What's the scoop on thunderstorms and electrical equipment?

[DS1]

Should a person use the phone during a storm or not?
Should computers be off or not? Seems to me if the surge is coming in they're F'd anyway.
How about listening to music piped from said computer? Am I okay or should I be waiting for the Ultimate One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest lightning between the ears special?

[mr_hat]

1. The main thing is to not attach electrical equipment to a kite >

and fly it while it's storming.

[trotsky]

2. Snopes has one answer at least!

http://www.snopes.com/horrors/techno/phone.asp

Claim: Lightning strikes have killed people who were talking on the telephone.

Status: True.

[DS1]

4. goddammit

I've got too much shit to do for this crap

[graywarrior]

3. Here's a sad story. My Dell was unplugged during an electrical

storm a few weeks ago. The power surge came trhough my DSL modem and fried my motherboard. Shut off everything including your phone.

[Briarius]

5. if there's lightning and it's plugged in

it can get fried. The lightning hits the wires and then spikes (surges) the thing plugged in, blowing out components and messing stuff up. Go with the cordless during the lightning storm and you're ok, unplug your computer if you don't have a new, good surge arrestor for both the power and phone.