He's also got a ghost on his hat, and judging by the flannel shirt tied around his waist, he's a disaffected grunge rocker, and/or from Seattle.

Here's the missing Physorg.com link.

And this is where we get the phrase "Holy infant, so tender and mild."

That's why those of us with slightly more interesting palates tend to add barbecue sauce.

#5: If the wizard places them in alternate order, then they're all captured (except for the front one). Remember that the color information they're passing forward is also the guess they make.

Parity isn't sufficient on its own. Recall that each answer needs to balance likeliness of correctness with ability to pass information forward. Each gnome could indicate a parity bit for all the hats he sees in front of him, but if that parity bit disagrees with the bit assigned to his color, then he'll get led away, and it's possible to line up the gnomes with their hats to force such a strategy to fail nearly completely.

In fact, any strategy that involves passing perfect information will necessarily be 99% defeatable. Starting from the front: assign the first gnome whichever hat you want. Then assign the next one the opposite color of the one that would indicate the information he wants to pass forward. And so forth. The one at the very front will be the only one to escape.

RRenaud, having seen her work her magic over at Making Light, I suspect Teresa's job is going to be less making sure insightful comments are more prominent, and more making sure that trolls are contained and flamewars are doused.

Editors: I have a (somewhat) related question. With the reenablement of the comments section, will we continue to see important and insightful comments edited into the main post?