My (limited) understanding of cochlear implants is that they involve implanting a number of electrodes in the cochlea that connect to the acoustic nerve. This means that the signals that are not being generated by hair cells for whatever reason are produced by the implant. So they do work for dead or absent hair cells. But instead of hundreds of frequencies, the patient only hears a few frequencies, and they are hit or miss-- wherever the implants connect. They may involve a range of frequencies, but not what a person with normal hearing would hear. We can know what the patients hear and if you wanted to, hear what they do. But understand that since they are learning to make sense of what their acoustic nerve is delivering, just as we did as infants, they make more of their limited signal than we would. They still require extensive speech therapy to achieve good intelligibility. The earlier the person receives the implant, the better, because if there is no input during infancy and early childhood, the auditory processing system just doesn't happen. Adults who have acquired deafness after learning to talk have pretty good success-- adults who are congenitally deaf, not so much.

what, no duct tape?

Here are some hot, spicy tips for making g'bread houses:
1. make a big sheet of gingerbread-- roll it out right on wax paper or parchment the size of the cookie sheet. then when it comes out of the oven, quickly cut out the pieces using the paper pattern pieces you have ready. (the g'bread is soft at this point-- gets hard as it cools)
2. stick the pieces together with toothpicks.
3. Use royal icing. it is basically uncooked meringue; has eggwhites. It is super sticky and dries hard as a rock, almost. It is more an engineering material than a food. It also holds the decorations on tight.
4. new geeky idea-- make lego guy gingerbread men to go with. Heck, make a gingerbread laptop with only m's and s's for keys. (m&m's and sprints or whatever they are called)

I just finished reading Kafka on the Shore by Murakami (?) which featured a similar phenomenon, with a more interesting basis than the Chinese restaurant.

There is a Fartown Cafe in Yorkshire, too.