title: numpy/pandas: How to convert a series of strings of zeros and ones into a matrix
body: <p>I have a data that arrives in this format:</p>
  
  <pre><code>[
    (1, "000010101001010101011101010101110101", "aaa", ... ),
    (0, "111101010100101010101110101010111010", "bb", ... ),
    (0, "100010110100010101001010101011101010", "ccc", ... ),
    (1, "000010101001010101011101010101110101", "ddd", ... ),
    (1, "110100010101001010101011101010111101", "eeee", ... ),
    ...
  ]
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>In tuple format, it looks like this:</p>
  
  <pre><code>(Y, X, other_info, ... )
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>At the end of the day, I need to train a classifier (e.g. sklearn.linear_model.logistic.LogisticRegression) using Y and X.</p>
  
  <p>What's the most straightforward way to turn the string of ones and zeros into something like a np.array, so that I can run it through the classifier?  Seems like there should be an easy answer here, but I haven't been able to think of/google one.</p>
  
  <p>A few notes:</p>
  
  <ul>
  <li>I'm already using numpy/pandas/sklearn, so anything in those libraries is fair game.</li>
  <li>For a lot of what I'm doing, it's convenient to have the other_info columns together in a DataFrame</li>
  <li>The strings are is pretty long (~20,000 columns), but the total data frame is not very tall (~500 rows).</li>
  </ul>