It means programmatic design. You design relations and interactions between things instead of coloring pixels.

But ultimately the pixels are colored, are they not? To me this reads as a way to acceptably talk about degrading designers...

"Well we aren't employing those pesky 'Pixel Pushers' anymore. No. We are moving towards a jazz inspired design, it's more important and sophisticated than just coloring pixels"

Please. Give it a rest.

(^ In case it needs to be pointed out that's not an actual quote from anything anyone said.)

There's no better case for Google putting zero thought into design than this new website.

I mean what is this? http://i.imgur.com/dGCCLzx.png (my attempt at balancing the grid on the bottom.)

Hover the search icon and you have the grid you wish.

I would also do the same thing, isn't because a thing is hidden or need a gesture/action (in this case, the hover status), that the thing doesn't need to be in the grid.

That's not a very graceful way of handling that though. I'm not saying it's not ok to break the grid, but at least make it logical. The element isn't even visible without interaction.

No pixel-perfect alignment. Embracing the flaws.

Embracing the medium really.