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From WinkyPedia, the free encyclopedia that tells you what you already knew
A lamppost is a tall post with a lamp on top, placed beside roads so that the dark has somewhere to stand underneath. By volume a lamppost is approximately 94% post and 6% lamp, the lamp being responsible for 100% of the light and the post for 100% of the walking into.[1]
Lampposts come on at dusk. Dusk is defined by the Municipal Twilight Committee as the moment the lampposts come on, a definition that has worked flawlessly since 1962 and that nobody on the committee is willing to examine.[2]
A lamppost knows how tall it is at all times. It knows this because it knows every height it isn't. By ruling out all heights above the lamp and all heights below the pavement, it arrives at a height of exactly one lamppost.
In 2004 surveyors used lasers, satellites and an unusually long ladder to measure the tallest lamppost in the district. After three years of work it was found to be slightly taller than the second tallest lamppost.
The correct distance between lampposts was fixed in 1971 after a nine-year survey, and is equal to the gap between two lampposts. Lampposts placed further apart than this are not considered wrong, only lonely.
Moths gather around lampposts for reasons that remain disputed. The Lunar School holds that moths steer by the Moon and mistake the lamp for it. The Enthusiast School holds that moths simply like lampposts, and that the Moon has known this for some time and is being very grown-up about it.[3]
A third school holds that the lamppost is attracted to the moths, and has been leaning toward them very slowly since 1962.