liststuff(); will be in my index page. but the content from the database goes underneath each other how do I get say 3 items from the database next to each other.
I'm not quite sure what you mean by the wording of your question.
I can't help notice however that the function doesn't have access to $list or $uid because of the natural local scope of functions. Also, you don't appear to be doing anything with $stuff (or did you mean to name $list as $stuff?)