the other items they have and toss some of that in as well.
If I get a good recomendation for a site, and it is items that are generally hard to find, I will decide to buy from that site fairly quickly. Actually ordering can take a bit longer.
The most interesting comes when I order computer equipment. I go to a variety of sites that I trust (I rarely buy from a Yahoo store for instance [I just have a problem with some of those stores, nothing against Yahoo]), and see who has the best deals for the specific parts (by specific manufacturers) I want. Will wait up to a week just to make sure I have covered everyone, then site down and order the parts.
Seems, thought, that what this guy is taking about primarily is impulse buying. Most brick and mortar stores depend on this. You go into a store, see something you hadn't planned on buying and pick it up. While that may work with something online, it doesn't work as well. With a physical store, the customer has made an effort to go to your business, and unless they get fed up (which is bad for business) they will leave and go to another. At which point they might not come back. However, as long as they keep coming back you can place items in their path to try to get them to buy things, such as the top 10 best sellers/new books at the fron of a Borders/Barnes and Noble. A slight problem when compared to online, since a customer generally doesn't go to a website to see what they have today. Usually they know what they are looking for and goto a site to buy that (and that only)
This doesn't work with websties because all they are doing is clicking. To much diving into the site, and they will leave for another site (which requires minimal effort). The realtors need to start thinking of the websites (and design) like a mail order catalog, not a brick and mortar store. Ease of use, and quick finding of items is more important to a customer than seeing what the latest sale is. The latest sale is only important for those that sign up for your weekly e-mail mass mailing.
Either that or we should start installing nuclear reactors in computers! :-D
I remember hearing a few years ago that we will soon get to the point where the cores of the CPUs would be hotter than the interior of a nuclear reactor. So, that may just be a serious solution after all!
In some European countries, one may receive cheap services and products from the municipality if it proves the income is lower then a certain limit. Why not apply the same for internet access? These days, having access to global knowledge is as much as important as food and shelter.
Tell me the last time someone died from lack of internet access. Tell me how someone who can not afford internet access even over a phone line can afford a computer. Tell me how that money couldn't be better spent on the schools or other programs, rather than on a luxury, which is what the internet really is.
If the Bell's don't want to see municipal broadband then they should lower their rates. When the price of comcast highspeed is roughly $50/month
Uh, hold it right there. COMCAST IS NOT A BELL. I will repeate that. COMCAST IS NOT A BELL. They are a cable company. There IS a difference.
To me, it sounds like the private companies want to repeat the cable scenario. Namely, they want to be granted an effective monopoly in a municipality to avoid any competition whatsoever
Cable companies provide Internet, TV and are looking at phone. Telcos provide Phone, some Internet (and are trying to expand that) and are looking at TV once the internet is upgraded to fibre from copper. Those two are already competing in areas with DSL, and as the fibre rolls out, they will be competing in even more. Kind of kills the monopoly theory.
http://www.coe.montana.edu/ee/rwolff/ee543%20paper s/verizon.htm m l?articleID=23902991
http://www.networkingpipeline.com/showArticle.jht
You seem to think it is possible to lay several million miles of fibre in one year. Maybe if you have an infinite budget you could, but the telcos don't. It takes time to dig out the old copper and lay in the new fibre, along with all the rest of the infrastructure, and do it properly.
The ILECs themselves generally ban the running of servers on their own services, and cable operators are just as draconian, often more so.
I don't know who you've been listening to but... My computer is sitting at home on a cable connection running a web server and VNC and I can access it from outside the cable network. I'm using Cox Cable, one of the big guys. I had to change hte port for the webserver, but that is it. I'm looking at adding an FTP server too, just need to figure out what port to put it on. So, Cable is offering that to me. As for static IPs? My IP hasn't changed in months. And when it does, well, I have a no-ip.com account and a nifty program running that will auto update the IP. So quit saying you can't run a server.
As for municipalities running a network? I highly doubt they would allow any ports to be open outside of those they specifically allow. They will probably only allow incoming HTTP/FTP/E-Mail traffic and will probably block AIM at some point too.
Can anyone explain how in the hell the Baby Bells etc. are actually managing to push bills preserving their effective monopolies through state governments?
The Bells having monopolies? Anywhere the Bells are able to provide DSL, Cable Networks are already there. And the cable networks are already providing broadband. Kind of blows away your Bell internet monopoly theory.
The problem with the laws regarding these scum, is that once they're out, you're not told about them, in the UK at least. This means they're free to go about abusing children and no-one around them knows they're a paedophile. I think they have a law in the US regarding that sort of thing, but I personally propose chopping their balls off, or just never releasing them.
Convicted Sex Offenders (of any sort) must register with their local police department under a specific section of law (I don't remember the sepcific one). Their registrations are kept on hand at the stations and anyone can go in and look up the sex offenders in their area. There are also websites specifically for this where you can do the same.
First Discalimer: I'm only 23
Second, I have talked to A Whole Lot of people on this that have been alive much longer than me.
The reason why it seams that we are hearing a lot about it now adays is that, for starters, it just wasn't talked about 30/50/80 years ago. It happened, but you never mentioned it or it was hushed up by the family or something. Most sex offenders victims think they are someone special to the molester, and they molesters integrate themselves into the social structure so much that the parents of the kids won't believe the kids or even the police when they come to arrest the molester.
As for rapes? More or less the same thing, a lot women still don't report them and it is more reported today than it used to be.
But part of it is also the news. Not sure how much, though. Think about the last time you heard of anything good being reported on the news. You probably said it was a slow newsday or something. Today, only bad news that is meant to scare people (in my opinion, and others) seems to get reported. Not much else it seems like.
Short of it is, it's not anything new, it's just society is starting to hear about it through a combination of factors for the first time.
A peadophile is defined as someone who is attracted to pre-pubescent children. This means children who have not gone through puberty yet, much more specific than anyone under 18. As it would be too hard to write the law to demand a medical examination of the children to decide this, they are going with an age at which most children have not yet started puberty.
This law is not targeted at sex offenders in general, only those who are peadophiles. There is a difference.
From the ATSC Standard Table 3:
(HD) 720x1280 pogressive, acceptible frame rates are 24p,30p, 60p, along with 23.976, 29.97 and 59.94. 60 fps is one of the allowable ones.
For most Christians,
I've always wondered one thing when people start this. Which Christians? Moromons, Protestants, Catholics, Jehovas Witnesses, Gideons, Eastern Orthodox or any of the others? It really annoys me when all get lumped together this way.
this is not an issue. Evolution is a thoery that seems close enough to fact. Creationists will argue against the merits of Darwinian evolution all day, and will be right. The working theory of evolution is based on Darwinian thinking, but it didn't just stop there. It is highly refined, and able to empiraclly observed.
Even Pope John Paul II said that Evolution was not incompatible with the Roman Catholic teaching.
However, the real issue is, what do we teach? You teach the fact, with respect for dissenting viewpoints, just like any other topic. If you are discussing the birth place of a famous person, and there exists some doubt about the location, most decent textbooks discuss the question. Evolution and counter-evolutionists should work the same way. There are holes in the most complete theory of evolution. They should be addressed. You can point out it is a theory that is not able to entirely proven, like a mathematical equation might be.
Unfortunately, whenever something relating to religion comes up, it seems that the seperation of church and state is interpreted to mean that any recognized organized religious viewpoint can not be spoken of, and only one that scours any mention of religions viewpoint from its text can be talked about. This goes for many things, not just evolution.
Thanks for a decent, reasonable explanation. I rarely get to read these on slashdot.
It doesn't say anywhere what the bitrates of the originating SD streams were. That is a biggie in terms of processing power. MPEG2 can run from 1.5Mbps (crap) to 50 Mbps (I Frame only, dam good) and higher. Give me more info and I might be impressed.
720p operates at 60 frames (60 full frames) per second. 1080i operates at 60 fields (30 full frames) per second.
If they convert each individual 1080i frame (1920x540) to 720p (1280x720) then they are not tossing any fields (which seems to be the problem). So, if they are converting 1080i@60 fields to 720p@60 frames, then there is no problem here. If, however, they are converting to 720p@30 frames, then they are tossing half the fields from 1080i and we have a problem. All depends on how the conversion is done.
Current camera technology can't provide full detail at 1920 pixels yet
High, I just got back from NAB show in Las Vegas last week. The vendors were had HD Cams that would film and record 1920x1080i. That somepoint is today.
I read a story about {insert random southern US town}
Man, you must either be from outside the US or you really need to study your geography more. Pennsylvania is a NORTHERN State, voted for Kerry. They are NORTH of the Mason Dixon line, fought for the NORTH in the civil war and are in no way a Southern or Red state. They are Blue Democrats.
So where did all the people come from? The Bible does not mention any other people, and the Bible is always right correct? So just where did all the people come from? Maybe we all are not really here...
n esis+4&Version=KJV
Genesis 4.16-17:
16 And Cain went out from the presence of the Lord, and dwelt in the land of Nod, on the east of Eden. 17 And Cain knew his wife; and she conceived, and bare Enoch: [7] and he builded a city, and called the name of the city, after the name of his son, Enoch.
Doesn't say where they came from. (as in created and what not) Does say that she existed and where she lived.
http://www.christnotes.org/bible.asp?ViewBible=Ge
The Guy I was replying to was talking about TV Towers. Now, if you want to know where 2,000 foot TV towers are, there are the flat midwestern states, South Carolina and many others I know of.
Surely just painting them light blue or white to suit the sky would make them half dissapear. Cheap and easy solution for a non problem.
Tell that to the first guy to fly into the tower because he COULDN"T SEE THE TOWER. There is a reason the toweres I see are neon orange with red blinking lights. Make them hard to see and you are asking for a helicopter/plain pilot to fly into one. Although, I wonder how you can camoflage a 2,000 foot tower. Making it look like a tree is a joke. Making it dark makes it harder to see, and a danger to pilots.
As for you TV reception, try tuning to that channel. It could be the multipath interference, or maybe you just aren't tuning to that channel.