All for one, and one for all

Here is the first web toy/exploration of best practices for using JavaScript to do something that is very common: reducing information overload. There are many times when hiding information is just as important as showing it. There are many things that are all helpful to have on a web page, but are distracting if they're always in your face.

Being impossibly stupid, I'm just trying to find a reasonable way of adding the minimal amount of code to a page to accomplish that. For your amusement, here is my first draft. If you've found a better way, please let me know in the comments. Thanks!