The CONTEXT.md file was created 5 months ago, and the contribution policy changed today. I would interpret that as a good-faith attempt to work with AI agents, which with some experience, didn't work as well as they hoped.
Masi Oka (Hiro from Heroes): http://www.wired.com/culture/lifestyle/news/2006/10/71984
This file is actually /usr/share/misc/units.dat from units.
Squid can also be used as a reverse proxy, so it is a reasonable competitor to Varnish. (As is Apache mod_proxy.)
Honestly, I think this one is way beyond an undergraduate project. You aren't the first one to think Python should be parallelized: many smart people have tried to do it and gotten nowhere. Some of the other libraries mentioned here will be a more reasonable size (unless "unit" means PhD :-).