electrostatic discharge

[jrm@]

This time of the year in Atlantic Canada it's cold and dry. These conditions mean you often get a little shock when you touch things. Today when I walked back to my running laptop sitting on a wooden desk, I got a pretty good jolt and the the laptop just shut off. I was even wearing running sneakers with rubber bottoms. Fortunately the laptop booted back up, but it scared me enough to want to take precautions to avoid this problem in the future. I guess I could always touch something else before I touch my laptop, but I will definitely forget to do this or I'll look a little strange constantly touching things around me. Maybe I'll try to putting a rubber mat beneath the laptop. Does anyone else have this problem? What do you do to avoid it? I don't think I'm especially electric?

EDIT1: I did search, but the results I found described problems when the case was opened and internal parts were being handled.

EDIT2: I found this thread and I'm a little less concerned. There is no carpet here, but I am wearing wool socks, which apparently doesn't help. Remember introductory physics demonstrations when charges were generated by rubbing stuff with wool?

 

[SirDice]

You're not the only one, I get it too. Try and pet a cat when the weather is dry

You can get special mats, they're usually used by electronics tinkers. It's a rubber mat but it's grounded. You can get them for on the desk, to put your things on but you can also get them for the floor.