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Comment by timdorr | Hacker News Reader

As usual, The Onion's take on this is fantastic: https://www.theonion.com/nasa-builds-4g-tower-on-moon-tastef...

Well done. That reminds me of one of those cell phone towers disguised as a tree I drive by quite often. It is in the middle of a very large, very flat plain. I don't think there is another tree within 10 miles of it.

I see cell towers in the desert that are "disguised" to look like pine trees in places where pine trees haven't grown in 10,000 years.

https://twitter.com/Reaperducer/status/1153046208442540032

Here's a Google Maps image of one of these "trees" from a distance. This one is in the UK.

https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@51.8765015,-2.0253306,3a,75y,...

That's so strange. I don't see why they couldn't just pick a color that matched the other trees around it even slightly. The out-of-place ones I see that are among other trees are usually out-of-place because they are just so much taller, not a completely different color.

Well it's going to look more obvious at different times of the year. Especially in the fall and winter.

In winter it'll be covered in snow? Should blend in better then

That's probably not going to be the case for most of the time in Southern England.

Here’s another one from my city in a semi desert area in northern Mexico (take a look at the kind of trees that grow around here for comparison).

https://goo.gl/maps/J76RJAaMQcaCdoWD6

Should've used the cactus version https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/y0nsj/how_to_hide_a_c...

I've never noticed those before, thanks! I've just seen the pine tree and palm tree ones. Always fun when they install the wrong one in a situation.

We moved to AZ from TN last year. TN doesn't really bother with hiding the towers whereas AZ sometimes camouflages them; especially in the richer areas such as Scottsdale.

My wife told me about some weird tree she saw which turned out to be a cell tower. I take great joy in reminding her periodically about that.

Actually, my parents have a home in Townsend near the Smokeys and a huge tower stuck up from one of the highest peaks for years, making evveryone mad.

So they turned it into a "tree" and it looks even more ridiculous.

But the coverage in the area is much improved.

Yeah, I think the tree camouflage does just make it worse sometimes and they should just stick with painting it a muted grey/blue so it kind of blends with the sky.

Or let local artists "adopt" and paint the cell towers. In my town, artists paint unique murals and designs on the ugly public utility boxes on street corners. Though cell towers don't have many flat surfaces to paint..

Theme parks paint the exteriors of buildings housing large rides and theaters in "go-away gray" or "go-away green" so that the public generally doesn't notice them.

I assumed it would be about the moon aliens protesting about the tower going in their backyard. NIMMBY: not in my moon back yard :)

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