The Awl begins this piece with two assertions whose confidence is matched only by their incomprehensibility:

Nothing more about sci-fi prompts follows, except for some conclusions about using the roofs for drone pads. Hardly sci-fi. As for Circuit City, it went out of business six years ago, and perhaps they split up the store into a Trader Joe's and Total Wine? Sounds crazy, I know, but it could happen.

Another cavil: big boxes aren't in the same category as malls - which are not dying, by the way. Daily Beast notes that their demise has been oversold, and finds a reason why there's been gleeful stories about the End of the Mall:

It would be interesting to see if the author of the piece applied the "reporters don't like" attribute to other things. If a pre-existing set of ideas could influence their reporting, why, who knows where that might lead? Anyway, the story shows how all demos prefer shopping in stores to online-only, possibly because it's social. In the old sense of the word, as in, being around actual people, not digital simulacrums.

Of course, old malls in crappy neighborhoods will close. And then someone will take pictures to show how everything is bad and getting worse. Over at Giz, the people who say things "I love me some ruin porn," or would if it was 2011 and people were riding high on the hillbilly-l33t freshness of "I love me some," were no doubt drawn to this collection of abandoned amusement parks. They're so FRAUGHT with MEANING.

There's a roller coaster in Kansas that's not running anymore. It's OVER, America. The same photographer managed to find Deep Meaning in dead malls, and gets busted in the comments for being a poseur, self-promoter, and a serial filter abuser, so he's probably not the Walker Evans of our dreadful times.

One of the commenters noted that the first Phoenix mall had reinvented itself nicely, to which someone responded "pix or it didn't happen." Translation: I'll just sit here and cast doubt for no reason. Or: I'll use an internet cliche as a way of asking for elaboration. The commenter responded with pix, and lots of them. For some reason I clicked on the profile of the "pix or didn't happen" guy. He wrote the piece about the dead malls. What else has he penned?

STOP GOING ON CRUISES. Filed under "BOSSY." Opening:

If you're not canceling your trip because of a downright dark interactive feature, YOU'RE DOING IT WRONG! (Did I do that right, Internet?) See, there's disease. A doctor called for all cruises to be banned, because there might be disease. I've been on a dozen or so cruises. Not one outbreak. But there's also crime! This is an argument for demolishing every city - or, for that matter, all human habitation. But he has an alternative.

In the comments, someone says they're looking forward to a two-week Balkan cruise: "I'd never end up visiting some of the cities the boat pulls into, even if only for a day, I'm considering it a win." To which the author replies with a mocking Seinfeld image macro that isn't even an animated GIF.

Apparently the author is making a name for himself out of writing articles for the Gawker network that tell you not to do things. And so:

And that concludes my morning on the Internet. This is why I don't get online until 10:30.