plainglazed

hey hey you two - think you can know after fewer guesses.

FEARS - if 1 then F is first - from HEART = 1 which is the established T so not EARS, if 0 then I is third - from FLIRT - 2 which would be the T and one other; not F from FEARS - 0, not the L from PLAIN - 0, and not the R from HEARS - 0.

the edit does make a little better explanation as to why the "looping" - especially of the suits. when i was working this puzzle out, had been doing C<D<H<S but when i added the looping concept thought for some reason the colors should alternate. in any event, doubt this one will trump you.

hah - your edit and my post crossed in the etherspace

yeah, looks like you are reading the problem correctly and got that puzzle correct. gonna edit the OP to hopefully correctly describe the puzzle i had intended.

hey hey DD - good to see you. looks like you haven't missed a beat beat. that's all the parts. am not sure about the spoiler title issue. the spoiler in my About Me page got goofy somehow and had to delete it. maybe there's a connection. will look into. and Y-san - have done similar. was biting my tongue after your response.

The final flight of the Arctic Circle of Logician's return home was finally uneventful. Warm thoughts as they neared Miami International Airport inspired one last quick challenge from one of the few logicians not asleep: "Let's define the hierarchy of suits as Diamonds < Clubs < Hearts < Spades < Diamonds and that of the ranks as Ace < 2 < 3 ... < Queen < King < Ace. I'll pick a card at random (suit and rank) and you must guess it. If your guess is either correct or one greater or less than my card in suit or rank correct in suit and one greater or less in rank or correct in rank and one greater or less in suit, I'll respond 'Hot' otherwise I'll say, 'Cold'. What is the fewest number of guesses that guarantees you can determine my card?" EDIT

umhh... and the other is not un-PC tho do think political correctness is the bain of tolerant inquiry. but youhave piqued my curiosity.

should have gotten that last line! and the title makes sense now as well. nice one t_l.

Only two left.

Now that would seem more impressive if the cake was torus shaped, hand-held sized, deep fried, and coated with a sugary sweet confection.

whoa - must say that was unexpected. had actually just logged on to take a couple more shots at this one. my thoughts as to yours t_l usually need further distillation to cover all the nuance. must say am still uncertain of the title reference and last line?

out of the frying pan and-------onto the automatic waterfall glazing machine!

I'm running into the 'as I try to do these, I keep coming up with more of them syndrome'... shinless either way, eh? and the barely/collapsed issue i get, too. maybe collapsed as in fell apart or better perhaps - disintegrated. still a stretch i agree. a little riddling license to make the clues somewhat sensible is sometimes in order (as is punctuation, etc.). and am of course thankful for your munificent vocabulary. nicely figured, Y-san. and correct again, of course. the two r's kept me thinking i had messed up this clue.

you got it. down to the last four. guess you could say fabpig cut you off at the knees... as for your question, the direction to subtract is "collapsed in" as a(nother word for) heap is not a verb. okay, not an adjective either. being fairly generous with the hints as the synonym for "barely alive" is not the most common word but think well within the vocab of your average BrainDenner. - Ich bin ein.... umhhhhh donuts. sorry, not a clue. just some train of thought rambling. and thank you for the compliment. welcome to BrainDen, maSkraP!

yes and yes, Y-san. well done. as to the rest, suspect your example might have come from one of the clues? if so (or not) will say the rest of the answers come from general synonyms vs examples/types/associations. am glad you stuck with that one fp, right on. ps - i see you there Y-san

y-san's hint may bode well for Morse Code as three dots = the length of silence indicating a space. @ Potok - think the repeated first page is not intentional as y-san was just making it easier to see/study the code by taking screen captures of the original video.

havent really gotten anywhere thus far. offering up/bumping for some group think? had been toying with the steps representing a known code (Morse or other?) or some other representation rather than a unique cipher. am thrown by the blue slides? too. and the couple of instances where two arrows and none are in a line? maybe that suggests distance between arrows is significant. now just thinking on the fly. will keep studying.

LAUGH

yes indeed, and figure you're now hep to the leit motif. as one could probably guess, all are three and four letter words.

hey phil - still cant see if or to what extent this method will reduce the number of trials. the last four alone can take three trials as far as i can tell. also, tho suspect its true at least initially, is leaving the most possibilities and working that result alone necessarily the case requiring the most trials?