Getting at an item in a list of tupples

[Bob Greschke]

Here's what I've got

   a = []
   a.append((ints, floats, strings))
   a.append((ints, floats, strings))
   a.append((ints, floats, strings))
   a.append((ints, floats, strings))
   ...

I want to do something like

   print max(of all of the floats)
   print min(of all of the floats)

In general, how do you get at the floats (or ints, or strings)?  We
can see doing something with map() calling a function that returns the
second item, but isn't there something a little simpler?

Thanks!

Possibly Stupid