title: Python data unicode conversion
body: <p>I have the following list:</p>
  
  <pre><code>list = [u'0', u'FF', u'7', u'0', u'FF', u'FFF', u'FFF']
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>and I need to use the elements as integer or float but when I try convevrting I get the following error:</p>
  
  <pre><code>&gt;&gt;&gt; float(list[1])
  Traceback (most recent call last):
    File "&lt;interactive input&gt;", line 1, in &lt;module&gt;
  ValueError: could not convert string to float: FF
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>Is there any way of solving this?</p>