Before DSL and the cable modem made broadband Internet a household commodity, the dial-up modem reigned supreme. In this dark age of bandwidth, connecting to the Internet was not only painfully slow but also took up your land line. Worst of all, it was annoyingly loud. Dial-up Internet access required a computer's modem to literally place a phone call to an Internet service provider before the user could begin surfing the World Wide Web. This connection process involved a mixture of screeches and garbled static that sounded like your computer was dying a painful digital death — noises not exactly conducive for teenagers looking to do some, ahem, late-night research.
Top 10 Most Annoying Sounds
The use of vuvuzelas — a long plastic horn popular with South African soccer fans — at the World Cup has sparked debate about the level of tolerable noise at a sporting event. Here's a look at some other sounds that are not music to our ears