In [1]: f = open('/proc/self/mem')

In [2]: f
Out[2]: <open file '/proc/self/mem', mode 'r' at 0x1c8f580>

In [3]: c = f.read()
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
IOError                                   Traceback (most recent call last)

/home/me/<ipython console> in <module>()

IOError: [Errno 5] Input/output error