Ajaxy request I have no desire to learn how to do ajax ui. But if someone out there is pretty good at it, I'd like to see a demonstration of the following. When it's agreed that it works well and looks good, I've an idea or two for putting it to good use.→[More:]

1a. Fetch a list from the server. For our demo, please make it a series of words: Alligator, Bunny, Coyote, Dolphin, etc. A dozen will do the trick.
1b. Sort the list on the client side.

2a. Display the list vertically over the MetaChat homepage.
2b.Use a semi-transparent background behind the list, a la selected icons on the OS X desktop. If possible, use rounded corners and the box outline, same as OS X. It's very attractive.

3a. Dynamically size the entries in the list according to their position in relation to the mouse cursor. This will look a lot like the OS X Dock, but using text.
3b. The entry that the cursor is hovering over will be the CSS 'large' size; the most distant and smallest entries are CSS 'xx-small' size; intervening entries should be smoothly sized between the two. The CSS 'sans-serif' face will be used. The letters are white with a black border, unless you have a better idea.

4a. As a demonstration that will be put to good use in the next iteration, dynamically adjust the text colour between white and black; and the text background colour between MeCha orange (dude's shirt, to the left) and 50% grey.

If you can get a cool, Dock-like, vertically-oriented, dynamically-adjusted list on the go, I got some cool ideas for extending its functionality and applications where it'd make a helluva great UI. But first things first -- I don't even know if this first bit is possible!

Please credit the concept to me and the implementation to yourself!