Please describe the problem:
If you turn on option 'Show seconds' on clock applet, it will cause disk reads every several seconds, which can be very annoying on laptops.

This also prevents HDD go to power save mode.

Steps to reproduce:
1. install and run iotop package
2. turn on 'Show seconds' option  
3. look that every 5-6 seconds gnome-panel apperas on the fisrt row with readin something small(3.7-7kb).
4. hear to HDD clicks every time :)


Actual results:
It accesses disk more frequently, than necessary.

Expected results:
I would prefer to have less frequent access times (or make it somehow configurable, to slow down on laptops)

Does this happen every time?
yes

Other information:
running strace shows that it monitors /etc/sysconfig and /etc/conf.d directories for some changes

something like 
strace -p XXXXX -o "| grep -v 'select\|read\|gettimeofday\|writev\|futex\|poll'"

replace XXXXX with pid of gnome-panel process.